— The killing this week of a provincial governor by suspected leftist
rebels suggests a seven-year effort to rein in the violence that has
plagued
The bold rebel raid — about 250 miles south of the capital — indicates the effectiveness of President
informants, military air strikes and calls for desertion is waning.
“The FARC seem to be bouncing back,” said
Striking at night, the rebels stormed the home of Gov.
of Caqueta state, and snatched him from his bedroom in his pajamas this
week. Hours later, the Colombian military found the 69-year-old
governor facedown with his throat slit, surrounded by explosives on a
rural hillside. Cuellar’s killers are suspected members of the
For the first time since Uribe took power in 2002,
there are signs of an uptick in homicides, rebel attacks and
paramilitary activity, according to the year-end report on the state of
The policy, launched in 2002, earned domestic and
international kudos for routing guerrillas from the most populated
areas, getting paramilitary forces to stand down and restoring security
to highways that served as traps for rebels who made a profitable
business of kidnapping for ransom.
Once dubbed the kidnapping capital of the world,
But now FARC activities are on the rise. Valencia
says his researchers have tallied 1,429 FARC actions through the end of
October, a 30 percent increase from 2008.
Another think tank, the
which is considered close to the government, reported in its own
year-end summary a 108 percent increase in FARC attacks in the first 10
months of 2009, with a 36 percent rise in deaths of government troops.
“Underestimating the capacity of the FARC to plan
and carry out the kidnapping of high-level officials and other military
operations is a crass error that the society cannot have the luxury to
commit,”
The upsurge in ambushes, shootings and attacks on
power and oil infrastructure is most evident in the provinces of Cauca
and Narino, in Guaviare, and the Bajo Cauca region in northern
Antioquia department.
“It is not clear whether the significant advances we
have seen under the democratic security policies can actually be upheld
in the current security environment,” said
“The FARC has shown it’s capable of adapting in terms of how the organization works,” Schultze-Kraft said.
Moreover, the FARC, and the smaller, weaker
(ELN) announced this week they would join forces. The two groups had
often clashed for territorial control but in a communique published on
the Internet, they agree not to continue the “absurd confrontation.”
The Nuevo Arco Iris report said it has detected a
spike in activity by groups it calls “neo-paramilitaries.” a new
incarnation of paramilitary organizations that demobilized 30,000
fighters between 2003 and 2005.
Nuevo Arco Iris tallied activity of these groups
tied to drug trafficking and other illegal activity, many run by former
mid-level commanders of the demobilized groups, in nearly a third of
“There is an expansion of a new generation of paras,” Valencia said.
Fighting among these neo-paramilitary groups and among small criminal gangs in
Three years ago
was a showcase of success. After achieving murder rates of 33, per
100,000, homicides spiked this year to 2003 levels of 73 per 100,000
residents.
By year’s end,
Defense Minister
“We must do more to stand firm against criminal
gangs,” he said. “But the existence of crime does not mean the policy
has been a failure.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
