Jacobo Arenas

Luis Alberto Morantes Jaimes
Jacobo Arenas, political leader of FARC-EP.
Nickname(s)	Jacobo Arenas
Born	(1924-01-23)January 23, 1924
Died	October 10, 1990(1990-10-10) (aged 66)
Service/branch	Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Years of service	1964-1990
Rank	Founder and Ideological Leader of FARC-EP
Battles/wars	Colombian armed conflict

Jacobo Arenas ("nom de guerre" of Luis Alberto Morantes Jaimes, 23 January 1924 – 10 August 1990) was a Colombian guerrilla and ideological leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). He was also one of the FARC figures involved in the organization and creation of the Patriotic Union political party in 1985. He was fluent in several languages other than his native Spanish, including English and Russian.

Born at Bucaramanga in Santander Department, Arenas spent most of his life involving himself in the activities of Marxist revolution in Colombia since the 1960s. During this time, he mostly lived in the mountains, jungles and remote villages. Arenas sometimes had to hide from those who wanted to capture him, including Colombian security forces, the Central Intelligence Agency (which Arenas believed responsible for numerous alleged plots against him) and eventually paramilitary fighters as well. Arenas is thought to have followed the example of Che Guevara, who changed his way of life when he saw that the people of Latin America were facing hardships during a regionwide motorcycle trip (partially included in the film Diarios de Motocicleta - The Motorcycle Diaries) when he was a senior year medical student. Arenas admired Che Guevara and started his life as a revolutionary due to similar realizations, first through his experiences in the Colombian Communist Party (PCC) and finally in the FARC.

Arenas is credited for helping to lay the foundation for the FARC's organizational structure and promoting its later development into what is usually considered as one of the strongest and longest lasting Marxist guerrilla movements in the world. To implement the policy of "standing steadily", he taught FARC members in several subjects, such as anthropology, international military law and counter techniques for any changing situation.