Death of Manuel Marulanda

Manuel Marulanda is there, the head of the Central General Staff of the FARC. Manuel Marulanda begins as a child, my dad studied with him in La Plata, Huila. He served in the army back when conservatives and liberals fought against each other.

The army stole some of his chickens; he left the military service and formed a group of 48 people and a woman and went to the forest.

Their weapons were merely old weapons, merely old revolvers. They used to ambush the Army and take their weapons. That’s how they began to organize themselves and get weapons to enlarge the group. Later on, they worked out ideologies and released books and tried to convince people.

Manuel Marulanda died a natural death, died scared of being cornered, of not knowing what to do with the people, he had an attack and that was enough for him.

He was buried by 12 people, a special command. The commander who replaced Marulanda, Alfonso Cano, decided to kill the 12 who buried him…If someone deserted, he thought, that person would give away the place where Manuel’s body was.