Last week's tragic death of three presumed terrorists handling explosives in a house in Suba (northwest Bogota) was followed by that of another university "student" in Tunja, when explosive devices that he was carrying, along with classmates, went off. They were heading to "protest" at a student march.
The Colombian media, which is accustomed to excessive diplomacy – referring, for example, to dictator Fidel Castro as president, to terrorists as insurgents, to corrupt politicians as doctors and to thieves as "crooks" –has again understated the gravity of the facts.
Let us examine these facts, one by one. The material that university rebels have for decades been using to manufacture so-called "papas explosivas" (explosive potatoes) is not capable of destroying part of a house built in brick and concrete, while simultaneously damaging more than 40 houses in the surrounding area and, in passing, affecting the same number of poor families. Undoubtedly, the three dead were handling and storing high power explosives which would probably have been used in acts of terrorism during the Summit of the Americas.
The same goes for the "student" in Tunja. It is likely that he would have been carrying several "papas explosivas" and that when a significant number of them went off, the havoc wreaked would have been worse. However, this remains unclear.
The only thing we can be sure of is that anyone who manufactures, traffics, carries and/or uses explosives to cause panic and anxiety, albeit under the guise of "social protest", is a terrorist and not just a university student with romantic ideas of change. Nor are such people poorly adjusted youths or mere vandals.
And if, in addition to carrying homemade explosive devices with violent intent, they also distribute propaganda from groups such as FARC, ELN or M-19 in written, verbal, electronic or audio-visual format, there is even more reason to believe that they are narcoterrorists. These narcoterrorists do not act alone but as part of underground cells which, for several decades, the Communist Party and FARC have infiltrated into educational establishments. They also serve in an illegal armed group which is financed through drug trafficking and takes refuge behind the Marxist-Leninist discourse of combining forms of struggle.
In contrast, those grieving the deaths of these personalities do not stop to think about what would have happened to the attackers’ innocent victims, had they used these explosives against the civilian population and not accidentally detonated them on themselves.
The matter has become more recurrent now that FARC, as part of its Strategic Plan, has focused on State universities to serve as a recruitment pool for officers of the Clandestine Communist Party, Bolivarian Continental Movement and the former red guards who are now integrated into urban Bolivarian militias known as "urban commands".
Everything would indicate that the dead were FARC members, from the same cells which produced the likes of Alfonso Cano, Ivan Marquez, Carlos Lozada, Ivan Santrich, Mariana Perez, Pablo Catatumbo, Marcos Calarca, Yesid Arteta, Timochenko and many more outlaws.
If to the above, we add instigators, such as FARC’s international diplomat Piedad Cordoba, who in a conference at a state university in Bogota said that Colombia needed many Tirofijos, then it demonstrates that the politically-organized activities of the Clandestine Bolivarian Movement, heralded at FARC's two latest conferences, are now a tangible reality. It likewise confirms that, as opposed to what was thought, university-based communist cells dedicated to narcoterrorism are alive, and they are committed to pursuing the objectives of FARC's strategic plan.
In contrast to this stark reality that could descend into waves of urban terrorism, similar to or worse than the brutal assaults of the drug trafficking cartels in the 1980s and 1990s, the highest levels of the three public powers are lost to the world.
Inexplicably, the Supreme Court of Justice - so competent that it chose a Samperist public prosecutor with fewer votes than required by law and elected his successor within three hours, despite having authorized, in full awareness of what it was doing, the same temporary posting for several years with cheap apologies and politicking - asserted that Reyes' computers were not valid evidence, also failing to act against white collar thugs, up to their necks in FARC politics, according to the computers seized from Mono Jojoy, Cano, Jeronimo and other terrorists taken down by the armed forces.
The Congress of the Republic has an accusations committee to try all altos aforados (persons with parliamentary immunity who can only be tried by the Supreme Court). However, in reality it seems that this committee only serves to examine Ernesto Samper and conduct media debates which do not draw any conclusions. Meanwhile, FARC and its accomplices remain busy demolishing the constitutional framework, whereas the "honorable members of congress and founding fathers" continue to shy away from what FARC is seeking out with its Strategic Plan in which they themselves constitute the main target.
President Juan Manuel Santos, for his part, is in the middle of his 2014-2018 re-election campaign. Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, who is unfamiliar with the realities of the war besieging Colombia, is claiming that military successes are down to his "new strategy", as he is very interested in replacing Santos during the two upcoming presidential terms (2018-2026). We are reaping what we have sowed and there isn’t any fertilizer to help the harvest along.
It is an opportune moment for the media, the Congress of the Republic, the deans of universities, the armed forces, the national police and the Prosecutor General's Office to set this topic on the table and to draw public attention to the cruel reality.
Communist terrorism has infiltrated universities and, if we don't act quickly, then there will be days of blood, mourning and pain to come worse than any we have experienced to date in Colombia.
It is time to prosecute the terrorists overrunning State universities; those same people who, among other things, build networks of solidarity with guerrillas, encourage violent demonstrations and, in many cases, take an eternity to graduate or finish one course and start another; or, worse still, those who infiltrate as teachers and even manage to travel abroad to teach Marxism.
All of this idleness, which is tolerated by the complicit or indifferent silence of university managers, is paid for with the money of taxpayers: Colombians whom the Communists call rich, bourgeois, oligarchs, etc. but instead actually finance the stay and the studies of Communists in State universities.
Mr Santos, Mr Pinzon, court magistrates, public prosecutor, members of congress:
Communist narcoterrorism in universities is a reality. Do not brush it under the carpet or go off on a tangent arguing that these citizens are maladjusted vandals. Just as the vast majority of young people with scarce resources go to State universities to study and in search of a dignified future, it is also true that FARC and the Communist Party have tapped into this great mass of people with scarce resources a gold mine for recruiting "political educators" from urban gangs and terrorists.
Do not look elsewhere: FARC are present in educational establishments. And to top it all, they have outlaws who have infiltrated into the teaching profession and international diplomacy, who seek to legitimize terrorism, play on the pain of kidnap victims’ families and seek out political acknowledgement of FARC.
Do you know why?
In order to give FARC a status of belligerence, to internationally legitimize them, and to unleash an outright war against Colombia supported by Chavez, Korea, Dilma, Otega, La Kirchner and the dictator of Cuba, with the aim of imposing a government of transition towards Communism and ousting you, who now enjoy the plaudits of official bureaucracy at the expense of soldiers’ blood, sweat and tears.
The time has come to take care of the details. Otherwise, the urban terrorism ahead will jeopardize the economy, development, security and peace for Colombians. Your duty Mr. Santos, magistrates, members of congress and other authorities, is to guarantee the security and welfare of your compatriots. Coexisting with terrorists and perverting the course of justice by failing in your duty to investigate, pursue and imprison them will only lead to the nation’s downfall.
Author Luis Alberto Villamarin Pulido is a retired Army Colonel