"Mono Jojoy"

"Finally, he fell!" - Q'hubo, Columbia (24 Sept)

We were wondering if "Mono Jojoy" and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla arm of the Colombian Communist Party, would be ideological relatives of the NPA (Bagong Hukbong Bayan or New People's Army) and its kumanders in the Philippines.

We looked for some patriotic or revolutionary meaning of this alias but found none although we learned that "mono" refers to a monkey in Spanish.  May be it was a term of endearment of FARC supporters for "Jorge Briceño Suárez", another alias of the real Victor Julio Suarez Rojas. He's thought to be the FARC's most revered and yet feared general who headed the Eastern Bloc, said to be the most powerful fighting division.

He was dead at 57 on Thursday, September 23, two days after the Colombian military, the police and the Ministry of Defense launched Operation Sodom (does this mean, "take them from behind?") 200 miles south of Bogota.  This is how BBC (Sept 25) described the assault:

"In the early hours of Wednesday 22 September, 78 aircraft headed for the area known as La Escalera in the Macarena mountain range in Meta province. They dropped dozens of bombs on Mono Jojoy's camp, which Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera has described as "the mother of all lairs" for its size and the number of hidden tunnels it had. About 400 members of the Colombian special forces then abseiled from helicopters and surrounded the camp. After hours of fighting, another 400 soldiers and police moved in on the camp, taking it in the early hours of Thursday morning. General Javier Florez, the commander of the joint task force leading the attack, said his men were able to identify Mono Jojoy by his scars, eye colour and the fact he carried insulin for his diabetes."

And this is how Hoy (25 Sept) of Ecuador illustrated the Sodoma:

"GPS in Mono's boots gave him away"

 There were two causes of Mono Jojoy's fall:  treachery--a deep penetration agent (a police sergeant) in his unit for the past two years--and modern technology--a GPS chip embedded in his boots.  Thus, his physical whereabouts was known far and wide by the military.

"Traitor and hidden GPS ended Mono Jojoy" - inside page, Las Ultimas Noticias, Chile (25 Sept)

"Jojoy's boots guided the bombs"- Q'hubo, Colombia (25 Sept)

"A chip betrays Mono Jojoy" - La Hora, Ecuador (25 Sept)

  

"Secret hero pursued Jojoy" - El Tiempo, Colombia (26 Sept)

"Two years of infiltration .." - El Mercurio, Chile (26 Sept)

 "The FARC has faced serious setbacks in recent years," Colombia Reports said, "with high-level commander "Raul Reyes" killed by a Colombian air strike on Ecuadorean territory in March 2008. The group's founder and supreme leader "Manuel Marulanda" died of natural causes in 2008. An airstrike by the Colombian armed forces on Sunday killed FARC commander "Domingo Biojo," political leader of the organization's 48th Front, along with at least 26 other rebels. Current supreme commander "Alfonso Cano" remains at large."

Below is the roster of top-level FARC officials who have fallen since "Sonia" was captured in February in 2004:

El Salvador, Colombia (24 Sept)

Sources:

1.   "FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" killed. (2010, September 23). Colombia Reports.  Retrieved from http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12002-mono-jojoy-killed-colombian-media.html

2.   "Colombian police examine Farc rebels' laptops." (2010, September 25).  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11412720.

2.   Jerry McDermott. (2010, September 23). "My Meeting with Mono Jojoy".  News Latin America and Caribbean.  BBC Mobile. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11402694.

Flower Power in Colombia!

We thought there's just the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, USA every January 1st, and the annual Panagbenga Festival held the whole month of February in Baguio City, Philippines that celebrates flower power.

Thanks to the US Newseum webpage for providing us access to almost all the newspapers around the world. Now we get a daily dose of interesting front page items about people, places and events in the global village.

Three papers of Colombia in their August 9th issues gave us a view of the Silleteros Parade, the highlight of their annual ten-day Feria de las Flores (Festival Flowers) in the city of Medillin, which this year was held 30 July to 08 August. 

Silleta is the small silla (chair). About 500 peasants--men, women and children--from different parts of Santa Elena, the flower growing area of Colombia, go on parade carrying silletas decorated with flowers on their back, and they are called silleteros. 

The Wiki says, the first feria took place on May 1, 1957, and for five days,  flowers were displayed in the Metropolitan Cathedral in honor of the Virgin Mary. About 40 men from Santa Elena comprised the first Silleteros Parade when they carried flower arrangements to the cathedral.  It commemorated the end of slavery when the peasants carried men and women on their back up the hills.  The next year, the feria was moved to August to celebrate the Independence of Antioquia. 

The silleteros make the Colombian festival different from the American Rose Parade and the Philippines Panagbenga.

The Rose Parade  (formally, Tournament of Roses Parade), which began 121 years ago, and the Panagbenga (originally the Baguio Flower Festival when it started in 1995) both feature flower-covered floats on parade.  

The founders of the American festival who were not original Californians wanted to show to the rest of America and the world that flowers bloom even in winter.  On the other hand, the Baguio festival is set as a touristic come-on to the mountain city between Christmas and the Holy Week.

We still need to witness a Panagbenga.  To a camera bug like us, the Rose Parade is certainly a well of colorful subjects but our allergy to cold weather dampens our interest.  

It's a dream then to find our way to the Medellin feria.  We had Spanish in high school and in the university, so we'd like to think we will not get lost among silleteros and other ciudadanos in Colombia, if ever ...

Links.

1.  Newseum Home at  http://www.newseum.org/

2.  El Colombiano at http://www.elcolombiano.com/portada.asp?NM=inicio

3.  El Mundo at http://www.elmundo.com/sitio/primera_pagina.php

4.  El Observador.  URL not available.