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FARC Gets FARCed

FARC Gets FARCed
April 6, 2008: FARC, the leftist terrorist organization in Colombia, has been trying to overthrow the government since the 1960s. It has failed, and is in the process of being destroyed itself. In the last few years, it has lost over half its armed strength, and much popular support as well.

This began when, over the last decade, FARC turned into an ally of the Colombian drug gangs that dominate the world cocaine trade. FARC needed the money, as its revolution was faltering. People were getting tired. As a result, FARC has come to depend on kidnapping, and cocaine to pay its army of gunmen. But in the last six years, most Colombians have turned against FARC, no longer believing that the rebels stood for social justice. The government has capitalized on this. Using several billion dollars in military aid, Colombia has taken advantage of FARC's weakness. In the last five years, FARC has lost over 8,000 armed members to capture, surrender and desertion (that the government knows of) and over 7,000 were killed in combat. Many other FARC members of died of disease, or just walked away. Five years ago, FARC had about 18,000 gunmen, now it has half that. In the same time, government security forces have grown from 200,000 to 300,000. This is a stunning reversal, because five years ago FARC was talking about increasing its strength to 50,000 and taking on the army for complete control of parts of the country. But in the last few years, FARC has been seen kidnapping teenagers and forcing them to serve. The volunteers are of lower quality, and the number of police informers is way up.

Since March, FARC has lost two members of its seven man ruling Secretariat. The other five are old, and the senior leader, Pedro Antonio Marín, is in poor health. Optimism has been replaced by paranoia. FARC has executed hundreds of its own members in the last year, on suspicion of being government informants. There are many spies within FARC, but the most valuable source of information for the government has been the electronic monitoring equipment, and techniques, supplied by the United States.

Over the last five years, FARC has been declared an international terrorist organization and lost much of its formal support from leftists around the world. Extreme leftists still support FARC, but this is more a liability than an asset. Some of the senior commanders still strive to turn Colombia into a communist dictatorship, but most have turned into gangsters. The government increasingly treats FARC just like the other drug gangs. FARC must now act like one, using fear and terror to extract support, and recruits, from the population. That's not a long term formula for success. FARC has now met its most formidable enemy ever, and it's FARC.

( http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20080406.aspx )

By DodgerDogs on Apr 6, 2008, 10:26 in Politics & the war.

DodgerDogs says on Apr 6, 2008, 10:30:

Will Colombia ever defeat the Farc ?

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.Martin Luther King:

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Simon says on Apr 6, 2008, 13:39:

You bet it will....and sooner than you think!

"Just an honest, decent Colombian trying to do the right thing."--Simon

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romy says on Apr 6, 2008, 14:01:

Simon, how soon?

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DodgerDogs says on Apr 6, 2008, 14:05:

It would be nice if it happened today.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.Martin Luther King:

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eywed says on Apr 6, 2008, 14:18:

long time in coming with the blood of alot of good policemen and armymen along the way.

Ay Hombe!!!!!

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Juanes says on Apr 6, 2008, 15:48:

i dont think uribe can defeat the FARC or bring them to justice,etc without the help of Presidente Chavez....at least he is trying to talk with them and probably has had more positive impact than the plan colombia military high spend route...like with the IRA & ETA , the only way forward is negotiation of some kind not down right elimination.

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Juanes/

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bamacellist says on Apr 6, 2008, 16:37:

The idea of peace talks is much complicated by the idea of talks over the exchange of prisoners for hostages. They are sometimes discussed as quite discrete entities and other times without apparent recognition that they may be separate. I haven't seen Chavez offer anything remotely connected with an actual peace initiative and he has engaged in many different kinds of rhetoic which could be seen as an impediment to peace. I say this because it is of course true that in the end the Farc will not be exterminated i.e. "each and every last one of them killed", but at some point will have to agree to give up the fight and Chavez is encouraging them to keep at it. It's not even necessary to bring up the computers, I'm talking about his cheerleading for the Farc and the accompanying discrediting of Uribe. He has been an enormously counterprodutive force in achieving dialog between the Farc and the Colombian government. It's clear the most they can expect from Uribe is asylum and/or reduced sentences but they're not going to be handed any free keys to power, and that's a pretty legitimate position for Uribe to take. Until the Farc agrees that's sufficient for them, the conflict will continue.

"The future is much like the present, only longer."

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b bruce says on Apr 9, 2008, 22:26:

I have been following the news out of Colombia closely since the raid in Ecuador. The Miami Herald does a pretty good job covering what goes on in Latin America. There was a small article out of Caracas that said that the Laptop computers captured by the Colombian military could not have survived that attack. Then over the next two weeks there were articles of Interpol capturing the Russian arms dealer who sold weapons to the FARC in Thailand. Then two homes were raided in Ecuador and Mexico where large amounts of money were found and discovered to be FARC safe houses. Well it looks to me those Laptops were in good working order because things went fast forward after the attack. Viva Colombia!

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