New Colombian President May Seek Force To Target FARC Leaders

Summary

The lame-duck status of Colombia's President Andres Pastrana gives little credibility to his recent assertion that a special force has been created to locate and neutralize the country's top rebel commanders. It is possible President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez might develop a similar initiative with the Bush administration's support, but even if it were successful, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would still survive.

Analysis

With fewer than 40 days left in power, Colombian President Andres Pastrana June 29 announced a new offensive to capture or kill the top leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group. In a nationally televised speech, Pastrana said a special joint command comprising members of the military, police and secret service has been created whose sole mandate would be to take out the FARC's leadership.

Pastrana also offered rewards of up to $2 million per head for senior FARC leaders like Manuel "Tirofijo" Marulanda and $1 million per head for commanders of the various rebel fronts. But the fact that Pastrana's announcement failed to immediately generate any public statements from the FARC, Colombia's army, President-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez or the Bush administration indicates that Pastrana is no longer a serious player in the Colombian conflict.

Pastrana's announcement of a special joint command to target the FARC's leaders is not credible considering that as a lame-duck president, he has lost much of his power. In fact, his speech likely was a response to charges that his government is doing nothing to protect thousands of locally elected or appointed government officials who have recently been threatened with assassination by the FARC if they don't resign.

Nevertheless, government sources in Bogota told STRATFOR July 1 that Uribe Velez, who takes office Aug. 7, would likely create the same kind of force Pastrana has discussed if the Bush administration agrees to provide such a unit with the critical transport, communications and intelligence support it would need to achieve its mission. The idea of a joint U.S.-Colombian command to help hunt down specific individuals in Colombia was tried successfully a decade ago and likely would appeal to Bush administration policy makers who view drug trafficking and political terrorism as inter-related threats to the American homeland.

In 1993, the U.S. government clandestinely deployed military and intelligence assets in Colombia to help the government of then-President Cesar Gaviria hunt down feared Medellin cartel drug lord Pablo Escobar. At the same time, U.S.-generated intelligence on the Medellin cartel that was given to the Colombian government was leaked by officials to a paramilitary group that called itself "Persecuted by Pablo Escobar," or Pepes.

The Pepes then used the U.S. intelligence to systematically locate and kill hundreds of Escobar's associates until Escobar himself was cornered and shot dead by Colombian government forces on a rooftop in Antioquia department in December 1993. The Pepes were commanded by Fidel Castano, the (now presumed dead) elder brother of Carlos Castano -- who currently commands the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary.

Escobar's death in 1993 finally broke up the Medellin cartel, which in the 1980s had controlled over 80 percent of the Colombian cocaine trade, but it did not have any lasting impact on drug supply or the purity or price of cocaine in Colombia or the United States. In fact, after the Medellin and Cali cartels were dismantled in 1993 and 1995, respectively, the Colombian drug trade was taken over by the FARC and between 200 and 300 small drug-trafficking groups that continued expanding Colombia's coca and poppy crops and opening dozens of new global distribution routes.

STRATFOR is not suggesting that a new U.S.-backed joint Colombian force would inevitably result in clandestine collusion between some Colombian government officials and paramilitary forces in an effort to systematically neutralize the FARC's leaders with U.S.-supplied intelligence and other support. However, given Colombia's history of surreptitious cooperation between the army and the AUC in fighting the rebel problem, what happened a decade ago when Escobar was being hunted could easily happen again.

Moreover, although the systematic elimination of its top leaders and front commanders could disrupt the FARC, the group likely would not disappear because the social, political and economic forces that sparked its creation would not change. The issues of land distribution and agrarian policy that fueled the FARC's creation nearly four decades ago remain unresolved. Poverty and population displacement continue to generate new recruits for the FARC, as do the semi-condoned paramilitary violence and the eradication of high-value coca crops without adequate economic substitutes.

The FARC has flourished in Colombia because of the nature of Colombian society. Since the forces lined up against the FARC do not under any circumstances support the reforms needed to change this society, the FARC will retain its social foundations even if its current top leaders are arrested or killed.

FYI.

It looks as if a new "Search Bloc" is being created. The original took down Pablo Escobar, and in combination with the fore-runner of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, it gutted the Medellin Cartel, and took it all the way down.

This is a good sign. Uribe is SERIOUS. I just hope Congress gives him the aid he needs.

Thanks for the ping hchutch. FARC is a real enemy to freedom and we need to confront these groups before they become too powerful and too pervasive. FARC long ago passed that bar.

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