Tag Archives: Columbia

The Multiple Risks of the Colombia-FARC Agreement

On September 23, the drug trafficking, money laundering, extorting criminal organization known as the FARC achieved something not in their grasp for their last forty plus years of insurgency. By an agreement reached between them and the Colombian government led by President Juan Manuel Santos, they will be given political legitimacy and the ability to run for office.

Negotiations are still ongoing and a final peace accord is not expected to be reached until March 2016, as there seems to be a number of problems to be resolved in the next six months.

The agreement establishes a justice mechanism to try the crimes that have been committed in the last half century that left more than 220,000 people dead and more than 7 million people negatively affected in one way or another.

These trials are supposed to apply not only to members of the FARC but also to Colombian security forces, paramilitary and even politicians and businessmen.

Those trials would focus on the most heinous crimes such as kidnappings, extrajudicial executions, forced displacement, torture, violence, rape and recruitment of minors.

Punishments for those found guilty may vary according to the attitude of the criminal. If the suspect acknowledges his responsibility early on he could spend between 5 to 8 years undergoing rehabilitation and re-socialization. This basically means performing some kind of community service while avoiding any prison time.

Those who acknowledge their responsibility late could spend between 5 and 8 years in jail. Those who refuse to cooperate or acknowledge any crime could spend up to 20 years in jail if they are found guilty.

These measures are supposed to be overseen by Colombian and some international judges.

Key issues such as disarmament of the guerillas and how such disarmament would take place has not been resolved yet. In addition, the Colombian government and the FARC have reaffirmed their commitment to take the following steps:

  1. To carry out an agrarian reform to solve the problem of land conflicts
  2. To secure political participation of the FARC in the democratic process
  3. To eliminate armed conflict, altogether
  4. To eradicate and substitute illegal crops (coca) and to fight against drug trafficking.

Despite, the jubilant reaction of President Santos to the agreement, as he expressed it in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the situation is well more complex.

First a final peace agreement must include the implementation of the disarmament of the FARC and also its cessation of drug trafficking activities. As easy as it sounds, weapons and drug money are two key instruments of FARC power since their legitimacy among the people is minimal. As the FARC enters the political process and people remember the dark period of FARC terror, its chances to win elections will be less than minimal. It is difficult to imagine FARC idealistic fanatics giving up their armed power and the wealth produced by the drugs.

Furthermore in both cases the FARC has support outside the borders of Colombia. The FARC is already involved in drug trafficking with Venezuela. Most of the cocaine that leaves the ports and airports of Venezuela involve the FARC. The FARC produces 70 percent of the total Colombian refined cocaine and controls the shipments of drugs out of Colombia.

Even if coca production is eradicated in Colombia, the FARC drug trafficking know- how remains in place. Venezuela or other elements could still make use of the FARC in trafficking operations and use its skills to help shipments and refinements of coca from Peru and Bolivia. In fact, the FARC has made a lot of money by taxing those who use certain routes for the trafficking of coca.

Furthermore, if FARC members wish to escape punishment based on the transitional justice accord, why would they confess their crimes and face justice? They could well use their criminal skills to help other drug trafficking operations in the region or continue to work with the still existing gangs with whom the FARC has worked with all these years. It is known that in the central and northern parts of the country the FARC has worked in partnership with criminal organizations.

These criminal organizations are not bound by the agreement so the FARC can continue to benefit from these partnerships.

In addition, Venezuela can also smuggle weapons to the FARC. Let us remember that the FARC received Russian weaponry from Venezuela.

In other words, the mechanism of monitoring and verification must be very comprehensive. Colombia may need a lot of international help, particularly from the United States.

Instead of congratulating Santos for this dubious deal, the U.S. should make sure that the loopholes are being properly addressed based on the problems described above.

As per the agreement on transitional justice, it is important to anticipate multiple conflicts and disagreements as the process moves forward. First, trials are likely to generate resistance on the part of the FARC, former Para-military and the military. The FARC is likely to try to establish moral equivalence between its crimes and the crimes of the military. In fact, the transitional justice agreement de-facto acknowledges moral and legal equivalence between the FARC and the military.

Without denying the fact that the military violated human rights, the institution is still seen by Colombians as a key body in fighting anarchy and chaos. Therefore, this moral equivalence does not only reflect surrender to the FARC’s demands but also gives a green light to the narco-terrorist organization to refuse any cooperation with the authorities unless the military is also punished. Thus, there is likely to be a conflict based on “you go first” and as a result the truth and reconciliation expected may go nowhere.

We are likely to see many FARC criminals resorting to all kinds of methods to prove their innocence. Threats to judges, to witnesses and other acts of intimidation and revenge including assassinations may take place. Should this type of atmosphere prevail, it is likely that no crime at all will be tried.

Colombia may want to give peace a chance but it is important to warn the people of Colombia and the U.S. government that these negotiations could become a big fiasco. Here we are not talking just about the collapse of an agreement. This will be the collapse of the rule of law and democracy as the old ghosts of the anarchical and dark 1980’s and 1990’s may resurface with a new civil war.

It is no wonder that Santos is seriously considering eliminating a promised referendum on the matter. He has been opposing a referendum since earlier this year and early in September he even called such referendum a “suicide”. It is likely, that Santos’ opposition to a referendum may be a condition imposed by the FARC because of fear that a public debate may negatively affect the results of the “deal”.

Santos is well aware of how the recent public debate in the U.S. on the Iran deal exposed its’ flaws. In addition, Santos requested the Colombian Congress to confer him powers to quickly implement these agreements. Why the rush? Because of the same reason: the more the issue is debated, the more these agreements will lose legitimacy and credibility. Thus, the agreements will be imposed on the Colombian people instead of allowing them their rightful participation.

This agreement gives a new boost to the FARC at a time when their commanders and fighters are in decline. It is important to remember that former President Alvaro Uribe reduced their ranks by half while also ultimately disarming the Para-militaries. He remains adamantly opposed to this deal.

While working towards a solution to a long running conflict is an admirable goal, a leader must consider the nature of whom they are dealing with. The FARC is a well- organized criminal organization that runs a successful drug trafficking operation that generates billions of dollars. What they have not been able to achieve in their almost half century of operation is participation in the political process. It is likely that after this agreement becomes law that the FARC will divide itself into a political wing financed by an ongoing drug trafficking wing.

Santos, whose “pacifist” attitude is also the result of the pressure from the left-wing regional governments, is now on the good side of Maduro, Castro and Rousseff but far, far away from the Colombian people.

The Meaning of Venezuela’s Aggressive Moves Against Colombia

According to many analysts, the Venezuelan government has now lost its legitimacy. Its insistence on following its failed economic policies while promoting criminality instead of the rule of law and jailing its opponents while rigging its computers so as to commit electoral fraud has led many observers to conclude that Venezuela is no longer a functioning country. From now onward, its modus operandi is simply to survive and maintain power. Keeping the Bolivarian Revolution alive has always been the driving force of the Venezuelan government. The well being of the people was just an excuse that gave legitimacy to the new revolutionaries.

The evils and flaws of the regime are now quite apparent. However, there are those that still support the regime such as the nomenclature, the circle of people that surrounds and empowers the regime; the opportunists who have benefited from their association with the regime and became rich in the process (e.g. the boliburguesia); and those poor people that remain grateful to the Bolivarian regime for distributing government handouts.

Of course, this may not be enough to help the Venezuelan government survive through the next election.

Currently, the price of oil is at $40 a barrel. The Venezuelan government has designed its budget based on at least $60 a barrel. The country has lost its productive capacity. Scarcity of basic products has been a serious problem for the long-suffering Venezuelan people. Given the limited reserves available to  the Venezuelan government as a result of having destroyed their productive apparatus and having spent enormous amounts of money on populist policies and foreign aid there is currently not even enough to import what the Venezuelan people need. In response, the Venezuelan government is resorting to fascist methods such as falsely accusing opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez of creating chaos in an already chaotic, insecure, and criminal country.

Another of Nicolas Maduro’s tactics has been to brazenly accuse innocent Colombian refugees living in Venezuela of smuggling and has proceeded to deport them in the most degrading circumstances. The world saw shocking images of hundreds of Colombians with families and little children crossing a border river carrying refrigerators and heavy household items, as well as animals.

The accusation is that they smuggle goods, import poverty to Venezuela, and enable the infiltration of Colombian para-military into Venezuela. However, there was also a bold attempt to blame Colombian foreigners for the Venezuelan economic deterioration. Thus, it declared martial law in all the municipalities bordering with Colombia.

The actions taken by the Venezuelan government with respect to Colombia are not only morally deplorable but also absurd and cynical in themselves. First the only paramilitary group that has entered Colombia is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the narco-terrorist Colombian guerrilla group that is friendly to the Venezuelan government and hostile to the Colombian one.

However, the main point here is that Maduro needed to find a scapegoat and used Colombia and Colombians to cast aside blame from himself for the disastrous state of present day Venezuela.

Unfortunately, the government of Colombia under the leadership of President Juan Miguel Santos formerly sought reconciliation with the Venezuelan government, supported the government of Venezuela in international and regional forums and accepted a dialogue with its arch enemy, the FARC mediated by Venezuela (and Cuba). The latter move was fully supported by the Obama Administration.

Now the government of Colombia, to no surprise, has been betrayed by the government of Venezuela in what is clearly a foretold situation.

What is worse, the organization of American States (OAS) voted against a Colombian proposal to have a meeting to discuss the border situation and the deportations.

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has delayed discussion of the issue. The “humanitarian and compassionate” left sided again with the Maduro government even as human beings were suffering as a result of discrimination policies.

Thus, the Santos Government has appealed to the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights of the OAS, which is willing to consider the case. Santos finds himself alone again in a continent whose behavior is sickening. The Colombian Foreign Minister, Maria Angela Holguin, pledged not to remain silent in the face of Venezuelan behavior and will appeal to the United Nations and other international bodies.

We would hope that Santos now realizes that his policy of reconciliation with the FARC and Venezuela is nothing but a dangerous illusion. As such it needs a serious re-evaluation. The Maduro government has appealed to the most unacceptable methods to save itself and in the process has betrayed the Santos government. Will the stubborn President Santos learn the lesson? We only hope.

This is only in anticipation of what the upcoming Venezuelan legislative elections on December 6 are going to be: a huge fraud likely to be followed by a popular rebellion.

Of course, this is also going to be a challenge for the Obama Administration.

Obama’s policy of complacency with a group of countries that do not share any values of democracy and human rights needs to stop. . So far, Obama’s policies have been an attempt to adapt to the spirit of the new Latin America. Nothing embodies this spirit more than UNASUR, which has supported the Maduro regime and displayed disregard for the democratic charter of the Organization of American States. Will the Obama administration continue to follow the Latin American and UNASUR wind and continue with its’ efforts to reconcile with the narco-authoritarian state of Venezuela that is also allied with the Hezbollah terrorists? Will it continue to endorse the failed Colombian policy of cooperation with Venezuela and the FARC?

If the current Iran deal experience has taught us anything it is that official U.S. foreign policy requires strong Congressional and public scrutiny. The constitutional tradition that assumed that the executive branch is well equipped and wise enough to make autonomous decisions on foreign policy is under serious question now.

Major crises are now affecting many of the counties of Latin America. The Brazilian, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Argentinean economic and political crisis could well lead to the entire questioning of the regional ideology embedded in UNASUR. To conduct a regional policy aimed at complying with the current spirit in Latin America as the Obama Administration suggested, is not only dangerous but obsolete as well. We need to remain faithful to our values of democracy and human rights and not throw a lifeline to repressive, corrupt regimes that also work against our national security interests, such as Venezuela.

The Danger of Negotiating with the FARC

In spite of its geographical proximity to the U.S. homeland, events in Latin America usually get sparse coverage in the American press.  Therefore, last week’s visit to Washington by Colombia’s president, Manuel Santos and his meeting with president Obama was hardly noticed.

The main highlight of their visit was president Obama’s reiteration of his support for Colombia’s “peace process”, namely the negotiations with the guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

President Obama’s support was not surprising given his inclination to always endorse negotiations. This is particularly relevant when the meeting with Santos took place a little more than a week after the signing of the polemical interim agreement with Iran.

We agree with the president that negotiations should always be the first resort and should be fully exhausted before the next step is taken. However, it is vitally important to check if the other side has undergone an evolution that can make a negotiation successful.

As Fox News journalist K.T Mc Farland recently pointed out “when Nixon reached the historic agreement with China, (and) when Reagan reached the historic agreement with the Soviet Union…  what those two breakthroughs had in common was the men at the top in China and Russia, were both willing to change course”.

Can we say that the FARC leadership whom President Santos is now in the process of negotiating with meets these criteria?

It is true that in the past democratic governments in Latin America reached agreements with guerilla groups that later were integrated into the democratic process. This includes Colombia, which negotiated a successful peace deal with the guerilla group “M-19”. However, the difference is that M-19 at the very beginning of the negotiation unilaterally renounced armed struggle. By contrast the FARC has still to do it two years after negotiations began.

Moreover, it is important to stress that the FARC is a narco-guerilla organization that has fought a nearly fifty year armed insurgency against the Colombian government using tactics of asymmetric warfare. The FARC is actively engaged in drug trafficking (its chief source of funding), extortion, kidnapping and generally terrorizing the Colombian population by carrying out massacres and murder of innocent civilians.

Under the leadership and direction of former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, the ranks of the FARC were reduced by half, its’ landholdings diminished and many of its top commanders were killed.

By substantially weakening the FARC, the Uribe government was able to restore a sense of security and stability to the country, unknown there for decades.

The question is why when the FARC has been considerably weakened does the current president, Manuel Santos want to make a deal with such an organization instead of trying to further decimate their ranks and continue the successful policies of his predecessor.

This question is even more relevant in light of the fact that the FARC has duped the Colombian government in past peace agreements, i.e. with former president Andres Pastrana who gave the group a vast tract of land inside the country that they used to their advantage to further build up their forces.

It is instructive to see how the current negotiations have evolved. The Colombian government and the FARC agreed to negotiate on the following points:

a) Rural development and agrarian reform. Here, the Colombian Government expressed its commitment to allow more access to land and infrastructure to those rural populations that currently do not benefit from quality services and that have been displaced from the land.

b) The disarmament of the FARC. This has been a key demand by the Government of Colombia.

c) Putting an end to the armed conflict. Here the final objective according to President Santos is to guarantee that future conflicts should not be solved via violent means.

d) The termination of the FARC drug trafficking activities- the objective is to reduce drug trafficking and to deprive the FARC of its most important source of funding. The FARC will be requested to eradicate cultivation of cocaine and eliminate labs.

So far the Government and the FARC have come to terms on only three points out of the 27 they agreed to negotiate. After almost two years of negotiations the parties only agreed on the need for agrarian reform. But even on this point the situation remains highly problematic.

As an example, last May 26 President Santos welcomed the agreement with the FARC over agrarian issues. Two days later the FARC assaulted a milk farm, blew the farm’s installations, and murdered its administrator in front of his wife and two children along with one employee. This was one of several incidents in the area aimed at intimidating and terrorizing the population. This puts into question the credibility of the FARC. In addition, their actions do not really benefit the peasants, the group whose interests the FARC claims to protect.

In terms of the other points no agreement of any kind has been reached.  Is it conceivable that the FARC would ever agree to disarm itself when it continues to use violence as a means to achieve its objectives or that it would give up its drug business, which constitutes their main source of funding?

Common sense tells us otherwise and the Colombian people seem to know that the Colombian government’s demands will never be met by the FARC.  Indeed, Santos’ popularity is at a 30% low. Only 23% of the Colombian people believe that the negotiations will come to fruition and less than 30 percent believe that the FARC will ever abandon their arms.

The FARC is aware of the people’s skepticism. Indeed, last August negotiations entered a crisis because the government said that any agreement reached with the FARC would be subjected to a referendum. Immediately, the FARC rejected that proposal.

Still the Colombian government insists that Colombia needs to negotiate since the country  “needs to find a solution to this problem”.  According to Humberto De La Calle, Colombia’s chief negotiator, “this is the moment to say that peace should stand above differences”.

This was a weird remark given the difficulties the government faces when trying to make the FARC agree on any minimal demand.

Moreover, as we pointed out in a previous article, the FARC has been part of the Chavez-founded Bolivarian Continental Coordinator or CCB), which later changed its name to the Bolivarian Continental Movement (MCB). The CCB/MCB views violence as a crucial and necessary component to achieve its goals.  In one of its statements the CCB pointed out that “The Continental Bolivarian movement is a means to promote the cause of the big nation” envisioned by Simon Bolivar”. Translated this means a country that constitutes both Venezuela and Colombia as part of the Bolivarian state.

Since being weakened and having their numbers reduced by close to half, the FARC has shifted a good deal of their operations to Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Their drug trafficking operations will most likely continue but under the name of a different group. This will give them the funds to finance their political campaigns inside Colombia as well as political outreach in other Latin American nations. What the FARC wants most is political legitimacy in order to run for municipal, state and federal offices and thereby weaken Colombian democracy from within, something they have been unable to accomplish during fifty years of insurgency.

The FARC is also working with other clandestine groups in the region. One of them is the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP). Most recently, the EPP carried out a major attack following the FARC blueprint. They abducted security guards at a ranch, freed a supervisor, who then rushed to inform the authorities, and then they ambushed the police officers when they arrived. Five people were killed.

According to a New York Times Report the EPP “is evolving from a ghostlike irritant for the authorities in Asunción, the capital, into a broader security threat in a backcountry that is already a hub for traffickers of marijuana, defiantly cultivated here on sprawling plantations, and Andean cocaine smuggled into Brazil and Argentina”.

Likewise, the group has intensified its operations, terrorizing the population, and killing peasants accused of collaborating with the authorities. Likewise, like the FARC they are beginning to control more and more territory in Paraguay itself and have managed to elude the Paraguayan government’s efforts to hunt them.

It seems that Santos underestimates the ideology and deep beliefs held by members of the FARC. Does Santos really believe that after fifty years of terrorism against the Colombian state and their close alliance with the late Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution that all of a sudden they will become law abiding citizens sharing the same goals and aspirations of most Colombians?

The fact that the Colombia-FARC negotiations are taking place under the auspices of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Cuban government makes the entire enterprise even more problematic.

We assume that one of the reasons Santos agreed to negotiate with the FARC under the sponsorship of these rogue states is because their status has been enhanced in the continent. They have more international influence than conservative democratic countries such as Mexico or Colombia itself.  In addition, the influence of the U.S in the region is declining. Santos felt that negotiating with the FARC was a way of breaking its isolation in the region. However, the only result of this process will be that the FARC will be given legitimacy, the group will be removed from the terrorist list, will continue to undermine the Colombian government, and serve the expansion of the Bolivarian revolution.