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This paper is intended to give the reader knowledge and some understanding of the US foreign policy; however it is TOTALLY PROHIBITED to copy or reproduce for personal or academic purposes.The author; Dulce Bueno.
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Dulce Bueno
Colombia’s Civil War- United States War on Terror:
Colombia’s Civil War- United States War on Terror:
In this paper, I intend to chronologically explain how Colombia has been fighting its internal war from the early chaos of La Violencia that brought life to the guerrillas and consequently the paramilitary. Colombia’s long history of violence has led the country to its latest civil war of over 40 years between the Governments, the Paramilitaries. I discuss how the United State’s investment derailed Colombia’s civil war to the now called “War on Terror”. I proceed to explain how the United States itself has used its power over the law to waive its right and therefore provide military assistance to Colombia despite its high profile in human rights violations. I explain such violations and move to present events. With detailing the latest events I discuss the possibility of an end to Las FARC. I end the paper with discussing the critics of the possible end to Colombia’s brutal history and a look in retrospect of the benefits and to whom they go as well as open ended questions regarding the issue.
Introduction
Early Years
The use of violence to pursue political goals has a long history in Colombia. The Historian Gonzalo Sanchez described Colombia as a country of permanent war in the 19th century. “After the fourteen years of the Independence wars, there were eight national civil wars, fourteen local civil wars, many small revolts two wars with Ecuador and three coups d’état… Many factors combined to fuel the wars- political ambition, the solidarity of exploited workers, legitimate peasant grievances, and family feud” (Simons, 39)
La Violencia
In the twenty years between 1948 and 1968, Colombia fell under chaos. This epoch of chaos was later called La Violencia, or The Violence in English, as “some 200,000 people were killed... and an estimated 1 million emigrated.” (Simons, 41) “In 1949 Laureano Gomez was elected president and then set about to intensifying the terrorist campaign against the people” (Simons, 41). Many rich land owners fled the country to their neighboring country, Venezuela, due to death threats. Many others were killed as other peasants actually regain access to land that had previously been taken away.
During La Violencia, Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress” with Latin America, felt under pressure with the Cold War. With Fidel Castro and “Che” Guevara’s revolutionary ideals as a hot topic, and with Soviet Union announcing its support to wars of liberation, the United States needed to intensify its authority in Latin America. The United States and Colombia responded with Plan Lazo, or Plan Lasso for its English translation. It was designed to “rein in the rebel groups and simultaneously provide economic stimulus to poverty-stricken rural areas” (Dudley, 9). Also known as “bullets and beans”; it was the United States way of handling communism in Latin America. “Some 16,000 troops, advised by U.S. personnel, surrounded the narrow valley of Marquetalia… and U.S. equipped Colombian air force began bombing the area” (Simons, 42). In 1964, Plan Lazo's organized offensive led to the formation of “mobile guerrillas group -that- came together at the Bloque Sur (bloc of the south) conference.” Many were peasants acting in self-defense revolting to form military initiatives of their own or joined already organized groups. A second conference officially founded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia- FARC- (Simons, 43). Other guerrilla groups were formed as well, such as the ELN- People's National Liberation Army-. Note that this paper will be limited to discussing Las FARC due to its current high guerrilla profile.
The 80's also brought life to the Paramilitaries or “Autodefensas”, “self-defense”, groups. They are set to protect themselves from Las FARC “attacking without mercy.” Many were called “death to Kidnappers, Embryo, Small Fry and Black Faces” (Dudley, 67). Geoff Simons quotes that according to a United States Senate report, the cartel began paramilitary business when the drug lords of the Ochoa family paid $7 million “for the creation of a 2,000-man army equipped with the latest weapons” as one of the member of the Ochoa group was kidnapped by the then revolutionary group, the M-19.
FARC-EP:
Las FARC, who has been active since 1964, is a self proclaimed Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization.[1] Then a military wing of the Communist Party, it claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia’s wealthier classes and opposes the United States’ influence in Colombia… fighting against privatization of natural resources, multinational corporations, and paramilitary violence.[2] Many of Las FARC members believe that the U.S.’ involvement in Colombia- providing aid in military form and investing in agricultural production- has only intensified the country’s drastic consequences of uprising peasants and guerrillas violence. Its first two top leaders were Jacobo Arenas and Manuel Marulanda, who died this year of natural causes. Its Seventh Guerrilla Conference gave Las FARC the EP initials which stand as Ejercito del Pueblo, “Army of the People”, in 1982. It was also this conference that gave power to the weak military initiatives of its own in its early years.
In the early1980’s Las FARC was being idled by the M-19. The April 19 Movement, later became a political party known as the Alianza Democratica M-19. It was its “cool” attitude of stealing milk and food and handing them to the poor, that opaque Las FARC. Although against the will of the political party, Las FARC “began to kidnap for 'political reasons only” (Dudley, 51) as well as to tax drug traffickers. This was Las FARC’s way to raise money and invest it in the purchase of weapons to strengthen their army. Their VII conference also illuminated Las FARC to think long term. It was the beginning of the Ejercito del Pueblo- EP’s master plan: a great army with a multimillionaire budget. In 1982, due to the growing power of the guerrillas such as the M-19, Colombian president Betancur began peace talks with Las FARC.
The Result of these peace talks was the Uribe Agreement. It was a cease-fire between both sides; Las FARC would condemn and forbid “kidnapping, blackmail and terrorism in all its form” as the government would fight for better social and economic services for the Colombian people. It also facilitated the creation of the Patriotic Union or Union Patriotica- the UP. The UP would be “the mechanism by which Las FARC would enter the political mainstream” (Dudley, 46).
The UP and President Betancour's Uribe Agreement gave a growing authority to Las FARC that no other guerrilla possessed then. This empowerment led Las FARC to begin to break loose from the Communist Party. Comandante “Arenas, was positioning himself to head the entire organization... and his new created political party the UP-Union Patriotica, Patriotic Union- would be an integral part of this plan… a perfect opportunity [for Las FARC] to get ready for war” (Dudley, 54).
For other guerrillas and the paramilitary, the UP was Las FARC. Violence continued on the rise and “just two weeks before the UP's national convention [in 1986], forty rebels from the M-19 stormed the Palace of Justice... UP's leaders had already been assassinated and were getting harassed...” (Dudley, 84). Las FARC’s leader, Jacobo Arenas wouldn't run for president, instead the party would agree to put Pardo Leal. Arenas and Marulanda moved back to the mountains, Las FARC opted out. On Election Day, some of the young UP sympathizer shouted “Long live the FARC! Long live Pardo Leal! Long Live Marulanda!” The UP wouldn't win “but Las FARC had shown its political strength” as it earned 328,752 votes (Dudley, 88). Pardo Leal was later assassinated by a fourteen year old in October of 1987. “Drug lord Gonzalez Rodrigues, also known as ‘the Mexican’, was apparently involved in the murder as a sponsor” [3]
US Involvement
War on Drugs
Colombia’s drug production dates back with the United States marijuana boom in the 1970’s. It was U.S. growing hippie movement that created a consumer market for Colombia’s production. However, it switched to the larger profits that came from cocaine and heroin production and drug trade. “The illegal production and distribution of drugs has helped to fuel civil war, paramilitary terror and political repression in Colombia” (Simons, 66). Colombia’s three major drug cartels were associated with particular names: The Medellin cartel represented by Pablo Escobar, the Ochoa Clan and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, while the Cali cartel was led by Rodriguez Orejuela. Names like Escobar and Ochoa are worldwide known not only for their connections to drugs, but being among the richest men in the world as well. As already mentioned, the Ochoa family name was also associated with the creation of paramilitary army forces.
The pressures of poverty have turned peasants to cocaine production as it provided them with larger profits than regular crops. But it was also the crisis “in July of 1988 when the US, sensitive to alleged fair trade violations, suspended the international coffee agreement, which within two months ruined the economics of Colombia’s leading export”. This led to the increase and economic dependence of cocaine that brought altogether “rural and urban violence, corruption, rebels and paramilitaries factions able to tax drug revenues and the growing interference of US regional hegemony” (Simons, 133). The United States’ attitude towards drug trade in Colombia “is ambivalent and hypocritical.” The United States is known for its world police attitude of looking for excuses that would support its interventions into other countries. In Colombia “the ‘moral’ excuse is the trafficking [of] cocaine and heroin [that] provided all the advantages for a massive [U.S.] intervention in Colombian affairs…” (Simons, 11)
PLAN COLOMBIA: US Propaganda?
Under Clinton’s frame of the War on Drugs, Colombia became a laboratory for counterinsurgency. Since the mid 70’s the USA had helped Colombia with counter-narcotics assistance. By now the United States and Colombia have moved from the War on Communism in Latin America, to the War on Drugs. Continuing this counter-narcotic’s war, Bush Sr.’s administration’s next step was the creation of the Andean Regional Initiative in 1989. The Andean Regional Initiative rewarded $2.2 Billion to the Andean Region –Colombia, Bolivia and Peru- in military aid for a five year period. Colombia received an extra $65 million in 1990; a reward for Colombia’s ‘economic opening’. This ‘economic opening’ referred to Colombia’s “implementation of neo-liberal restructuring… and 100 US military advisers [were sent] to aid and assist Colombian security forces in their new counter narcotics role” (Stokes, 85). During Pastrana’s presidency the government of Colombia sought the United States’ international aid. Plan Colombia, as it was called, expected to receive aid from the United States that would complete the $7.5 million budget Colombia had planned it would cost to “address the country’s interwoven problems of extensive narco-trafficking, civil war and economic underdevelopment” for a three year period(Stokes, 92). Colombia would provide $4.0 million for a total of $3.5 million of U.S. expected be of assistance. However, on January 11, 2000, a United States response to Pastrana’s Plan Colombia proposal came with extras. For 2000 and 2001, a $1.3 billion was awarded in new military aid and police assistance[4].
As Simons noted, Clinton’s proposal was “yet another boost to Yankee imperialism.” Rather a call for war than for peace. Noam Chomsky best explained in his article The Colombian Plan for Z Magazine in June 2000 Las FARC reaction to Plan Colombia:
“The announcement of the Colombia Plan led to countermeasures by the guerrillas, in particular, a demand that everyone with assets of more than $1 million pay a “revolutionary tax” or face the threat of kidnapping (as the FARC puts it, jailing for non-payment of taxes). The motivation is explained by the London Financial Times: “In the FARC’s eyes, financing is required to fight fire with fire. The government is seeking $1.3 billion in military aid from the US, ostensibly for counter-drugs operations: the FARC believe the new weapons will be trained on them. They appear ready to arm themselves for battle,” which will lead to military escalation and undermining of the fragile but ongoing peace negotiations….”
In a March 2000 Communiqué, Las FARC explained that they have yet to “reach substantial agreements with the Government …because it is obvious that Colombia has two powers that are fighting head-on for the political direction of the country”. It also adds that “international corporations continue to exploit [Colombia’s] riches and the work of [Colombia’s] people”. It is also important to add Chomsky’s quotes from Klaus Nyholm, from the UN Drug Control Program, that:
“In some areas ‘[Las FARC] are not involved at all’ in coca production and in others ‘they actively tell the farmers not to grow’ [coca].” And Marulanda has also announced “a development ‘plan for the peasants’ that would ‘allow eradication of coca on the basis of alternative crops.” Still, “the targets of the Colombia Plan are guerrilla forces based on the peasantry and calling for internal social change, which would interfere with integration of Colombia into the global system on the terms that the US demands; that is, dominated by elites linked to US power interests that are accorded free access to Colombia’s valuable resources, including oil.” (Chomsky, 8)
During a televised interview reported by the Financial Times, at a round table discussion, “a FARC spokesperson ‘put forward one of the clearest visions yet of his organization’s economic program,’ calling for freezing of privatization, subsidizing energy and agriculture as is done in the rich countries, and stimulation of the economy by protecting local enterprises” present in this table were several trade unionists and Sr. Marulanda together with other FARC members. (Chomsky, 7)
There has been other ways in which the United States has been involved in the War on Drugs in Colombia. “The wife of Colonel James Hiett pleaded guilty to conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Colombia to New York, and shortly after it was reported that Colonel Hiett, who is in charge of U.S. troops ‘that trained Colombian security forces in counternarcotics operations,’ is ‘expected to plead guilty’ to charges of complicity”( Chomsky, 7). Also and most recently, McCain’s campaign backer Carl H Linder Jr. paid hundred’s of thousands of dollars since 1997 to the AUC- the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The AUC, a descendant of “Muerte a Secuestradores (death to Kidnappers, MAS), is a Colombian right wing anti guerrilla group which is also in the list of terrorist groups. Then top executive of Chiquita Brands, Hinder and the firm “admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a 25 million fine.” Before Chiquita’s contributions to the AUC, Chiquita’s used to make similar financial assistance to Las FARC and the ELN guerrillas. “Those payments ended in 1997 as ‘control of the company’s banana-growing area shifted’ to the AUC.”[5]
So one asks the question: how is the Colombian government targeting the Paramilitary? It is not. Colombia’s Paramilitary forces have openly expressed that seventy percent of its funding comes from the drug trade. Some Paramilitary groups have actually started as an army protection for narco-traffickers as it also goes the other way; the paramilitaries become narco-traffickers. As Aldo Civico stated, Director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Colombia University, during an interview on July 8th 2008, Colombia’s government uses the media to demonize Las FARC and frames the “paramilitary as a necessary evil” to fight Las FARC. Uribe’s government has been criticized to be linked to the right-wing paramilitary. These ties might very well come from his family past of land-owning class. Uribe, a Harvard graduate, “grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, three of whom became leading players in Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cocaine cartel.” And when Director of Civil Aviation, it is said that he used his “mandate to issue pilots’ licenses to Pablo Escobar’s fleet of light aircraft, which routinely flew cocaine to the United States”. There is also the fact that his father, Alberto Uribe was “subject to an extradition warrant to face drug trafficking charges in the United States until he was killed in 1983, allegedly by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.”[6] Is this why Uribe has launched such an aggressive offensive against Las FARC? Before answering this question, I will move on to discuss how the War on Drugs change its name to the new “in” term, the War on Terror.
War on Terror
After September 11, 2001 the United States Bush Administration launched its War on Terror. It was no longer the War on Communism or the War on Drugs, but the War on terror that involved the USA in Colombia’s Civil War. Now under the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI) the United States continued to send “$367 million in military aid and $147 million in social and economic aid to Colombia” (Stokes, 105) in 2002 alone. The language has shifted from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism.
Las FARC was nominated by as the “most dangerous international terrorist group based in the Western Hemisphere” By Attorney General John Ashcroft in March 19 2002. [7] On June 2003, a new plan was launched by the United States backed Colombian government called Plan Patriota or Patriot Plan. This new plan was a disguised or a second part of Plan Colombia to target the rebel group as terrorists. “The Patriot Plan signals the entrance of the United States into a new, more intense phase of military involvement in Colombia’s internal armed conflict… the most ambitious counter-insurgency offensive ever…”[8] There is not much change from Plan Colombia to Plan Patriota. Both received financial support from the Unites States and both target Las FARC, just under a new name. United States military and police aid remains in the $600 million dollars a year together with about 900 military personnel as part of their counterinsurgency and antinarcotics maintaining Colombia as the top American military ally in Latin America.[9] However, to add to the new 2003 funding year, the ARI package contained “$538 million with a component that will send $98 million to a new Colombian military unit trained to protect the 500-mile-long Cano Limon pipeline owned by the US multinational oil corporation, Occidental Petroleum” (Stokes, 107). According to the table provided, military and police aid decline for about $171,074,294 or a 28 percent drop from 2007 to 2008. However, the budget is expected to increase by about 21 percent for the year of 2009. From 2004 to expected 2009, the total United States amount of military and police aid to Colombia totals over $3.3 billion.
POWER OVER LAW
The United States’ power goes above the law as long as it is convenient to the U.S. It has gone as far as to waive the Leahy Provision which was meant to prevent security assistance from going to human rights abusers which was said to not be subject to a waiver:
[On] August 22, 2000, President Clinton waived the human rights conditions that were an integral part of U.S. security assistance to Colombia. His signature meant that lethal weaponry, intelligence support, and counterinsurgency training supplied by the United States would flow to Colombia's military even as many of its units worked with the paramilitary groups responsible for massacres and widespread terror. Human Rights Watch disputes that the national security interest of the United States would be jeopardized by the enforcement of human rights conditions on U.S. security assistance to Colombia. The fight against criminals and human rights abusers depends on the rule of law.[10]
The United States has also violated the law by “supporting the campaign to spray toxic chemical and biological agents on agricultural land” (Simons, 286) in Colombia. Noam Chomsky and Cabasso have both noted the relation between human rights violations and foreign aid. Cabasso in specifics explains that weapons went to governments considered by the State Department to have “poor” human rights records.[11] This is the case with Colombia and United States military aid towards the country’s internal security.
Human Rights
Violations
Human rights abuses have been committed in Colombia since the Spanish conquest and the injustices of “feudal Colombia [that] stimulated the popular appetites for reform and revolution until, in the post war world 2, the country collapsed into civil war, the brutalities and exploding drug culture and all the pressures and tensions of an escalating foreign intervention .” Human Rights profile of Colombia has been under continuo pressure. It is “Intimidation, forced displacement, terror, extra-judicial execution, torture, kidnapping, massacres, government repression, death squads, bombing, chemical warfare- social chaos and suffering that continue to rack a country” (Simons, 132)
Colombia continues to have a wide range of abuses as results of the armed conflict. “Of 2104 serious violations of international humanitarian law in 1998, recorded by Centro de Investigacion y Educacion Popular, some 1479 were carried out by the paramilitaries, 531 by the guerrillas and 92 by the army” (Simons, 157). This is equal to 70% of human rights abuses committed by the Paramilitary, the “necessary evil” the government needs to fight against Las FARC, and about 25% by the guerrillas and the rest 5% by the army.
These human rights violations by the paramilitary have also targeted the UP to weaken the power of Las FARC political form of expression. Since its founding in 1885, “the Patriotic Union, UP, 777 party activists had been assassinated”. In addition, “more than 100 trade unionists [were] killed during President Gaviria's first year in power. The number of political murders, still rising, reached 4430 in 1992” (Simons, 136). Many human- rights activist have also been targeted by such violence. “In January 1992, Blanca Cecilia Valero, who had worked for many years as secretary of the Barrancabermeja-based regional Human Rights Committee, despite constant intimidation, was shot dead by two men as she left her office.”(Simons, 139)
Carlos Castano, Leader of the AUC, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia, now a days an umbrella organization of about seven [paramilitary] groups, claimed in one occasion that the death of 42 people from the Uraba town by kidnapping was an error, that “our military force had grown enormously, and sometimes the men used the weapons for bad purposes” (Simons, 140).
Children are also a target of guerrillas, police and paramilitary’s terror. They are either being killed and routinely being recruited for combat. Little bells or campanitas as are called by the Paramilitaries or little bees, or abejitas called by the guerrillas make up to thirty percent of some guerrillas unit. They are being recruited as young as “twelve years old” and used to “collect information, make and lay mines and even ambush enemy patrols”. “Human Rights Watch found in 1998 that 7,685 children (under 18) were serving in the National Police, 7,551 in the army 338 in the air force and 83 in the Navy.” The police are known for recruiting “seven-year-old to work as ‘little patrollers’ and many of the children are expected to work in war zones” (Simons, 146).
Forced displacement as a result of Colombia’s civil war has topped Colombia to the largest internal displacement after Sudan with a cumulative total of about 3.7 million displaced persons from 2003 and 2005. The Paramilitary is said to force placement in order to enlarge their wealth through acquired land.[12] Just in 2005, over 150,000 persons were forcibly displaced in the first six month of the year and increase of seventeen percent from the same period in 2004. [13] As families witness killings, deaths and executions in their towns, such as that of a teacher “Maria Torres in El Salado, Bolivar, they are forced to abandoned towns and leave behind their houses and belongings” (Simons, 147)
As these families are forced to move, many end up moving to urban cities. Here they live under poverty and lie “trapped in -another- world of crime, exploitation and violence” (Simons, 146). Many are peasants and rural families whose education is limited and therefore unable to compete in the labor force. Other are just forced to live in camps where the population “lacks access to basic health, food, housing and educational services, and with serious overcrowding” due to lack of clean water adequate food and medical care” (Simons, 149).
Las FARC has also been cited with several massacres such as at “Finca Osaka (14 February 1996; ten men and one woman taken from a bus and executed at the side of the road)” (Simons, 143). According to Interpol, in the last 10 years, Las FARC has perpetrated 16,500 terrorist attacks, murdered 7500 people and kidnapped more than 12,000.[14] Kidnapping puts Las FARC in the mouth of everyone as it relies heavily in such to be able to fund its activities. Their most famous hostage yet: Ingrid Betancourt, on February 23 2002. Then senator, Ingrid was campaigning to president when she was kidnapped together with her campaign manager, Clara Rojas. But a new “firm hand” has brought an end to her hostage’s years.
“A Firm Hand and a Big Heart”
Uribe’s Administration
In concurrence with the War on Terror were the elections in May 2002 of right wing independent candidate Alvaro Uribe. A candidate welcome by the Bush administration and called ‘Colombia’s George W. Bush’ by The Wall Street Journal; and whose “firm hand and big heart” campaign slogan has led to his strong offense and intensified military operations against Las FARC, seeking its defeat.
In its first efforts during Plan Patriota, Uribe’s security strategy redirected Las FARC to implement its “Plan Resistencia”… “by withdrawing into the jungle and executing a temporary halt in its lager scale attacks.”[15] Most recently, however, Uribe has challenged Las FARC endurance by it largest accomplishments in this present year, 2008.
In March 1st 2008, an attack to a Las FARC camp inside Ecuadorian territory resulted in the death of over 20 people including Las FARC International Spokesman and second-in-command, Raul Reyes. Considered then the biggest blow against Las FARC which was followed by the death of Ivan Rios, another member of Las FARC leadership less than a week later;[16] the attack was condemned by Ecuador and Venezuela that led to a clash in diplomatic ties between Colombia and Ecuador. I now ask if the attack is viewed as a step towards overpowering Las FARC, why does Ecuador feels so hurt? It was Colombia’s violation of International Law, and possible a proof of mistrust towards the Ecuadorian Government as Colombia progressed on to attacking the rebel group without informing Ecuador. Ecuador might respond with “imposing trade restrictions on Colombia.” [17] As of date, both country have not come to resume diplomatic ties.
During the rebel camp raid, Interpol cites that the eight computers found had more than 600 gigabytes of data, including: 37,872 written documents, 452 spreadsheets, 210,888 images, 22,481 web pages, 7,989 email addresses, 10,537 multimedia files (sound and video), and 983 encrypted files.[18] Among the files is said to be evidence that link Ecuador and Venezuela to Las FARC.[19] The computers files “show the Quito government had improper contact with rebels about a possible hostage release” to which Ecuador’s foreign minister, Maria Isabel Salvador announced that “she wants the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, to investigate everything possible about the situation and make the appropriate determinations about the computer data. Also there is said to be evidence of Las FARC ties to the Venezuela government was that the country was planning to “give $300 million to the leftist guerrilla” although all the allegations are denied by the Chavez government.[20] In addition to this it appears as if Mr. Chavez offered Las FARC “an oil ratio which they could sell for profit and small arms, such as rocket-propelled grenades.” [21] In January of this year, 2008, Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez were handed over to the Venezuelan government. This was a liberation triumph for Chavez who stated “will continue opening the way for peace … we are ready, and in contact with the FARC.” [22] Chavez humanitarian work was a way to showing president Uribe that there is no need for force and to bring more dialogue to the table.
It appears as if the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez has changed his mind regarding Las FARC. After calling president Uribe a “liar, Imperialist and Killer” and advocating for Las FARC to be called “legitimate belligerents”[23] and maintaining his long “strong verbal supporter of the Colombian rebels”; Chavez has now called for a release of “all (Las FARC) hostages without conditions as a humanitarian gesture.”[24] I discussed such with Aldo Civico, and he added that aside from the speculations that it is possible due to actual Chavez’s ties with Las FARC, however, he believes it is more due to the fact that Venezuela will be conducting its country’s elections in November and indeed Chavez needs to “tune down its extremist behavior and also avoid U.S. pressure and to maintain his good relationship with the region.” As of Friday July 11, Venezuela and Colombia are said to repair its ties after months of threatening to cut back trades and Venezuelan troops being in the border between both countries. Such need of repair is for the benefit of both countries: trade.[25]
Interpol teams of forensic experts that examined each of the eight computers concluded that “there was no tampering with any data n the computer exhibits following their seizure on March 1st 2008 by the Colombian authorities.” There is “no evidence of modification, alteration addition or deletion” in any of the memory devices. Interpol also stated that the [Colombian] police acted professionally, honorably and effectively” [26]
Operacion Jaque.
Operation Check, Jaque, as in checkmate in Spanish, has been the most talk about celebrated liberation operation in world. It took place along the “Apaporis River in southern Guaviare province, long a FARC stronghold”. It was no “battle victory” as no attacks were made such as the one last march. Las FARC most valuable captives, Ingrid Betancourt and the three Americans, military contractors Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves were among the fifteen rescued hostages on July 2 2008. During the operation, Colombia’s military intelligence was able to “infiltrate Las FARC’s top hierarchy, the secretariat. A government mole had been able to convince those bosses to transfer Betancourt and the 14 other hostages to Las FARC new number one leader, Alfonso Cano.” The unit led by Comandante Cesar fell for the disguise of the Colombian government commando and gave the hostages to them to be freed in helicopters.[27]
The Hostages celebrated and thanked the Colombian government and greeted the country as they replicate Colombia’s intelligence: “We are the army, you are free”. After their health was examined and found in good health, Betancourt flew to France and reunited with her family; the three Americans were taken to a military based in The USA were their health was also examined and found in good standing. The rest of the hostages were also examined and reunited with their families.
The operation was tremendously aided by the ability that US-Colombian operations had to intervene in satellite communications. According to an article by the Associated Press, the operation began when a phone made by Nancy Conde in 2003, was intercepted when she was “calling confederates in Miami to see if they could supply the rebels with some satellite phones.” The US law officers were able to arrest the Miami contacts who to receive reduced sentences opted to contact Conde with an “FBI front company.” The company then provided the rebels with “wiretapped sat-phones and other compromised telecommunications equipment that threw the rebels off balance and eventually helped authorities strangle their supply lines” for the following years. About “5000 phone calls were then intercepted” and investigated that helped with the major blow on July 2nd. During the five years operation named “Alliance”, Las FARC not only discussed its “finances, but also food, weapons and medical supplies”. Conde was arrested in February 2nd this year, 2008, as she was about to enter Venezuela where she was intended to give birth. Thirty-nine other members were arrested including a Cuban doctor and three of Conde’s female deputies.[28]
Las FARC released a communiqué “signed July 5 that appeared on the Website of the Bolivarian Press Agency” stating that “the escape of the fifteen prisoners of war" on July 2 "was a direct consequence of the despicable conduct of Cesar and Enrique, who betrayed their revolutionary commitment." Both Cesar and Enrique boarded the helicopter that rescued Betancourt, only to be arrested. “Cesar and Enrique are among eleven suspects indicted in Washington in last September on charges of conspiracy to provide support to a foreign terrorist organization;” group that involves Conde. The United States is seeking their extradition. Las FARC also announced that it still seeks agreements to swap hostages for imprisoned rebels “independent of whatever political or military confrontation where there are victories and reversals.”[29] About 700 hostages are still being held by Las FARC. Its willingness to work towards peace talks shows proof that Las FARC new Commander, Alfonso Cano as Die Tageszeitung said “will want to secure promising conditions for a dignified pullback.” World’s most famous hostage, Ingrid Betancourt is now free; and western hemispheric oldest and most powerful terrorist group is considered to have been weakened by the intimidating attacks it has received in this year alone. Is Las FARC coming to an end? That’s the question everyone asks. Las FARC has decline is combatants from “20,000 a decade ago to about 10,000 today” and the death of Raul Reyes and death of leader and founder Manuel Marulanda together with the lost of their ace under the sleeve “points to a defeat Las FARC wont recover from”.[30] However, a solution has yet been found. As Aldo Civico suggests, “Las FARC pride and history” won’t allow for a full disarmament and/or surrender of the guerrilla. A “hard talk” as Michael Shifter, vice president of InterAmerican Dialogue in Washington suggests in Time’s article, won’t work if everyone goes into the table with the hope to “fracture and fragment even more”, Las FARC. But as Aldo Civico explained, negotiations hold the piece to try an understanding in between. Both have to be willing to work together to avoid a strong asymmetry from the government as it hopes to negotiate to Las FARC surrender. Just as Betancourt mother commented to Time before her daughter’s rescue I wonder “why dialogue is so impossible for all sides in this tragedy.”[31]
No matter what, the social inequalities that brought Las FARC to unite still exist; “the richest three percent own seventy percent of the arable land; fifty-seven percent of the people subsist on three percent of the land, while the richest one percent of the population controls forty-five percent of the wealth.”[32] Despite the US-Colombia war on drugs, other results have long lasting consequences such as its “fumigations sprayings have disastrous results, frequently killing legitimate food crops and endangering the health of Colombian communities.” In addition, Colombia’s Coca production has actually seen an increased in the past year. Even though Colombian government has engaged in hard eradication of coca programs, USA Today reports that according to a UN report dated June 18th 2008, peasants devoted 27% more land to growing coca last year.[33]
In the weekend of July 2nd, McCain visited Colombia to discuss McCain’s and Uribe’s “support to free trade and relations with the crucial ally; but Mr. Obama oppose it because of workers’ fears about job losses overseas and American labor’s concern over the killing of union leasers in Colombia.”[34] This is only a speculation of what could come about depending on which American candidate win the upcoming elections.
Conclusion
In retrospect, Colombia’s civil war has taken a toll of over 40,000 lives in the last decade alone.[35] Teachers, students, peasants, unionists, community activist and every citizen in Colombia for that matter have been victim of violence in this country. As “strong hands” come along, peace talks of efforts have become less attractive and therefore difficult to achieve. The war on drugs and on terror would hit big before its end. Colombia’s citizens are warriors that defend their beliefs to the extreme. They are trained through the difficulties they have endured their entire life.
A victory for Colombia can only mean a victory for its ally the United States. This victory boosted US confidence to show the rest of Latin America and the world that US strategies work. This years sequence of events are said to justify its years of U.S. military aid to Colombia and those that would continue. The United States has moved a giant step towards its free trade agreements with Colombia as well as the war on terror. Its “National Security Doctrine” as its known in Latin America, which is not concerned with “defense against an external enemy but rather the internal enemy” has scored and can only grow to the benefits of “military operations –which, incidentally, happen to benefit the high-tech industries that produce military equipment” (Chomsky, 11). It is also a way to protect Colombia’s natural resources such as oil as Colombia figures in top fifteen countries that provide crude oil to the United States (refer to table at the end). Part of US Aid to Colombia has been assigned to protect Occidental Petroleum’s pipeline in Colombia as stated before.
Colombia has definitely learned from US intelligence, force above law accomplishes more. President Uribe must be laughing in the back of those who believe that negotiations hold the key to the end of Colombia’s civil war. But there is still much to talk about. How soon would it be for the indefinitely end of this war? Does the elimination of the guerrillas guarantee and end to the paramilitary and drug trade? Why not shift military aid towards real aid that would alleviate the 2/3 population that lives under poverty in Colombia? To these are questions only the future holds the answers.
Works Cited
Civico, Aldo. Personal Interview. 08 July 2008.
Chomsky, Noam. The Colombian Plan. Z Magazine June 2000.
Simons, Geoff. COLOMBIA: A Brutal History. London: SAQI, 2004
Dudley, Steven S. Walking Ghosts: murder and guerrilla politics in Colombia. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Stokes, Doug. America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia. New York: Zed Books, 2005.
[1] Wikipedia: FARC-EP
[2] Wikipedia: FARC-EP
[3] Wikipedia: FARC-EP
[4] See Appendix 1 and 2 of Geoff Simon’s book: Colombia: A Brutal History.
[5] The Huffington Post, July 2 2008: McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group in Colombia
[6]
[9] New York Times, July 13, 2008
[10] <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/4.htm> Human Rights Report, 2001.
[11] Redefining Security in Human Terms, Jacqueline Cabasso.
[12]
[14]
[16] Wikipedia, FARC-EP
[17] VOANews.com, 4 June 2008: Colombia Delays Resumption of Ties with Ecuador.
[18] <>
[19] VOANews.com, 4 June 2008: Colombia Delays Resumption of Ties with Ecuador.
[20] VOANews.com, 2 June 2008: Ecuador Seeks Probe of Colombian Rebel Documents.
[21] www.economist.com, May 22nd 2008: The FARC Files
[22] www.washingtonpost.com January 11 2008: Colombia Rebels Release two Hostages to Venezuela.
[23] Univision, Spanish News, July 6th 2008.
[24] VOANews.com, 9 June 2008: US Urges Chavez to Match Words on Colombian Rebel with Actions.
[25] < http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/11/venezuela.colombia.ap/index.html>
24 <http://www.interpol.int/public/icpo/speeches/2008/sgbogota20080516.asp>
[27] http:www.time.com Wednesday July 2 2008: Colombia’s Stunning Hostage Rescue.
[28] Associated Press: US, Colombia Choked Rebel Communications Network.
[29] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/contnt/article/2008/07/11/AR200871101856.html
[30] www.Time.com Wednesday July 02, 2008: Colombia’s Stunning Hostage Rescue.
[31] www.Time.com Wednesday July 02, 2008: Colombia’s Stunning Hostage Rescue.
[32] www.socialismandliberation.org
[33] http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-06-18-cocacolombia_N.htm
[34] www.nytimes.com July 2, 2008: Improve Human Rights, McCain Tells Colombia.
[35] http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/colombia/topten.html
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