Source: Politics<\/p>\n
MIAMI \u2014 The Biden administration\u2019s plan to remove a Colombian rebel group from a list of foreign terrorist organizations barely caused a ripple outside Washington when the news broke this week.<\/p>\n
But in Florida, home to an estimated 150,000 Colombian American voters, it\u2019s a different story. Biden\u2019s policy is reverberating loudly among Democrats, leading some of the state\u2019s top elected officials, strategists and activists to rail against the decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is terrible. It\u2019s bad policy. It\u2019s bad politics,\u201d said Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who\u2019s Colombian American. <\/p>\n
Calling the news \u201coutrageous,\u201d Taddeo criticized the Biden administration on Twitter<\/a> and recounted how she fled her home country at the age of 17 \u201cbecause of the Marxist terrorist organization, FARC, a group of militias who kidnapped my father who was a WWII American fighter pilot.\u201d <\/p>\n Stories like Taddeo\u2019s aren\u2019t rare in Miami-Dade, the state\u2019s most populous county. It\u2019s home to a huge concentration of Hispanic voters and Latin American exiles who fled leftist violence or dictatorships in Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela and found a common political bond in Florida.<\/p>\n The Colombian government\u2019s decades-long war with the guerrilla movement known as FARC claimed hundreds of thousands of lives<\/a> and displaced millions, cementing the narco-funded group\u2019s reputation as a terrorist organization. Five years ago, the Marxist rebels, formally known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the Colombian government signed a historic peace accord that is still being implemented. But support for the peace accord has been mixed \u2014 and ill will toward the FARC from Colombian Americans persists, with some staunchly opposed to the former FARC members\u2019 reintegration into society. <\/p>\n \u201cThese were terrorists, murderers,\u201d Taddeo said.<\/p>\n Former Gov. Charlie Crist, now a congressman who is also running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, expressed concern for the decision, saying the FARC \u201ccaused decades of war and death \u2014 they\u2019ve earned their designation.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, called on the administration<\/a> to reconsider and \u201cdouble down to reject the extremist communist agenda that destroyed nations like Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n Recognizing the sensitivity of the issue, the White House was quick to hold a conference call on Wednesday to explain the decision, which was not supposed to be made public for days but surfaced on Tuesday afternoon when The Wall Street Journal reported on the impending move<\/a>. <\/p>\n The State Department had notified Congress of its forthcoming plans, a senior administration official said, but the Colombian government hadn\u2019t even been notified when the story broke. <\/p>\n The State Department\u2019s decision to drop FARC from its list of terrorist groups isn\u2019t giving a free pass to the former guerrilla group, according to the senior administration official, who declined to speak on the record. The plan to remove the FARC from the list, the official said, comes after an annual review that included input from the intelligence community, law enforcement, the U.S. embassy and the State Department. <\/p>\n Five years into the peace process, 90 percent of FARC rebels have demobilized and met their commitments under the agreement, the official noted. And a key piece of the administration plan, the official said, is to add the new armed groups \u2014 formed by former FARC rebels and dissident groups, including the group known as Nueva Marquetalia and one faction led by guerrilla leader Gentil Duarte \u2014 that are now pushing instability and violence in Colombia. <\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t pulling back punches. It\u2019s pointing them in the right direction \u2014 and that\u2019s the [FARC dissidents and their] terrorist and criminal activity,\u201d the senior administration official said.<\/p>\n But some Democrats and experts argue that the distinction will be lost on voters, especially those who have an emotional and personal antipathy toward FARC and are against the peace accord.<\/p>\n \u201cI can explain this to my students. I can have this debate among my colleagues, but local politics isn\u2019t making that distinction, especially because there are people in this community who were either kidnapped or had relatives who were kidnapped \u2014 while some of the people responsible [former FARC rebels] are now sitting in the Colombian Congress,\u201d said Eduardo Gamarra, who polls Latino voters in the United States and throughout Latin America.<\/p>\n Gamarra argued that it will be an \u201ceven harder sell\u201d for the Biden administration because it did not consult with Florida\u2019s Colombian community before making the decision. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what they gain by doing this. There\u2019s more of a gain for Colombia than there is for the Democratic Party or the Biden administration,\u201d said Gamarra, who is also a professor of Latin American studies at Florida International University in Miami. <\/p>\n Colombian American voters have historically voted Democratic. But along with Venezuelan Americans and Nicaraguan Americans, they began shifting farther right, finding common cause with Republican-leaning Cuban Americans in Florida in recent years.<\/p>\n