Dutch Women Joins Colombia Rebels
During a Guerrilla Camp raid, the army stumbled upon a diary written by Tanja Nijmeijer, a 29-year-old Dutch woman, CNN reports.
“I’m tired, tired of the FARC, tired of the people, tired of communal living. Tired of never having anything for myself,” Nijmeijer wrote.
With the discover of the diary, Tanja Nijmeijer has become the first known person outside of Latin America to join the region’s largest rebel army, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia aka FARC.
Colombia’s government couldn’t have hoped for better propaganda against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It leaked excerpts from the diary found last June to the media, even making available an English translation of the Dutch entries.
Like most FARC foot soldiers, Tanja Nijmeijer apparently wasn’t permitted to leave.
“This would be worth it if I knew I was fighting for something. But I don’t really believe that anymore,” she wrote on November 24, 2006, according to the excerpts released by the government.
No one knows what compelled the young woman to go from peace activist to Guerrilla Fighter; not even family and friends, who knew her before she joined in 2003.
In the diary, Nijmeijer abhors the strict discipline imposed by FARC’s male commanders — no smoking, no phone calls, no romantic relationships without their consent. She says the rank and file are hungry and bored, and describes FARC leaders as both materialistic and corrupt.
“How will it be when we take power? The wives of the commanders in Ferrari Testa Rossas with breast implants eating caviar?” she writes.
Nijmeijer wrote her thesis on the FARC at the University of Groningen in her homeland, then traveled to Colombia in 2000 on a work-exchange program.
(read full and complete story at cnn.com)
Tags: FARC, tanja nijmeijer
