Concept in Definition ABC

A term with several senses

The concept of guerrilla admits several uses in our language, while the most widespread use of the word is that which says that guerrilla is that group composed of armed civilians who do not belong to the regular army corps of a given nation and who generally fight attacking the enemy through the methodology of surprise and skirmishes.

Also When you want to refer to the mode and manner of fighting that a group adopts, the term guerrilla is usually used to designate it.

On the other hand, the word guerrilla serves to refer to that fight by force of stones that are maintained between groups of young people.

And in the field playful, from card games, guerrilla was called an ancient card game.

Groups of armed civilians fighting for an end, the most popular job

Having mentioned in a general way the most frequent uses attributed to the word in question, we must now indicate that the use of The term guerrilla is more than anything associated with the first meaning we use, of the group of men who, without any type of dependence on the structure of an army and under the command of a particular chief, arisen probably due to his innate conditions as a leader and for being the best embodies the ideals and objectives of the group, harasses and confronts an enemy, which even in most cases can be the formal army of the community to which it belongs.

Concept history

This use of the word began to be used in Spain at the time of the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte, because the guerrilla in those times more than anything it was used to refer to the diminutive of the word war and through which it could be highlighted the inequality of conditions that existed between the organized army and in charge of the state with respect to any other civilian side that arose.
So, we could say that the guerrilla exists from the moment a group of civilians, whatever their purposes, decided to organize, either for their defense or for attack.

Its use takes another path

Meanwhile, in the middle of the last century, the concept of the guerrilla began to be associated more than anything else and was used to designate those liberation movements that began to spread in Latin America and Africa especially. In some cases, these same movements could stop being simple resistance to the state and became government themselves. The most representative case was that of movement that Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara led in Cuba and that even today, more than half a century later, he remains firm in power and exercising the Cuban government.

Cuban influence

As he once said Ernesto Che Guevara, considered by his experience a great guerrilla theorist, what are you constitute the Vanguard of a people that is struggling and said that the best methodology that a guerrilla is one that consists of confronting the enemy on their own terrain through rapid and surprising.

The FARC, a guerrilla that acts behind the shadows and attacks the state

But there are other groups that, because they do not propose it or because they have other immediate objectives, do not reach that stage of becoming power, in government and they normally keep active outside the orbit of the official army and even many of them defy it and act in the most absolute secrecy and illegality.

A clear example of the latter that we mentioned is the case of the movement of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) who have been fighting with the Colombian government from underground for a long time and have known how to act with great violence in many famous cases, such is the case of the leader politicsIngrid Betancourt who was kidnapped by the FARC for six years, keeping the entire Colombian people awake.

The Betancourt case, one of the most sadly famous

Betancourt was kidnapped along with a colleague when she proposed to open a channel for dialogue with the FARC in 2002. As we said, she remained in captivity for six years, and after her liberation some years ago she recounted the tremendous suffering of having been captive in the middle of the jungle. In 2008 and after years of pain and uncertainty, the family Ingrid and the citizenship The Colombian woman regained joy when a military operation led by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe freed Ingrid and other hostages.

On the same level as terrorism

It should be noted that many American states such as Colombia, Peru, the United States, Canada, and the European Union as a whole, consider the FARC a terrorist group. This consideration is based on the illegal activities and crimes they carry out to finance themselves and achieve their objectives, including: drug trafficking, murder of political and military leaders, among others, extortive kidnappings, establishment of anti-person mines, perpetration of attacks and massacres, among many others.

Topics in Guerrilla