May 7,2008:
FARC is trying desperately to counter the bad press it is getting from
information found on the laptop of a FARC leader killed on March 1st.
The latest item revealed shows Venezuela seeking terrorism training from FARC,
the better to resist the coming American invasion of Venezuela (an article of
faith among Venezuelan leftists). Both Venezuela and Ecuador, run by anti-American
leftists, want FARC declared a legitimate belligerent, and not a terrorist
organization. To this end, the leftist politicians are trying to orchestrate a
trade; FARC will release dozens of prominent Colombian kidnap victims in return
for getting FARC off the terrorism list. That would make it easier for FARC to
receive financial, and other, aid from foreign (especially European) leftists.
But FARC is too deep into the drug business for this to work. The evidence of
this criminal activity keeps piling up, and no amount of propaganda or
political theater can make it go away. In fact, the Colombian government is now
turning more of its military efforts towards the drug cartels that keep FARC
alive. In the last week, troops and police took out the Mejia twins, who
together ran the largest drug gang in the country. Each had an American reward
of $5 million on them. One brother was killed on April 29th, the other captured
three days later. The twins had aligned themselves with the AUC, and have since
done business with FARC. Despite their enormous wealth, the twins were not able
to bribe their way out this. That's a big change for Colombia. With the twins
gone, the eight or nine drug gangs the twins controlled will be fighting among
themselves, and more vulnerable to police action.
Colombia
has destroyed the AUC, a rightist militia that arose in response to leftist
FARC and ELN terrorism. Prosecutors have since gone after dozens of politicians
who were corrupted by AUC drug money. Leftist politicians don't get elected
much anymore, because of their being bought by FARC in past decades. The
current generation of drug cartels tend to be apolitical, and deal with FARC
for purely pragmatic reasons. But this has corrupted FARC, turning many of the
rebel groups factions into gangsters who are leftist revolutionaries in only
the most superficial sense.
April 30,
2008: FARC fighters have resumed using Ecuador as a sanctuary, and are firing across
the border at Colombian troops. Ecuador
is buying new ground radars and patrol aircraft, to make sure Colombian troops
stay out of Ecuador.
April 29,
2008: FARC is being forced out of the country, into all of the nations
bordering Colombia. Panamanian police are seeking an American businessman
kidnapped and then sold to a FARC rebels
now operating in Colombia.