March 26, 2008  The Editors of ECrisis post in full this preliminary analysis of the kabuki theatrics called crisis in the Andes, also called a pre emptive cover up by Rafael Correa and Hugo Chavez for their state sponsorship of terror. We believe this is the best analysis to date and commend the author and his group.

We note that this is but a virginal effort even as we note that daily the international media brings forward more and more facts about the criminal cartels run by Correa and Chavez. We do not know who will write the final story but we have hope that when the final story is written that justice will be done- not another foolish political cover up, also called OAS diplomatic resolution or political solutions, as currently being promoted. Somehow we find that the tens and tens of thousands dead by the hand of the very criminal FARC should not die in vain but that justice be done- not willy-nilly but in full faith.
 
We also would add that this article forgets to include UN Resolutions 1540 and 1566 to which Ecuador and Venezuela are signatorees along with numerous OAS binding agreements against terrorism. Radu does reference  UN Resolution 1373 as binding in these matters. Currently the Correa regime in Ecuador wants you to believe that UN Resolution 1373 does not apply to them on the fake theory that the UN does not detail the FARC specifically in 1373. This is of course more desperate hair splitting and diplomatic theatre by Correa and Chavez- as if. We remind that 1540 and 1566 are also in play.  The OAS seemingly wants to forget its own recent work and now pretends to call the FARC not terrorists, for they are, but irregulars. Irregulars that are in reality terrorists.
 
We hope you will enjoy this in full. We did. It is the best yet analysis. Sadly, you will find nothing factual about all this in the very sullied and stupifyingly ineptly complicit with Correa and Chavez Ecuadorean media.

-The Editors of ECrisis
 
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VICTORY FOR COLOMBIA, THEATER IN CARACAS
by Michael Radu

March 25, 2008

Michael  Radu,  Ph.D.,  is  Co-Chair  of  FPRI's  Center  on
Terrorism,  Counterterrorism,   and  Homeland  Security.  He
recently completed a book manuscript on Islamism in Europe.

          VICTORY FOR COLOMBIA, THEATER IN CARACAS

                      by Michael Radu

On the  night of  March 1,  the  Colombian  military,  in  a
brilliant land  and air  operation, obliterated  a terrorist
camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia--People's
Army (FARC)  one mile inside Ecuadorian territory and killed
Luis Edgar Devia Silva, better known as Raul Reyes, a member
of FARC's seven-member Secretariat, and 22 others, including
a number  of foreigners,  at least  four of  them  Mexicans.
Seven days  later in  central  Colombia,  the  bodyguard  of
Manuel de  Jesus Munoz  Ortiz,  a.k.a.  Ivan  Rios,  another
Secretariat member,  surrendered to the government, bringing
with him the severed hand of his boss, whom he had murdered,
and claiming  the $2.5  million reward on his head. Thus, in
less than  a week  FARC lost two top leaders in combat after
four decades  in which it has never lost one. In both cases,
the military  also captured  laptops (three on Reyes, one on
Rios) full of explosive political and military information.

The operation  against Reyes,  because it  took place inside
Ecuador  and,   secondarily,  because  it  resulted  in  the
wounding of one and the deaths of four Mexicans, resulted in
a brief  but noisy  international incident  with interesting
implications.

To begin  with, the  ostensibly  aggrieved  party,  Ecuador,
found out  about the  event from  a call Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe  placed  to  his  colleague  in  Quito,  Rafael
Correa, informing  him and  apologizing  for  the  technical
infringement  of   his  country's  sovereignty.  Since  such
incidents, albeit  much smaller,  have occurred  before, and
during previous  governments Ecuador  itself has closed some
100 FARC camps, matters could have rested there, were it not
for the  noisy intervention  of  Venezuelan  President  Hugo
Chavez, a  supporter of Correa, sworn enemy of Colombia, and
FARC sympathizer.

Chavez appeared  on TV  to threaten  Colombia with  war if a
similar attack ever took place inside Venezuela, ordered the
deployment of  10 armored battalions to the border, withdrew
his ambassador to Bogota, and warned that he may nationalize
Colombian businesses  in Venezuela. Meanwhile, Ecuador broke
diplomatic  relations   with  Colombia,   in  which  it  was
immediately imitated  by another  fully owned  subsidiary of
Chavez, Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, and demanded an emergency
meeting of  the Organization  of American  States (OAS). The
latter  complied,   and  on  March  5  condemned  Colombia's
violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty, without even mentioning
the extensive  presence of  FARC in  Ecuador, which has been
declared a  terrorist organization by the European Union, UN
and  the   United  States.   Nor  was  UN  Security  Council
Resolution 1373  mentioned.  That  resolution  requires  all
nations to  "deny safe  haven to  those who  finance,  plan,
support, or  commit terrorist acts." Significantly, with the
exception of  El Salvador  and, somewhat  more  ambiguously,
Peru (itself  the target  of  Chavez-subsidized  efforts  to
undermine its  government),  no  Latin  American  government
supported Colombia.

It appeared that the "progressive" bloc of Venezuelan allies
had won  a diplomatic  and public  relations victory against
the most  pro-American government  in the  region--until  it
rapidly started  unraveling. Indeed,  at the  Santo  Domingo
Summit of  the Rio  Group, which  includes the  OAS  members
minus the  U.S. and  Canada, on  March 7,  after a few sharp
exchanges between  Uribe and Correa, all of the sudden those
two, along with Ortega and Chavez, embraced, kissed and made
up! Immediately  thereafter,  all  ambassadors  returned  to
their posts,  troops pulled  out from the Colombian borders,
and all  seemed forgiven  and  forgotten.  The  reason  soon
became apparent:  the  extraordinary  revelations  found  on
Reyes' laptops, made public by the Colombian police.

One important  issue left  unmentioned in Santo Domingo were
the reasons  for the  Colombian attack--its legitimate right
to  self-defense   and  Ecuador's  failure  to  enforce  its
sovereignty along  the border.  That Ecuador had no military
presence, let  alone control  over that sector of the border
with  Colombia   was  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  its
government found  out what  had happened  from a  call  from
Uribe after the fact. One can only speculate, but Correa may
have left  the border  unguarded on  purpose. After all, the
Reyes documents  also proved  that FARC has contributed some
$100,000  to  his  2007  presidential  campaign.  That  also
explains the  facility with  which the  Mexican and  Chilean
terrorist groupies moved from the capital of Quito to Reyes'
camp. Equally  important, Ecuador's  Minister  of  Security,
Gustavo Larrea, was in constant contact with Reyes, and even
offered to "remove law enforcement officials who are hostile
to the communities and civilians [i.e. to FARC] in the area,
for which  they [the  Ecuadorians] are  asking us to provide
information."[1] This  went beyond  tolerance for  Colombian
terrorists. It  was direct  cooperation  against  Ecuadorian
officials protecting  their own  country against  a  foreign
presence! Moreover,  even the Ecuadorian press admitted that
Reyes' presence  in the  country was  often mentioned by the
Colombians, and  denied as  many times by Quito.[2] When , a
few days  ago, it  turned out  that among  the dead  was  an
Ecuadorian citizen  and, according  to Bogota,  FARC member,
President Correa  raised the tone of his complaints, instead
of  recognizing   that  the  insurgents  are  more  than  an
occasional presence in his country--they have roots in it.

The Reyes  documents were  even more  damning for Chavez, if
not exactly  surprising in  their general  lines.  To  begin
with, they proved that Chavez's close relations with FARC go
all the way back to when he was just an inmate following his
failed  coup.   In  1992,  he  received  $150,000  from  the
Colombian  terrorists;   more  recently,   the  same  source
mentioned a  Chavez promise of $300 million in financial aid
to FARC.  In  addition,  the  two  had  a  common  strategic
interest and  were  cooperating  in  the  overthrow  of  the
democratically elected  government of Colombia, coordinating
efforts by  Chavez to  convince the Europeans to remove FARC
from the  EU list  of terrorist  organizations and give them
belligerent status with the organization's selective release
of a  few of  its  700  hostages--most  prominently  Franco-
Colombian politician  Ingrid Betancourt,  a cause celebre in
Paris.  Despite  her  poor  health,  she  was  not  released
because, as  Reyes put  it, she was FARC's main ace up their
sleeve.

It is  in light  of these  revelations  that  one  must  see
Chavez'  previous   public  demand   that  FARC's  terrorist
designation be  lifted, his  declared  "respect"  for  Reyes
(shared by  Ortega), and his request for a moment of silence
in the Venezuelan Parliament. All of these are hard proof of
longstanding cooperation  between his  regime and a Marxist-
Leninist terrorist organization openly seeking the overthrow
of Colombia's government.

It is  clear that  the contents  of the Reyes laptops have a
lot to  do with  Chavez' sudden  retreat. A neutral Interpol
team is examining the hard disks, and the publication of the
entire contents will further damage Chavez' credibility with
anyone outside  the fringes of the Left. The military threat
to Colombia was a bluff to begin with--the Colombian army is
not just  twice as  large as  Venezuela's, but  it is better
trained, has  extensive  combat  experience,  and  a  proven
leadership, even  if it  lacks the air power of Venezuela's.
All these  facts were  probably presented  to him by his own
generals--or the Cubans.

The fact  that even  the new  Cuban leadership,  unlike  the
retired Fidel  Castro, was  surprisingly discreet during the
entire crisis  also suggests a more general lack of sympathy
for Venezuela.  So did  the measured  tone  adopted  by  the
region's major countries--Chile, even Argentina and, most of
all,  Brazil.   None  of   that  means  that  the  mercurial
Venezuelan will  long  remain  quiet,  or  that  his  latest
suggestion that  FARC should  lay down  arms should be taken
seriously. Sooner  or later there will be another episode in
this saga.

THE MEXICAN SIDESHOW
That FARC,  the oldest  Marxist  guerrilla  organization  in
Latin America  if  not  the  world,  has  attracted  foreign
recruits has  long been known. The diary of a Dutch recruit,
Tanja Nijmeijer,  was captured by the military last year; an
Argentine was  killed while  in FARC  ranks a few years ago;
and the  group is  said to  recruit  from  as  far  away  as
Denmark,  Sweden,   Norway,  Belgium   and  Greece.[3]   The
operation against  Reyes demonstrated  the extent  to  which
FARC's   Ecuadoran    camps   served   as   a   recruitment,
indoctrination, and international propaganda center.

The massive  air bombardment  of March  1 was so devastating
that the  Ecuadorians  are  still  trying  to  identify  the
remains of  some of  the fatalities,  but in addition to the
Ecuadorian, four  Mexican citizens  were killed,  as perhaps
were other  foreigners. One  Mexican woman was spared by the
Colombian commandos during the post-bombing clean up and was
taken to  a Quito  hospital, and  two Chilean communists who
escaped  in   time  admitted  that  there  were  also  other
visitors, Latin  American as  well as European.[4] They took
pictures with  Reyes (later  found on his laptop), wore FARC
uniforms--"because their  own clothes  were dirty"  (a claim
repeated by  the wounded  Mexican)--and generally behaved as
sympathizers or members of the group, despite their denials.
According to  the Ecuadorian  Defense Ministry, in the weeks
prior to  the attack  "other groups  of Mexicans,  Italians,
Peruvians, Chileans  and Belgians  regularly arrived  at the
camp"[5] in  a type  of pilgrimage  that did not disturb the
authorities.

Moreover, in  a spectacular  example of chutzpah, Jorge Luis
Morett, a Mexican provincial university professor and father
of Lucia  Morett, the "drama student" at Autonomous National
University of  Mexico (UNAM)  pretending to do "research" on
FARC in  the Ecuador  camps who  was wounded  in the attack,
went so  far as  to pretend that the Colombian attack was an
"act of  lese-humanity" because  there were "civilians"among
the victims,  and that  the  attackers  should  be  punished
"according to  international law."[6]  The  father  of  Juan
Gonzalez, allegedly  an "expert  in Latin  American studies"
and one  of the fatalities, also demanded the support of the
Mexican  government  "in  defense  of  Mexican  civilians_we
believe it was a crime of lese humanity."[7]

The fact  that four  of the  five Mexicans identified so far
were former  or present students at that country's UNAM, and
were  Marxist   militants  and   FARC  apologists,   is  not
surprising, since  FARC had  a longstanding  presence on the
UNAM  campus,   whose   Karl   Marx   Collective   and   the
Revolutionary Brigade  for Anti-Capitalist  Unity  expressed
their solidarity with those "civilians."

The UNAM  alumni and  student pilgrims  to Reyes'  lair were
just  ideological   necrophiliacs  in  love  with  the  last
murderously corrupt  believers of Marxism Leninism. The only
tragedy involving  the Mexicans  killed in  Ecuador is  that
Latin America's,  indeed  the  world's,  largest  university
still produces  such characters--at  the Mexican  taxpayers'
enormous expense.

It is  also revealing that the Mexicans and Chileans came to
the FARC  camp after  attending the  Second Congress  of the
Continental Bolivarian  Coordinating Board  CCB  in  Quito
(February  24-28).   The  CCB,   founded   in   2003,   with
headquarters in  Caracas, is  a Far  Left umbrella including
organizations ranging  from old communist parties, terrorist
groups like FARC, and assorted old and new "revolutionaries"
supported by  Chavez' regime.[8]  CCB is  more than  just  a
political platform  for "progressives."  Upon  their  return
home, seven  Peruvian delegates  to the  Quito Congress were
arrested on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. FARC is
not just  a member  but  the  main  object  of  "solidarity"
expressed at  the meeting. Ultimately, the CCB is an attempt
by Venezuela  to imitate  the Cuban attempts of the 1960s to
establish  a  pan-American  radical  center  controlled  and
subsidized  from   Caracas,  seeking  the  establishment  of
"Bolivarian" regimes  everywhere, on  the pattern of today's
Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

THE MILITARY IMPLICATIONS
The developments  of March  1-7 mark a radical change in the
balance of  forces in  Colombia. It  proved that  the  Uribe
government's decision  (made in  2007 at  the latest)  to go
after FARC's  leadership proved  to be a success. The deaths
of Reyes and Rios were only the most spectacular of a series
of effective  eliminations of  important middle-level cadres
in 2007.  The relentless  pressure on the terrorist group is
having  a   serious  impact   on  its   strength  and,  most
importantly, its morale.

The two  main problems  of FARC  are closely  related:  high
losses during the past few years and a decline in leadership
quality. According  to the  well-informed  Colombian  weekly
Cambio, between  the end  of 2002 and November of last year,
there were  8,221 known  desertions from  the organization's
files. That is just the known figure. It does not include an
unknown number  of guerrillas  who just  went  home  without
formally surrendering; FARC also lost 6,792 killed in combat
between 2003  and the  end of  2007, for a minimum number of
losses of  15,000.[9] In  the first two months of 2008 alone
the army  claimed to  have  killed  247,  captured  226  and
received 360 deserters.[10] Whereas in 2002, when Uribe took
office,  FARC's  strength  was  assessed  at  about  17,000,
recently this author's Colombian sources estimate it at less
than 9,000.[11]  For the  same period, the combined strength
of the  Colombian military  and police  grew  by  50%,  from
200,000 to over 300,000.

As Rios'  captured laptop documents have shown, he was aware
of another problem:

"Our Achilles'  heel  is  the  weak  training  of  mid-level
cadres, including members of the front's general staff_ More
than the  merit of the enemy, this is the cause of the large
majority of the hits we have received._ We need to establish
a school  for the  formation of cadres with understanding of
the FARC doctrine."[12]

Rios was  prescient: on  March 4 he was killed and mutilated
by his  own bodyguard,  who later  surrendered and claimed a
$2.5 million reward.

Militarily, in  addition and related to the declining morale
problem, FARC's  various medium-size  units ("fronts")  "are
not in  communication with  the Secretariat because military
pressure prevents  it,"  according  to  'Olivo  Saldana',  a
jailed cadre.[13]  Specifically, the  technological advances
of the  Colombian military  allows interception and location
of satellite and radio communications, such as the ones that
led them  to  Reyes'  Ecuadoran  camp.  The  resulting  unit
isolation  puts   a  premium   on  leadership   quality  and
independent thinking  at precisely the time when they are in
decline, as  Rios admitted.  Furthermore, the deaths of such
prominent leaders like Tomas Medina Caracas, known popularly
as "El  Negro Acacio,"  in September  2007, and of Reyes and
Rios, as  a result  of military intelligence infiltration of
terrorist ranks[14]  further complicates  internal  security
and undermines  morale, in  a vicious  circle. Indeed,  Rios
himself executed more than 200 of his followers suspected of
being military  infiltrators. This  is among the reasons his
chief bodyguard killed him and surrendered.[15]

While according to a recently released hostage FARC is still
capable  of   recruiting,  mostly   by   offering   material
incentives, a  number of factors suggest that its capability
is  declining.   First,  the  deaths  of  top  leaders  have
increased the  risk for  the  rank  and  file  as  well,  as
demonstrated by  the Rios episode. Indeed, the bodyguard who
killed him explained his deed as a result of shock at Reyes'
death, lack of food, and fear for his own life when his unit
was  surrounded   by  the  military--all  disincentives  for
potential recruits. Moreover, the Colombian economy is doing
very well,  thus  limiting  the  number  of  unemployed  and
dissatisfied    individuals    available    for    terrorist
recruitment. By  being pushed out of heavily populated areas
and toward  the unhealthy,  forested border  regions, FARC's
recruitment  pool   is   further   reduced.   Finally,   the
organization's finances  were badly hit with the loss of one
major source  of revenue:  kidnapping  for  ransom,  due  to
military and  police control  over cities,  towns  and  most
roads.  What  remains  is  FARC's  bread  and  butter:  drug
trafficking.

It is  in these  circumstances that  the loss  of two of the
Secretariat's seven  members becomes  even  more  important,
since, as  Carlos Lozano,  director of  the Communist weekly
Vos  noted,   it  puts   a  premium   on  the  unifying  and
coordinating role  of the  ult¡mate leader and FARC founder,
Pedro Antonio  Mar¡n, better  known as "Manuel Marulanda" or
"Tirofijo"(Sureshot).[16] The problem? Marulanda is at least
78 years  old and  apparently in  poor health. Just prior to
Uribe's election  in 2002,  FARC was openly proclaiming that
it  has   entered  a  new  phase  of  conflict,  the  quasi-
conventional "war  of positions,"  and planning  to increase
its forces  to  50,000;  today  it  has  lost  the  myth  of
leadership  invincibility,   is  being   pushed  toward  the
borders, and  increasingly has  to use  force  in  order  to
obtain supplies and recruits.

As things  are now, FARC has only limited options available.
It could  try to  demonstrate that it remains a potent force
by staging  some spectacular  attack -  a  difficult  matter
given its  communications problem  and vulnerability  to air
attack if it tries to concentrate large forces. It could try
to make a political gesture--for example by releasing Ingrid
Betancourt and  hoping for  a French,  and European, reward,
perhaps recognition  as a  belligerent. Or, the least likely
scenario, it  could  demonstrate  a  serious  commitment  to
peace. Finally,  it could continue on the present course and
lose more leaders, combatants and credibility.

The intelligence  available to  the government today is such
that it  has a fairly accurate idea of the location of most,
if not all, remaining Secretariat members. It probably could
eliminate them,  except for  the fact that FARC has some 700
hostages, some captured as long as a decade ago, and any air
attack would likely lead to their death. This makes any mass
release of hostages unlikely: they are now FARC's shield. It
would be  equally  unwise  for  the  government  to  release
hundreds of  jailed trained  FARC cadres  at a time when the
group is missing them most.

WHAT NEXT?
It is probably too soon for Bogota to declare victory in its
44-year  war   with  FARC,  but  one  thing  is  clear:  the
insurgents' attrition  strategy,  which  was  predicated  on
increasing  the   isolation  of   the  government,   popular
exhaustion and  high costs  in blood  and money,  has turned
against itself. With Uribe in his second four-year term--and
there is  strong  domestic  pressure  for  a  constitutional
change allowing  for a  third--the Colombian government, for
the first  time ever, was able to devise and apply a winning
long-term  political   and   military   strategy--Uribe   is
extremely   persistent.   The   growing   economy   provides
additional resources  for the  pursuit of the war and higher
standards of  living, which could be further advanced if the
U.S. Congress would put U.S. regional security interests and
influence ahead  of trade union protectionism and the "human
rights" lobby's longstanding hostility to Uribe, and approve
the free trade agreement with Colombia soon.

The attitude  of the  Colombian population is also changing,
from past  demands for  peace at  any price to confidence in
victory, with the result that Uribe's popularity is reaching
new heights. A Gallup poll published on March 12 gave him 84
percent  popular  support.  Even  the  regionally  unpopular
United  States   was  favorably  viewed  by  67  percent  of
Colombians (an increase of 17 percent since January), mostly
due to  the unconfirmed  opinion that  it was  US  technical
support that  allowed the  location  of  Reyes.  Conversely,
Chavez' unfavorable  view by Colombians went from 76 percent
to 90 percent for the same period.

The Colombian  attack against  a FARC camp in an uninhabited
area of  the Ecuadoran  jungle and the reactions it provoked
are yet another demonstration that the inter-American system
does not  function well.  Years of  Ecuadoran tolerance of a
terrorist group  on its  territory brought no protests, just
as Venezuelan  support for  terrorism in  Colombia and anti-
democratic groups elsewhere, or interference in elections in
Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Nicaragua, only produced silence.
But when  the only  physical damage  the Colombians  did  to
Ecuador was  the killing  of some  trees, the  reaction  was
prompt and  quasi-universal condemnation.  All of  this does
not bode  well for the inevitable next crisis to be provoked
by Chavez,  nor is  Washington's quiet  attitude  throughout
likely to embolden Chavez' adversaries.

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Notes
[1] Memorandum  from Ra£l  Reyes  to  FARC  Secretariat,  El
Universal, March 7, 2008.

[2]   Cecilio    Moreno,   Tiro    fijo    a    las    FARC,
http://www.vistazo.com/webpages/impresa.php?edicion=973&sID=2&ID=1718

[3] Sebastian  Gottlieb, Dutch  woman's FARC  diaries, Radio
Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2007

[4] Francisco  Herreros, Entrevista  a Manuel  Olate, uno de
los dos  chilenos testigos  de la muerte del comandante Ra£l
Reyes, El Siglo, Mar. 14, 2008.

[5] Mexicanos  en el  campamento de  las  FARC  en  Ecuador,
Milenio, March 10, 2008.

[6] Familias  de mexicanos  v¡ctimas  de  ataque  colombiano
quieren demandar a Uribe, Hoy (Quito), March 11, 2008.

[7] Ataque  colombiano es  crimen de estado, dicen mexicanos
en Quito, Milenio, Mar. 11, 2008,

[8]  For   program  documents  and  other  information,  see
http://www.conbolivar.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemi
d=63

[9] Farc est n debilitadas, Cambio, Domingo March 2, 2008,

[10] Colombia  and  its  neighbours.  On  the  warpath,  The
Economist, March 6, 2008.

[11] Michael Radu interviews, Bogota, November 2007.

12 El computador de 'Iv n R¡os', Cambio, March 12, 2008.

[13] Jota  Ochoa, La  catalepsia de  las Farc:  ¨ag¢nicas  o
replegadas?   Analistas eval£an  la situaci¢n  de las  Farc,
Terra Colombia, March 14, 2008.

[14] Carlos  Eduardo Jaramillo,  Cuadros superiores  de  las
Farc duermen con un ojo abierto, Cambio, March 14, 2008.

[15] M s de 200 guerrilleros orden¢ matar 'Iv n R¡os,' Terra
Colombia, March 13, 2008.

[16] Ochoa, La catalepsia de las Farc.

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