The Guerrilla’s ID Card: Flatland against Fatland in Colombia

There is a citizen, Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez; and there is a guerrilla, ‘Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez’. In Colombian ‘Flatland’ (the world of state and bureaucracy, of documentary realities) both are imposters: the citizen, because his name(s) match(es), ‘criminally’, (one of) the guerrilla’s; who is, for the agents of Flatland, a “terrorist”, and most importantly “the alias Mono Jojoy” – a name that must be false, and who therefore must have a real one, plus a biography, a history, and a genuine cédula (ID card) that, as for all Colombian adults, must be trusted to guarantee an individual unique identity. We trace the search for the guerrilla’s truth along with the story of the citizen’s travails in which he is serially and terminally ‘(mis)taken’ for the guerrilla. But this ‘mistake’ is one that can only happen by denying any authority to evidence from ‘Fatland’ (the world of face-to-face life): the citizen looks, acts, and lives, nothing at all like the guerrilla.