Female rebel fighters in Colombia: The women soldiers leaving men terrified

THEY’RE young, strong and have one big speciality: inflicting fear in men. These female soldiers make their male counterparts seem merciful.

Female soldiers terrifying the men

THEY are young, strong and inflict fear in the men they fight against.

But these women are no ordinary fighters.

The women from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, are terrifying and show no mercy.

The FARC fighters may wear lipstick, nail polish, and cuddle up to their boyfriends but that’s where any typical female stereotypes end.

As one special forces officer from Colombia’s National Police told The Washington Post, these rebel fighters are as far from nice as you can get.

“The women are the worst,” he said. “If you get captured, you pray it’s by the male rebels.”

He also revealed their brutal interrogation methods.

Fighters bathe in a creek near their hidden camp in Antioquia state, in the northwest Andes of Colombia. The rebel fighters share all facilities on equal terms. Many of them are couples and share sleeping quarters.

“They’re more ideological than the men. They’re merciless,” the unidentified officer said.

While women in hand-to-hand combat roles are not unheard of, they are very common among Colombia’s left-wing rebels.

There are an estimated 8000 rebel fighters, around a third of whom are women, whose aim is to install a Marxist regime.

The FARC have been at war with the government since fighting broke out in 1964, killing around 200,000 people, according to theBBC.

The rebels inhabit an impenetrable forest with South America’s only bear, venomous snakes and 20 species of exotic frogs.

Rebel leaders, who espouse gender equality, claim having women among their ranks helps prevent homesickness among the men.

Marriage also isn’t allowed within the rebel ranks so the female fighters refer to their boyfriends as “partners”.

And while wedded bliss is out of the question, so apparently is pregnancy and children.

Yira Castro is a mid-level commander for the 36th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

A BBC investigation last year revealed forced abortion is rife among the ranks as rebel leaders believe pregnancy hinders a woman’s fighting ability.

Lawyer General Eduardo Montealegre said the government was investigating more than 150 cases of forced terminations, something the rebels deny.

“We have evidence to prove that forced abortion was a policy of the FARC that was based on forcing a female fighter to abort so as not to lose her as an instrument of war,” he said.

Women fighters who have reportedly had children have given birth only to have their babies taken from them.

LIFE FOR WOMEN FIGHTERS

Within the FARC, life is far from easy for the women, and many, like Juliana, come from troubled backgrounds.

Like many of her comrades, she fled an impoverished home at age 16 and followed in the footsteps of an uncle after being raped by her stepfather.

All the women have dreams for the future, and for most loyalty to the FARC is absolute, despite gruelling living conditions in the jungle.

For mid-level commander of the 36th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Yira Castro, that is certainly the case.

After three decades in the jungle she told Associated Press that if peace does arrive the first thing she’ll do is take a trip alone with her boyfriend.

Then there is Cindy who is a field medic who joined the guerilla group when she was 18 years old. She also dreams of peace.

“If there is peace with the government, we will have to take up politics, teach the people and later reunite with family after so many years.” she said.

Cindy, a rebel fighter wraps her gun in a mesh fabric, after a routine cleaning, as protection from humidity and rain, in a hidden camp in Antioquia state, in the northwest Andes of Colombia.

REBELS ‘OFF THE TERROR LIST’

Since being at war with the government, the FARC have controlled large amounts of territory, but have suffered setbacks in recent years.

Recent peace talks in Cuba hope to bring an end to a brutal and bloody war after more than 50 years of fighting once and for all.

Earlier this week, President Juan Manuel Santos asked the United States to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia from its list of terrorist organisations and suspend drug warrants against guerilla commanders to help him seal a peace deal with Latin America’s oldest leftist insurgency.

In an interview days before a key visit to the White House, Mr Santos made a sweeping call for action from Washington in the more than three years of peace talks with the FARC rebels.

The peace talks taking place in Cuba have reached what both sides describe as a point of no return, with a final deal to end the bloodshed expected as early as March.

This week, the UN Security Council unanimously endorsed sending a mission to monitor an eventual accord, handing Mr Santos a diplomatic victory as he tries to drum up funding for what he said will be a 10 to 15 year effort to recover vast parts of the country he says had been ceded by the state to illegal armed groups.

Mr Santos said such a deal would mean the Obama administration could strike the FARC from a State Department list of terrorist organisations it has been on for almost two decades alongside such groups as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The FARC, which as part of peace talks has already renounced kidnapping and declared a unilateral truce, has long demanded it be excluded.