Tanja Nijmeijer seems to have found out the hard way that joining up with the socialist revolution really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

_Nov. 24, 2006: I’m tired, tired of the FARC, tired of the people,
tired of communal life. Tired of never having anything for myself. It
would be worth it if we knew why we were fighting. But the truth is I
don’t believe in this anymore. What kind of organization is this, where
some have money, cigarettes, candy, and the rest have to beg, only to
be rejected or met with grumbling? This is how it was when I arrived
almost four years ago, and it hasn’t changed.

_Nov. 24, 2006: I
want to leave here, at least this unit. But for the time being, you
know that you’re more or less a prisoner. What can you do? I don’t want
to hear any more about being a communist, being honest, not wasting,
being obedient. And then see how hypocritical the commanders, like
braggarts and traitors, showing no mercy if you dare to criticize them.

The thing is, you see, once you’ve got in, you’re not allowed to leave. Very Hotel California, don’t you think?

The first known person from outside Latin America to join the region’s
largest rebel army wasn’t just disillusioned. Like most FARC foot
soldiers, Tanja Nijmeijer apparently wasn’t permitted to leave….

From the entries, written in Dutch, English and Spanish, Ms.
Nijmeijer emerges as a passionate left-winger who is occasionally
homesick and has had second thoughts since joining the guerrillas in
2002.

"I don’t know where this project is going. How will it be when we
come to power? The girlfriends of the commanders in Ferrari Testa
Rossas, with breast implants, eating caviar? It seems like it," one
entry said.

Other entries, however, show a woman still committed to violent
means and impatient for action. "Damn! I’ve been waiting three days for
a helicopter to shoot it down, but it hasn’t flown over the area."

Ms. Nijmeijer, who wrote her thesis on FARC at the University of
Groningen, moved to Colombia in 2000. She taught English to wealthy
children in Pereira and appears to have been radicalized by volunteer
work in poverty-stricken slums.

She joined a humanitarian aid mission into rebel-held territory in
August of 2001 and later joined the fighters, a force made up largely
of peasants and professes a commitment to social justice.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this really, wouldn’t you? It’s not as if the history of revolutionary movements doesn’t show that this happens every single time:

CONTENTS of an intimate diary chronicling the declining morale of
Tanja Nijmeijer, a 29-year-old Dutch woman who joined the FARC rebels
in Colombia, have been released by the Colombian government.

The diary had been found during an army raid on a rebel camp in
June. Ms Nijmeijer became the first person from outside Latin America
to join FARC, the region’s largest rebel army, but ultimately came to
realise she was "more or less a prisoner"……

She condemns the strict discipline imposed by the male commanders – no
smoking, no phone calls and no romantic relationships without their
consent – while portraying them as materialistic and corrupt.

You don’t say! It’s worth remembering that FARC was the same group that employed several IRA men to show them howto build mortars. ‘Nuff said, really.

And this is wonderful, no, not cruel at all:

Elsewhere, however, our terrorist Bridget Jones yearns for
action: "Bored and hungry", she writes, "We can’t find the enemy, and
so I have to study Farc documents for the millionth time."