Yesterday, during a left-wing protest against the ‘electoral farce’ in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a former Guerilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) suffered a cardiac arrest after a struggle with police employing crowd control tactics. 47-year-old Morales, a FARC member for 15 years, evaded arrest before being imprisoned in Bolivia for a year and then eventually being released to Argentina in 2020. Again, he was arrested by Argentinian police in 2021, with Colombia being the latest state to attempt to try him for the kidnapping of a councilman in 2009. After being released in 2022, Morales laid relatively low, reappearing on Thursday to attend a protest against the general elections being held in October.
Although now disbanded through the 2016 Colombian peace process, FARC guerillas have terrorized the nation since their inception in 1964, seeking to establish themselves in drug trafficking hotspots across the country. FARC’s tactics ranged from extortion to assassinations, destruction of infrastructure, and armed assaults. The group’s most common targets were Military and government officials.
As a result of his death, FARC supporters and Communist sympathizers have taken to burning the Municipal building of Mar del Plata, although at this moment the crowds remain small.
Updates to follow.
