New Rebel Group in Ecuador Claims Ties to FARC

Summary

A little-known group calling itself the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Ecuador has taken credit for two bombs that exploded recently in the coastal city of Guayaquil. The FARE could be a front for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) or a stand-alone group. Either way, its emergence suggests the Colombian conflict soon will affect U.S. personnel and assets outside Colombia.

Analysis

A group that calls itself the FARE has claimed credit for two small bombs that detonated in the port city of Guayaquil Aug. 28, damaging a McDonald's restaurant and several buildings. In a statement distributed by e-mail on Sept. 11, the FARE claimed its members were trained by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and it promised more violence in Ecuador, including threats to assassinate corrupt politicians.

Very little is known about the FARE. It is not clear whether the group actually exists or is a FARC cell seeking to frighten Ecuadoreans into rejecting their country's assistance to U.S. forces involved in the war on drugs and rebels in Colombia. However, if the FARE does exist as a separate entity, it could indicate that Colombian rebels are reaching out to like-minded supporters in neighboring countries in an effort to turn the Colombian war into a regional conflict. And if the FARE indeed was responsible for the recent bombings in Guayaquil, it would suggest that the group has sufficient reach to attack political and economic targets in Ecuador's major urban centers, such as the capital city of Quito.

With the first round of Ecuador's presidential elections scheduled for Oct. 20, the government of lame-duck President Gustavo Noboa cannot dismiss the FARE's e-mailed threats as a hoax meant to destabilize the country politically. Several candidates -- including two brothers of former presidents, two coup leaders, an artist and a banana tycoon -- are vying for the presidency. And if any of these candidates is attacked or killed by groups claiming to belong to the FARE, it could influence the outcome of elections in a country where most voters do not support free-market policies, and where deep political divisions exist between the ruling elites in mountainous Quito and coastal Guayaquil.

The first known mention of the FARE apparently surfaced two years ago in graffiti scribblings that appeared in Lago Agrio, the capital of oil-rich Sucumbios province in northern Ecuador. At the time, government and military officials said the FARE appeared to be modeled after the FARC and reportedly numbered up to 400 Ecuadorean and Colombian fighters. Officials in Quito were either unable or unwilling to provide more information about the group.

Although the FARE has been blamed for several attacks against oil infrastructure in the past two years, Ecuadorean authorities have never actually linked the group to these attacks. In fact, the FARE has maintained a very low profile and has not been connected to any of the numerous killings in Sucumbios or the lawless provinces of Carchi and Esmeraldas, which border Colombia. Nor has the group been linked to drugs- or weapons-smuggling in the border regions.

If the FARE is indeed responsible for the recent attacks in Guayaquil, it would represent a significant leap forward for a group that until now had been isolated in part of northern Ecuador and had shown little propensity for political proselytizing or sabotage. The choice of Guayaquil for the inaugural bomb attacks also suggests the group may have ties to criminal drugs- and arms-smuggling gangs, including the FARC, in that city.

Ecuador's coastal region is heavily populated with immigrant Arab merchants. Guayaquil, where customs officials are famously corrupt, is also a major hub for smugglers of dry goods, illegal immigrants, narcotics, precursor chemicals, weapons and explosives. This makes Guayaquil important to Colombian groups like the FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN), both of which likely have ties to the city's criminal underworld.

The FARE shares some interesting characteristics with another shadowy group, the Bolivarian Liberation Front (FLB), that recently surfaced in Venezuela. According to news reports from Venezuela's border states with Colombia, the FLB includes up to 2,000 fighters trained by the FARC and ELN.

Both the FARE and FLB say they are receiving training, weapons and logistical support from the FARC in Colombia, although FARC spokesmen have dismissed these claims as false. Both the FARE and FLB also claim to be defenders of indigenous rights and revolutionaries. Finally, while both groups claim to be real, their existence has yet to be verified.

Nevertheless, even if the FARE and FLB prove to be FARC front groups posing as new entities, their emergence would suggest that Colombia's largest rebel army might be developing capabilities to attack U.S. targets outside Colombia and to spread confusion and disinformation meant to destabilize the region even more.

We are blessed to live in interesting times. And Ecuador is one of the most interesting, and beautiful, countries on an interesting and beautiful continent.

Leftist populism is the norm in latin countries, it is the air they breathe. Almost all high school and college kids get caught up in the populist demonstrations that are the norm, inpired and sometimes led by their professors who are almost uniformly leftist in orientation.

Mostly its harmless, just a rite of passage, something all kids do. But there are shadowy organizations that form that mostly the good kids instinctively shy away from, who attract the more serious kids, the more radical kids, the kids who are looking for something and not finding it.

These are gateway organizations, and the kids who are drawn into them are soon drawn into some serious stuff. In video tape of demonstrations you see a few kids among the thousands of non-violent, harmless ones, packing .22 pistols and firing them at police. The police, out of fear of hurting civilians, mostly endure these potshots without returning fire. And are occasionally hurt, occasionally killed.

Ecuador is a key player in the weapons traffic for the FARC guerrillas. This trade involves generals, customs officials, politicians. It is a very good business.

A congressman was assassinated a few years ago for his involvement with the FARC. He evidently was involved at several levels, recruiting young Ecuadorians into his gateway organizations, obtaining passports for FARC members, smuggling. He was gunned down in broad daylight by a Colombian paramilitary hit man, in an attack that, to me, appeared to have been clearly facilitated by the Ecuadorian military intel people.

Clearly, how, you ask? The hitter left the country without any problem. The inside man in the congressional office was gunned down by a SWAT team in his underwear, and the only people to face trial were gophers who knew nothing.

The FARC uses Ecuador as its secure area. Ecuadorian police admit this. They told me, we see them, we know who they are, but as long as they don't show their weapons, we leave them alone.

The FARC keep their families on the Ecuadorian side of the line. They cross to do their grocery shopping, get supplies, hit the bars, eat in a restaurant, visit the brothels, before returning to the fight.

The paramilitaries do the same, and occasionally a gunfight breaks out when the two bump into each other at the same restaurant.

For oil workers in the area, it is a nightmare. There have been two high profile kidnappings in the last couple of years.

A Spanish tourist who was swept up in one of the raids, and eventually released without ransom, reported that the members of the group were young kids, Ecuadorians, Colombians, and Peruvians. They were not hardened, they treated their captives with utmost of respect. But they were very adept in their jungle skills, that they moved easily and constantly through the jungle. In his opinion, despite the manhunt involving hundreds of troops, they would never be found.

He was right. Eventually the ransom was paid, after some 5 months or so. And the captives released right where they were taken.

A year later another raid took another dozen oil workers. They entered the camps with lists of names, with room numbers, and rounded up their captives.

After months of searching, without finding them, again the ransom was paid. A story released to the public was that US Navy Seals, this time, had been dispatched and had found the camp, and had the order to attack, but that night the deal was struck, and so the rescue was called off.

Ecuador's indigenous tribes are very politicized, both the Andean and the Amazonian tribes. European NGO's work with them, advising them in political action, and they have become very aggressive in confronting the government.

Indeed, it was an alliance between the Andean tribes and some Chavist officers that brought down the president a couple of years back.

He was elected at a moment in which the country was utterly bankrupt and unable to even pay its government employees. It is an oil country, but the government could not pay its oil workers, could not afford to refine gasoline, and the country was shutting down.

His plan was to invite foreign oil companies to invest. US, Italian, Spanish, and Argentine oil companies all came forward.

The national currency was in free-fall. He replaced it with the US dollar. Mind you, the upper classes had always based their contracts on the dollar; his action extended this advantage to the lower classes.

This inexplicably enraged the Andean tribes, who teamed with a group of young officers on Chavez' payroll (Chavez, leftist president of Venezuela) and overthrew the president.

The Army's high command intervened, and took control of the coup, and handed power to the elected vice president who returned the country to constitutional rule. And continued his predecessor's policies.

But the efforts to expand the oil industry has been stymied by tribal organizations working with environmental organizations, both of them using demonstrations and lawsuits to stop the industrial expansion.

Labor unions have acted to stop the sale of government cement plants and power plants that are losing money.

The unifying element in all of this is the presence of foreign NGO's working with the locals to stop any attempt at liberalization and modernization.

So, between the leftists, the Chavist officers, the politicians working with the FARC behind the scenes, the leftist academics recruiting for the FARC, we see one of the most beautiful countries in the world in the process of destroying itself.

"The first known mention of the FARE apparently surfaced two years ago in graffiti scribblings that appeared in Lago Agrio, the capital of oil-rich Sucumbios province in northern Ecuador. At the time, government and military officials said the FARE appeared to be modeled after the FARC and reportedly numbered up to 400 Ecuadorean and Colombian fighters. Officials in Quito were either unable or unwilling to provide more information about the group.

Although the FARE has been blamed for several attacks against oil infrastructure in the past two years, Ecuadorean authorities have never actually linked the group to these attacks."

_________

Follow da oil! Venezuelan/OPEC free market privateering destroying and detering competitive oil production. Probably with help from other countries in the same position.

Terrorists Operating in Ecuador (Al Qaida no less) (April 18)

Al-Qaida and Middle East terrorists are operating near Ecuador's borders with Peru and Colombia, and Ecuador needs U.S. help to combat them, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Thursday.
"We have got in the tri-border area a bit of a problem with al-Qaida itself and some Hezbollah elements," he told the House Appropriations' foreign operations subcommittee. "We do need cooperation."

I don't know about Qaeda, but placement of Iranian or Lebanese Shiite "businessmen" in these and other South American areas operate as Hezb sleepers, providing intel and support for terrs. Chavez is probably involved, or at least Cuban Intelligence, working for its new partner/master - Iran.

Last note - follow the OPEC news. Venezuela is the biggest proponent of restricting production. Fits perfectly with Iranian/Arab designs- while they speed to produce new production capacities, Venezuela wallows, Castro helps Chavez organize his goon squads, Ali Rodriguez gets his payoffs or whatever he's receiving.

"Ecuador's coastal region is heavily populated with immigrant Arab merchants."

Stratfor mentions this, but doesn't follow thru, though they know something is up. A little P.C.?

My first question would be - how many are Shi'ites from Lebanon, who can claim Hezbollah affiliation as a natural part of being from Lebanon as a cover story. Hezbollah serves as an extension of Iranian intel.

Simple foreign policy for a country almost wholly reliant on oil, and not fettered with P.C.

Deter production and development in actual or potential competitors - like Colombia, Ecuador, Caspian region, by supporting violence funding or creating local terr groups.

and

Subvert competitors, like Venezuela, by coopting corrupt locals, like Chavez and Ali Rodriquez. They too have a cover story of "social justice" or other fashionable lefty shibboleths.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.