Recent events indicate Colombia’s insurgency weakens
James W. Bodden
Honduras This Week
For over half a decade, the
asymmetric confrontation between
Colombia’s armed forces and the
country’s multiple irregular guerrilla
outfits have constructed a
complicated conflict machine,
fuelled by rural social resentment
and lack of economic integration,
the lucrative narcotics trade, and
the intransigence of the principal
factions of this theatre of war, the
narco-guerrillas, ultra-conservative
paramilitaries, external
regional security services, and the
Colombian political and defence
apparatus.
International Crisis Group, a
renowned international research
and advocacy institute for conflict
prevention and crisis management,
has released a definitive
report on the current status of the
Andean country’s ongoing conflict,
“Colombia: Making Mi l i tar y
Progress Pay Off.” The report
details the security forces gains
over the narco-rebels, specifically
FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, Peoples Army),
and advocates a holistic strategy to
strengthen their newfound advantage.
Colombia’s president, Alvaro
Uribe, has adopted a highly militaristic
security policy, engaging the
insurgents directly and merging his national ‘Democratic Security
Doctrine’ with Washington’s ‘Plan
Colombia,’ uniting efforts and
resources to combat both the drug
trade and the country’s internal
conflict, recognizing that the
phenomena of the irregulars was
intrinsically linked to the narcotics
trade. ICG concludes that Uribe’s
crusade to destroy or demobilize
the guerrillas by means of iron and
gunpowder is succeeding, “Almost
six years of intense security operations
against the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia by
the administration of President Álvaro Uribe are beginning to
produce tangible results…. and
have severely disrupted insurgent
communications, prompting a loss
of internal cohesion and decreasing
illegal revenues.”
President Uribe has taken
on the rebels at the expense of
regional international support for
his campaign against FARC; his
conviction to maintain a hard-line
posture toward the rebels comes
from his ideological position
that this is an illegal insurgency,
contrary to historic models of
legitimate resistance movements, “Uribe…has consistently defended
the view that Colombia is a democracy,
where any non-violent political
group has the option to seek
power through peaceful political
activity, which removes the justification
of armed revolution.” Mr. Uribe stated his position clearly
during a European tour, “In other
Latin American countries guerrillas
fought dictatorships and did
not finance themselves with drug
trafficking money … any use of
force for ideological, political or religious
reasons against democracy is
terrorism….moreover, these groups
kidnap, recruit children, murder
children… and use landmines.”
His convictions have come at a
heavy diplomatic cost, the March
attack on a FARC base in Ecuador
prompted Colombia’s dual condemnation
in the Organization of
American States (OAS) and the Río
Group.
The outlining issue of Colombia’s
ongoing hopes of a prisoner-forhostage
exchange revolve around
discussions for the creation of
a demilitarized zone from where
formal negotiations between the
parties would occur, “Uribe…has
shown no flexibility towards the
fundamental FARC demand for
a demilitarised zone (DMZ) in
Florida and Pradera municipalities
(Valle del Cauca department)
in which to negotiate the swap,
although he has indicated a willingness
to accept smaller areas
for talks under Church or other
neutral party control. Sources close
to the government say Uribe fears
the zone would be perceived as a
political defeat and would allow the
FARC to regain political visibility.” The Catholic Church’s proposition
would create a Zone of Encounter
of 150 sq. km, in an area of low
population density, where there is
no active presence of military or
police forces.
The FARC threat has been
decreased substantially by government
operations, their numbers are
diminishing; ICG’s report evidences
that in 2002 the outfit commanded
18,900 irregulars, compared to
between 9,000 and 11,000 in 2007,
with only ten of its 71 fronts and
units regularly active. The organizational
structure and operational
capabilities of the guerrillas
have forced them to evacuate their
agents from large urban areas and
reinstate them to their dwindling
rural militias; they are operating
in small bands to avoid detection,
devoid of their militaristic wears,
combatants without uniforms.
Down but not out, FARC has not
been conclusively defeated yet,
but its armour has been cracked, “While initial operations forced the
FARC into a “strategic retreat” and
prevented it from launching larger
attacks and accumulating forces,
the government believes its recent
attacks are prompting internal collapse. The unprecedented death
of two members of the FARC
Secretariat, Reyes on 1 March and
Iván Ríos on March 7th, are milestones
in the long conflict. FARC’s
once stable command structure is
believed to be faltering. The death
of Ríos at the hands of his own men
is a clear reflection of the loss in
internal cohesion.
Moreover, security force sources
say that the lack of internal communication
due to military pressure
and technical surveillance … As
morale crumbles, government
officials believe, political and ideological
fissures will widen within
the FARC leadership, prompting
power struggles which could lead
the organisation to slowly fracture
or even implode.”
FARC’s High Commander
Manuel “Tiro Fijo” Marulanda,
an old tiger of the Cold Wars, has
made an open call to his irregular
forces to mount a ‘general offensive’
against the Colombian government;
but his roar is not what it used to
be, many believe the tiger has been
defanged.
The International Crisis Group’s
report demonstrates compelling evidence that the Democratic
Security Doctrine is working at
breaking the country’s largest
insurgent group. It also suggests
that military operations alone will
not create the conditions for longterm
stability and full demobilisation
of irregular forces. Its conclusions
are multifaceted; recommendations
include a strong regional
diplomatic initiative, full civilsociety
integration of rural areas,
and the establishment of a negotiation
zone for a prisoner-for-hostage
exchange, as necessary steps to seize the results of the military
advantage and move forward to
consolidate gains and work at
establishing peace, “Devising
strongly conditioned political incentives
to advance the hostages-forprisoners
swap with the FARC,
including either internationally
monitored demilitarisation of
Florida and Pradera municipalities
or another area of similar size that
would serve as the site of negotiations…
on the basis of a prior
agreement with the FARC that
the hostages and prisoners would be released during that period;
engaging Ecuador immediately and
Venezuela subsequently in order
to reinforce border cooperation
and prevent the use of sanctuaries,
including by enhancing the communications
and helicopter mobility of
the new OAS monitoring mechanism;
redesigning the role of the
group of friendly countries (Spain,
Cuba, Brazil, as examples) by
giving it a limited mandate specifically
for the hostages-for-prisoners
swap and calling on Brazil to
assume a leadership role.” |
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