Ending the unrelenting scourge in Colombia
THE MARCH 1 assassination of the second-in-command Of Colombia's revolutionary guerrilla organization in Ecuadoran territory and the ensuing fallout was labeled as a serious crisis that nearly led to the outbreak of armed conflict in South America's Andean region. Conventional wisdom is that the recklessness of Colombia's president, Álvaro Uribe, triggered the crisis and the diplomatic altruism of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela saved the region from the brink of war. The reality is that this episode was never a crisis, rather it was concocted to be a crisis.
The real crisis did not begin with Uribe's targeted assassination of Paul Reyes, the number two leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The real crisis has been going on for years, fueled by the developed world's drug consumption, criminal elements in Colombia and throughout the region, and sympathizers who aid and abet their criminal activities.
The assassination of Reyes was used as a pretext by Chávez and his ideological acolytes to gain political capital from a pseudocrisis and through the international media, at the expense of those suffering at the hands of criminal organizations.
The international media must focus on FARC and expose it for what it is really is: a money-making criminal organization involved in drug-trafficking, kidnapping, and other illicit activities and devoid of any political ideology that it may have had at its inception.
The Colombian government has dedicated practically all its resources to defeating the FARC. Any claim to political legitimacy for FARC vanished after efforts by Colombia's former president, Andrés Pastrana, to engage the FARC in serious talks in the late 1990s came to nothing. The FARC showed their cards. They had no interest in negotiations and simply used the process to buy time and continue their illicit activities.
It is unfortunate that the international media allows itself to be deceived by FARC and distracted by the hostages. They serve as pawns and a source of income for FARC's criminal activities. FARC currently holds more than 700 hostages.
To add unnecessarily provocative fuel to the raging fire, an assortment of Latin America's populist leaders under the tutelage of Chávez rushed to condemn Uribe and not the FARC for its criminal activities. Chávez even praised Reyes as a "good revolutionary."
This misguided approach by Chávez and other FARC sympathizers continues to provide FARC with credibility and legitimizes its activities, which amounts to criminal collusion. For a long time, evidence has pointed toward FARC receiving aid from Colombia's neighbors, including large sums of money.
The strong reactions by Chávez and his allies had very little, if anything, to do with Colombia's violation of Ecuador's border. Chávez clearly exploited historically delicate territorial sensitivities for his own political advantage and to strengthen diplomatic and ideological ties with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador and his regional allies.
Never missing an opportunity to grab global headlines, a name from the past resurfaced to join in the populist party, a newly recycled and rebranded Daniel Ortega, once-again president of Nicaragua. Ortega managed to win last year's presidency with a third of the popular vote through manipulating the electoral law in collusion with the more powerful faction of Nicaragua's divided right-wing. Quite apart from Ortega's ideological differences with Uribe, Nicaragua's longstanding territorial dispute with Colombia over the San Andres and Providencia archipelago undoubtedly played an important factor in the release of hot air by the Nicaraguan leader.
After experiencing four decades of violent conflict and thousands of victims, Colombia is trying to reclaim its sovereignty from criminals. Instead of condemning Uribe and praising outlaws, Colombia's neighbors and Latin America's populist leaders should assist Uribe in helping to defeat this scourge, which continues to destabilize the region. There is nothing politically legitimate about the FARC's activities; it is pure criminality.
Marco Vicenzino is director of the Global Strategy Project in Washington, D.C.
