"New Media and Latin American Violent Movements"
W. Alejandro Sanchez and Kelly Morrison
E-International Relations
July 2, 2014
The Commons Lab, an initiative of the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently published a
provocative article entitled: ‘
New Terrorism and New Media.’
In his discussion, Professor Gabriel Weimann of Haifa University in
Israel focuses on insurgent movements such as Al-Qaeda and its
affiliates. His work explains how terrorist movements utilize social
media outlets, such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to
expand the reach of their ideology and attract new converts.
According to Weimann, social media is different than traditional
internet resources because, with social media, terrorists are able to
directly target individual followers. Thus, social media has increased
the number of “long wolf terrorists,” namely individuals who commit
terrorist acts without being connected to a particular terrorist
organization. With the rise of social media, Weimann argues that the war
on terror has become increasingly “vital, dynamic, and ferocious” and
creates a new front in the struggle for international security.
However, the use of social media and new technology is not limited to
violent groups in the Greater Middle East. Thus, the authors of this
article would like to expand upon Weimann’s research by discussing how
criminal groups in Latin America have also been successful at utilizing
new media resources.
A Game of Definitions
Weimann’s discussion focuses on terrorist movements in the Arab
world. It is essential to note that the same general term “terrorists”
cannot be applied to the criminals that currently operate in Latin
America. Rather, Latin American criminal groups include narco-insurgents
like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National
Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, Shining Path in Peru, the Bolivarian
Liberation Front (FBL) in Venezuela, and the Paraguay People’s Army in
Paraguay.
Mexico’s main criminal groups are drug trafficking organizations.
These cartels include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, the Knights
Templar, the Gulf Cartel, and New Generation. Additionally, Central
America has its own share of criminal organizations. Maras, as they are known, are multinational gangs that have branches in countries ranging from the United States to South America.
For simplicity’s sake, we will utilize the term “violent movements” to encompass this vast number of criminal entities.
The Rise of the Latino Netizen
Latin America has experienced an explosion of internet activity in
recent years. Some quick statistics help put this situation in the
proper perspective. The
World Bank estimated that the region had 581 million citizens in 2012, and a 2013
analysis by ComScorefound
that “Latin America had the fastest growing internet population,
increasing […] to more than 147 million unique visitors in March 2013.”
Due to this increasing online presence, several institutions have
carried out comprehensive analyses on internet usage in the region. Most
recently, the Organization of American States and the internet security
company Symantec published a major analysis entitled “
Latin America + Caribbean Cyber Security Trends,” which focused on the rise of cybercrime in the Western Hemisphere, such as social media scams.
As Weimann notes, the internet and social media are valuable
resources for criminal groups in general. When one considers the rising
population of Latin American netizens, it is understandable why the
region’s violent movements have turned to such resources to further
their agendas.
Colombia: The FARC and ELN’s Virtual Presence
The
FARC is
Latin America’s oldest insurgent movement and will celebrate its 50th
anniversary this year. The movement’s strength has declined during the
past decade and a half; its membership has shrunk from around 16
thousand in the late 1990s to an estimated 8,000 today, and it has lost
several of its leaders in recent years.
Even though the FARC has been severely weakened, the group remains a
major force in Colombia and it has an active online presence. Its main
online outlet is
its own webpage.
The FARC’s website has a section that discusses the history of this
organization and another page devoted to press releases, most of which
praise the FARC and critique the Colombian government. For example, the
FARC published a
statement on its website
announcing that it declared a unilateral cease fire from June 9 to June
30 of this year due to the ongoing electoral process in Colombia. The
website even has a “Contact Us” form where individuals can send
inquiries to contact FARC commanders for interviews.
Additionally, the website has links to videos and news articles which
clarify the group’s position on social issues. Though the FARC is one
of Latin America’s most well-known insurgencies, its website promotes
“wisdom and patience” in their conflict with the government. In a
section addressed to soldiers and police, the FARC states that in other
circumstances, “
the groups could have been friends.”
Moreover in an effort to demonstrate that the FARC is a gender-friendly
entity, the FARC created a webpage last October dedicated to the female
members of the movement.
A FARC statement regarding the creation of the website “
Mujer Fariana”
declares that, “without a doubt, in the FARC, female guerrillas found a
great number of possibilities to be recognized as women, social
fighters, political individuals, as fighters against every kind of
discrimination and exploitation.”
Additionally the FARC has had a
Twitter accountsince
2011, boasting more than 22,000 followers. On their profile, the group
claims to fight for “a just Colombia with equality for everyone.” The
FARC’s most recent tweets came from August 2013, when the group
announced that it would no longer post on the site. It seemed that
officials had attempted to track the account. The authors thanked
Twitter for its support and announced that the Colombian people would be
the FARC’s official voice from then on. The group tweeted that it would
march for the countryside, “without looking back.”
Some FARC fighters also have their own Twitter accounts, such as
Ivan Marquez,
a member of the FARC’s Secretariat. Unlike the FARC’s official Twitter,
Marquez’s account remains active (though it is unclear whether the
guerrilla actually composes his own tweets). For example,
a June 10 tweet
states: “The ongoing electoral race for the presidency has been one of
the most shameful in the history of the country.” Marquez’ tweet
provoked some strong replies from individuals who begged Marquez to stop
his harsh commentary.
Finally, the FARC has a YouTube account that gained prominence when
the FARC and the Cuban rap group Cuentas Claras made a video entitled “
Colombianos Pa’ La Mesa”
(Colombians to the Table). The song’s lyrics critique the government’s
participation in the ongoing peace talks. It argues that the FARC is
fighting for “shoeless kids,” while the government only wants to protect
“its businesses.” The video features two FARC fighters: an old
insurgent commander and a Dutch female citizen who went to Colombia to
teach and
ended up joining the FARC.
On the whole, the FARC’s online presence, while impressive, is
inconsistent. As previously mentioned, the FARC no longer has an active
Twitter account. Furthermore, the FARC’s webpages sometimes go offline
(most likely due to the efforts of the Colombian government). At the
time of this writing, both the FARC’s main site and the Mujer Fariana
website are inactive. Moreover, it is unclear whether the FARC’s various
websites have improved its public relations. While the general
population seems to approve of the governments’ ongoing peace talks with
the FARC, popular opinion towards the FARC itself remains low.
The FARC is not Colombia’s only insurgent group that has an online presence. The ELN also
has a website,
which shares the group’s history and ideology. As with the FARC site,
the ELN webpage has a form that enables the public to send inquiries to
the group’s leaders. The page also features news articles describing its
activities and recommendations for videos, music, and literature. On
the front page, the site quotes Colombian author
Gabriel García Márquez:
“what matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember
and how you remember it.” It seems the page is meant to share the
country’s events through the lens of the ELN’s ideology.
Mexico: The Bloody Narco Blogs
In Mexico, drug trafficking organizations comprise the most prevalent
violent movements. Mexico’s local media outlets fail to sufficiently
cover accounts of cartel violence. This media self-censorship is
unsurprising; Mexican cartels have made a hobby of killing media editors
or journalists that air stories critiquing their actions. The
competition between the media and the cartels culminated in September
2010 when El Diario de Juarez, a newspaper operating in one of Mexico’s
violent cities,
published an op-ed
asking drug cartels for a “truce.” The Juarez newspaper agreed to limit
its unfavorable coverage of cartels if the cartels promised to stop
killing its staff.
Due to problems of fear and corruption associated with traditional
news outlets, Mexican citizens have turned to the Internet for
information regarding the ongoing internal drug war in their country.
Narco-blogs, for example, originally appeared when citizen journalists
tried to cover stories of violence. These authors would publish quick
articles with photos and amateur videos soon after an incident took
place. The publications served to inform the public of the actions of
the cartels.
However, cartels soon
infiltrated this informal online arena
and began killing bloggers and forum moderators of sites that published
stories on the narcos. In September 2011, for instance, a man and a
woman were hanged from a bridge in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas after
their eyes and fingers had been cut off. Coverage by
CNN reported
that a sign was found on the bodies, threatening those who used the
Internet to report on organized crime. Two months later, the body of a
forum moderator known as El Rascatripas
was found decapitated
at the foot of a Columbus statue in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The
murderers placed a sign above the body that read: “I’m Rascatripas and
this happened to me for failing to understand that I should not report
things on social media websites.”
Moreover, cartels have also been known to post videos of executions
and executed bodies to scare off their opponents. Members also use
social media to boast about their own sadistic actions. As example of this narco-goriness is the website
elnarcotube.com,
which has a compilation of videos made by different Cartels. One
videoshows a member of the Zetas decapitating a woman who was believed
to be a member of the Gulf Cartel. Another video shows the Zetas
interrogating a police officer from Durango. In the final seconds of the
video the officer was shot in the head. Mexican cartels are also known
to hire musical bands to
sing songs of praise for them. These have become known as “narco corridos” (narco songs), and many can be found on YouTube.
Individual cartel members have also been known to brag about their actions.
One Knights Templar member,
who calls himself ‘Broly,’ posted selfies with victims and weapons on
his Facebook page last year. Likewise, Alfredo Guzmán, the son of former
Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, also had an
active online presence until his father was arrested this February. On the positive side, the news agency
Business Insider notes
that the online presence of cartel members may enable law enforcement
agencies to capture them. However, such prospects seem optimistic.
Other Groups
One additional insurgent movement that has its own website is Venezuela’s obscure
Armed Liberation Forces (FBL). According to the security news agency
InSightCrime,
the FBL is a guerrilla movement that operates in western Venezuela,
close to the border with Colombia. InSightCrime explains that, unlike
other insurgent movements, the FBL has generally avoided clashing with
the government and has supported the government of the late President
Hugo Chávez.
The website is hosted by the blogging site Blogspot, and its content
includes a history of the organization and various press releases. For
example, a
June 5 press release
on the website claims that FBL fighters activated smoke bombs in
various areas of Caracas, including the Central Bank and the Ministry of
Finance. “This action was not aimed at hurting anyone, or destroy
private or public property, but to promote action,” the press release
explains. Namely, the group was calling for popular protests against the
“oligarchy” that brought about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
However,
Últimas Noticias only reports
that pamphlets were found in the areas mentioned. Apparently no actual
attack took place, though the ensuing tension resulted in an increase in
security and police forces around the city.
There are certainly other criminal groups that operate in the Latin
American region, such as the insurgency groups in Peru and Paraguay and
the Maras in Central America. However, the authors of this
article have not found any online presence that we can verify that is
associated with these organizations.
Conclusions
In “
New Terrorism and New Media,”
Professor Weimann argues that terrorists use the Internet to distribute
propaganda, radicalize the population, and recruit followers. When it
comes to Latin America, it seems the region’s criminal organizations
have a much more limited online presence. One cannot be certain whether
individuals have been inspired to join insurgency groups like the FARC,
ELN, and FBL, or other drug trafficking organizations because of their
websites or Twitter accounts. However, the online forums these
organizations use certainly have not hurt their causes.
Propaganda is definitely one important objective of the criminal
groups who use online resources. At the very least, the websites of
groups like the FARC, ELN and FBL put forward a “noble” version of their
history and struggle against their governments. The internet provides
these narco-insurgencies a chance to tell their side of the story when
news outlets focus only on the violence that comes from their existence.
For this reason, modern technology has made a difference in the ongoing
power struggle between narco-insurgencies and governments.
As for the Mexican narcos, uploading videos of cartel members
executing individuals (either from opposing cartels or security forces),
seems to be more of a way to demonstrate a cartel’s power. Yet the
Internet has helped to romanticize the narco lifestyle in Mexico in
recent years. There are worrying reports that
Mexican youth
now wish to grow up to become narcos due to their power and extravagant
lifestyles. The fact that narco-corrido songs are now online also
contributes to the propaganda machine of cartels. In this way, the
internet has also enabled drug cartels to tell their own side of
history.
Ultimately, the online presence of Latin American violent movements
may not be as extensive as the Islamic extremist movements mentioned in
Weimann’s report. However, insurgency movements and cartels have begun
to use the internet and social media for their own purposes. These
resources have enabled criminal organizations to share their stories,
whether this be the nobility of their causes or the extravagance of
their lifestyles.
