John R. Thomson & Dorotea Laserna
The past few months have been a heady time in Colombia. It all started in February when an estimated 10 million citizens throughout the country demonstrated against the ongoing murderous activities of the nation’s guerrilla organizations, principally the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Ejército de Liberacion Nacional (ELN).
In March, three of the FARC’s seven directors, known by their aliases as Manuel Marulanda, Raul Reyes, and Ivan Ríos, died. Reyes was killed by the Colombian military and Rios was murdered a few days later by his security chief. Marulanda, the FARC’s founder, soon died of a heart attack. Shortly thereafter, two senior FARC comandantes voluntarily surrendered. FARC guerrilla ranks have plummeted from more than 25,000 to less than 8,000.
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Most recently and in spectacular fashion, the Colombian military humiliated the country’s largest terrorist group with the bloodless rescue of 15 high-profile hostages on July 2. The daring helicopter mission, in which seven specially trained, unarmed troops impersonated guerrillas and foreign mediators (a doctor, nurse and the crew remained in the chopper), completely outwitted 60 FARC guards, incurring no injuries on either side and without a shot being fired. The dramatic rescue has seriously weakened the support base of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and his fellow leftist presidents in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, all former FARC supporters. Opposition demonstrations have so seriously undercut their domestic support that Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa suddenly nationalized the country’s two leading television stations on the pretext of their owing the government substantial funds. The action triggered the resignation of the country’s finance minister and brought thousands of citizens into the streets, undoubtedly bringing him closer to removal from office.
Less radical Latin American heads of state have taken pains to congratulate Colombia’s president, effectively negating the anti-Uribe attacks urged by Chavez at the infamous March and May meetings of the leftist Sao Paulo Forum co-founded by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, which includes eight leftist presidents, plus FARC and ELN representatives. Significantly, Chavez has suddenly agreed to a long-proposed rail link between Venezuela and Colombia, and Lula da Silva will visit Colombia later this month to celebrate Colombia’s independence, when the same group that organized the massive February demonstrations plan more popular antiterror manifestations.
The run of success for President Uribe and the Colombian military follows years of pressure, particularly from overseas, to negotiate with the FARC. Even evidently friendly foreign leaders seemed to be telling the president to deal with the terrorists. Captured FARC computers reveal that shortly after taking office in 2007 the government of Nicolas Sarkozy paid the terrorists several hundred thousand dollars for the release of Colombian-French former leftist presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The FARC took the funds and kept Betancourt.
A year ago Uribe seriously pondered changing his policy and holding direct, mediated, public contacts with the FARC, with the objective of exchanging their hostages for government prisoners. Although he knew that every negotiation with the FARC had failed miserably, Uribe was considering reversing his longstanding position of combating the guerrillas until they sued for peace. Fortunately, trusted strategists convinced the president to at least postpone any change.
Then, in July 2007, the FARC slaughtered ten elected officials they held prisoner, buried them in the jungle and gave the Red Cross their location. This was more than enough to convince Alvaro Uribe to stand firm and continue his relentless pursuit of the terrorists.
In an exclusive interview at military headquarters on July 8, Freddy Padilla de Leon, commanding general of Colombia’s armed forces, explained Operation Check (for the penultimate chess move before achieving checkmate) that rescued the 15 kidnapped individuals, including three American civilian trainers and 11 Colombian soldiers.
Phase I included intercepting and confusing FARC communications so that their leadership was unwittingly involved in the operation plus comprehensive training (manual combat, guerrilla dress and acting lessons, which included mimicking FARC members and pacific non-Colombian personalities participating in former rescue missions, plus a Cuban “adviser”). All 60 FARC guerrillas guarding the prisoners were so completely fooled, that the planned 7 to 10 minute rescue mission encountered no problem, although the rescue party was on the ground a seemingly endless 22 minutes.
Phase I of Operation Check focused on rescuing the 15 hostages and taking the two senior FARC captors. Phase II provided the ultimate proof of the Colombians’ humanitarian strategy.
