by Ferdinand Albrecht

Created on: May 26, 2008

Pedro Antonio Marn was the real name of "Manuel Marulanda", known also as "Tirofijo" (Sureshot) and considered the oldest world guerrilla leader, at least until last March 26 when he died of a heart attack at 76 years old in the Colombian forest. The news came from Revista Semana after the Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, said in unofficial way to journalist Mara Isabel Rueda that Marulanda was dead. The information was apparently unknown by president Uribe who said that the Santos way to communicate such information to a single media was not the correct way. Few hours after a high commander of the Colombian army confirmed the news and challenged the FARC to prove it. The Colombian army conducted military operations in the area said to be the central command of FARC, but the guerrilla organization stated that the top leader did not die because any military action, but of a heart attack.

Marulanda died in a very critical moment for the FARC and many experts and scholars inside and outside Colombia predict that it will weaken the organization that stated also that it will continue in the intention of a humanitarian interchange with the goverment.

The goverment of president Uribe can be praised for be the one that has beaten the FARC in a more systematic way during the last five decades. Raul Reyes, the one supposed to be the next top commander after Marulanda, was killed by a military incursion of the Colombian army last March that involved the Ecuadorian territory and created the "New Granada Crisis" (Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua against Colombia). Karinna, one of the most important female leaders, surrended to the goverment recently being not the firs to do so. At the other hand, FARC has found difficult to get rid of its classification as terrorist organization either by the USA goverment or the European Community Union. The Raul Reyes computers, proven authentic by Interpol, are creating a new wave of political scandals in and outside Colombia in what is called already the "FARC-Politics" (a similar figure to "Para-Politics"), where Congressmen, journalists and foreign politicians like some personalities of Ecuador, Venezuela and other Latin American and European organizations, are linked as direct supporters of FARC. The crime wil be settle like this: "supporters of a terrorist organization", and that is the key factor to discourage any kind of support to the oldest world insurgent group.

When you talk about an insurgent group as the world oldest,

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