Columbian guerrillas get kicked off of the Net

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 07:25:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Columbian guerrillas get kicked off of the Net

[Perhaps it's time to mirror the Columbian guerrillas' home page?
Volunteers, anyone? (I wonder what the British, had the Internet
existed in 1776, would have done to muzzle the colonial rebels' web
sites -- which would have called for a violent overthrow of the
government. Perhaps the founding fathers' home pages would have been
copied and mirrored in France?) --Declan]

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   Colombia censors guerilla home page
   By Reuters     
   September 26, 1996, 4:15 p.m. PT        
              
   A Colombian guerrilla group currently involved in a bloody offensive
   in the mountains and jungles, suffered a setback in its propaganda   
   battle when its new voice on the Internet was mysteriously silenced.
   
   The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has       
   periodically paralyzed half the country with road blocks, found its
   route to the information superhighway barred.
   
   The Communist insurgents, who rose up in arms in 1964, embraced new   
   technology last year in their fight to overthrow the government by
   launching a home page on the Internet.
   
   "Using weapons naturally comes within the logic of the armed struggle.
   Just fighting through the Internet would be like shooting rubber      
   bullets. Not using it would be like continuing to fight the army with
   a 12-bore shotgun," said Marco LeDon CalarcDa, the FARC's Mexico
   City-based international spokesman.
   
   But in unexplained circumstances, which a spokeswoman for the Mexico  
   City-based Internet provider Teesnet said may or may not be linked to
   external pressures, the plug was pulled on the service Monday--a day
   after being publicized in Colombia's leading daily, El Tiempo.
   CalarcDa admitted the loss of the Internet page was a serious reversal
   but vowed the computer-age conflict was far from over.

[...]
             
   The Colombian guerrillas used their Web site to publish their
   political magazine Resistencia, whose distribution is banned in
   Colombia, and to offer explanations about their latest armed actions.
              
   FARC, labeled narcoguerrillas since the 1980s when U.S. ambassador
   Lewis Tambs highlighted the group's alleged connections with
   Colombia's drugs trade, have been dubbed cyberspace guerrillas since
   their appearance on the Internet.
        
   "Cyberspace guerrillas may seem a fun name but I think it is
   pejorative and belittles what we're doing," said LeDon CalarcDa. "We
   are looking to topple the government and set up a new Colombia.
                     
   In the four weeks since the FARC unleashed its latest offensive with
   an attack on a jungle base in southern Putumayo province, more than
   150 soldiers, police, and civilians have died.
   
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