COLOMBIAN forces have captured the intimate diary of a Dutch woman who joined the country's Marxist rebels, in which she gives a rare view of life with the guerrillas deep in the jungle.
In July, elite troops swept into the camp of a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), known by the alias of Carlos Antonio Lozada.
He was wounded in the firefight and carried off by bodyguards, while women in the unit, wh
o were bathing at the time, had to flee into the jungle in their underwear.
As the troops sifted through the camp, they came across two surprises. The first was Lozada's laptop computer, which held a treasure trove of intelligence, including confidential army plans of counter-guerrilla operations, revealing the extent of FARC infiltration into the military.
The second surprise was two battered notebooks, the journals of a guerrilla, written in Dutch.
Among the entries was: "24 November, 2006. I am tired, tired of the FARC, tired of the people, tired of communal life. Tired of never having anything for myself. And this might be worth it if I knew what we were fighting for."
That woman, known in the FARC as "Eillen", is actually Tanja Nijmeijer, 29 - her identity was confirmed by the Dutch after a photo of her stored on the captured computer was published. Her parents live a middle-class neighbourhood in Denekamp, near the German border.
She is a languages graduate from the University of Groningen, who first went to Colombia in 2000 as part of a university exchange to improve her Spanish. She returned in 2002 and entered guerrilla ranks.
The FARC have long recruited women, who make up about a third of the 12,000-strong army. The group, founded in 1964, is now the most powerful insurgency in the western hemisphere and, as a result of the drugs trade, perhaps the richest in the world. Despite having so much cash, guerrillas receive no salary, yet once in the ranks cannot leave and are subject to fierce discipline that controls every facet of life.
On 23 August last year, "Eillen" wrote: "I called home! Mum cried and Dad too. Now all I have to wait for is my punishment."
She went on: "At times I want to stop following orders. Following the orders of a bunch of sexists that try to kill birds with hunting rifles. I feel like a nobody all day; I am not useful and I have to do what every idiot tells me or I get fined."
Control in the ranks of the FARC extends to relationships. If a woman guerrilla girl wants to be with a man the commander has to give his approval.
The Dutch woman's journal revealed: "June 13. I have got a friend. We have negotiated and he is going to speak to the boss to see if we can be together. Without even a kiss or anything. Pure negotiation. The guy is interesting and handsome."
It is clear from the diaries that there is a great deal of promiscuity in the guerrilla ranks and, it appears, AIDS.
"21 July. There are two comrades with AIDS, perhaps more. Here, nobody uses condoms. As far as I know the girl has no idea what it means. She told me the news smiling and her partner does not appear worried. A third girl who slept with the guy is well depressed."
The FARC pride themselves on equality of life in the movement and an adherence to Communist ideology. Yet it appears there are the privileged and the unprivileged, and "Eillen" sees herself in the latter category. "What will it be like when we take power? The women of the commanders will have Ferraris, breast implants and eat caviare. At least that is how it seems," she wrote.
The Dutch intelligence service is investigating the FARC's reported recruiting activities in the Netherlands, and it is also attempting to ascertain whether "Eillen" is now being held against her will by the group.
Her friends and family told the Dutch authorities she joined of her own free will, against her parents' wishes, because she wanted to help the victims of poverty and oppression in Colombia. Now, however, the diary shows she is tortured with uncertainty and regrets.
"13 June. Sometimes I dream of my mum and Elle and I wake up crying. Always the same question: did I do the right thing? Would I have been happy if I had stayed a civilian in Holland? What would I be doing? Would I be going out with someone, married, with kids?"
With her diaries having been published for the world - and her FARC bosses - to read, there are fears for her future.
Ms Nijmeijer's family told the Dutch broadcaster NOS that they had kept quiet about their daughter's involvement with the FARC out of concern for her safety, and fear that her diary's appearance in the media could endanger her life.
"By joining the FARC, she has gone extremely far in her idealism," they said. "We have the strong impression that she has been influenced badly by certain contacts. Because of her idealism, she was naturally also very sensitive to external influences."
According to the family, Ms Nijmeijer's mother travelled to a guerrilla camp in 2005 to try to persuade her daughter to return home, but "Tanja's mind was not to be changed".
HOSTAGES KILLED BY GUNSHOTS
ELEVEN Colombian state legislators killed while being held by the FARC died of multiple gunshot wounds, a team of international forensic experts investigating their causes of death has concluded.
But authorities said it could still take months before they are able to sort out conflicting accounts of the events leading up to the hostages' deaths.
The International Committee of the Red Cross recovered the bodies on Sunday in the southern state of Narino, following a week-long mission in a nearly impenetrable jungle.
The full article contains 992 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
