Colombia (Super thread)

[Old Sweat]

It seems to me that Bolivia has serious internal difficulties with part of the country verging on secessionist. If landlocked Bolivia did attempt to go to war with Colombia, there is the problem of getting to the front, perhaps through Peru and then Ecuador.

I am not sure of what Peru might do; it does have a left leaning government, but would be wary of Ecuador, as Peru siezed about a third of its territory in a war. I suspect it would prefer to see Colombia remain strong and intact as a counterbalance to Ecuador and Venezuela.

 

[Lumber]

While I did my best to take into account troops numbers, training and quality of equipment, I know very little about real-life military strategy (although I'll kick your butt in Company of Heroes )  and I could only do my best to interpret the data I could collect.

That being said, I'll trust this guy:

Gates added that the United States would not need to assist its Colombian allies should armed conflict break out.

"My personal view is that there is relatively little likelihood of a military conflict between them, and my further impression is that the Colombians can take care of themselves," he said at the Pentagon.

 

[CougarKing]

Which article did you quote this excerpt from, Lumber? I've skimmed over the articles posted on this forum and did not find it.

Gates added that the United States would not need to assist its Colombian allies should armed conflict break out.

"My personal view is that there is relatively little likelihood of a military conflict between them, and my further impression is that the Colombians can take care of themselves," he said at the Pentagon.

 

[tomahawk6]

Dont worry about a shooting war.This is going to be an economic war of sorts. With the state of Venezuela's economy it wont take much to get the students and working folk out into the streets.

 

[Lumber]

Which article did you quote that from, Lumber? I've skimmed over the articles posted on this forum and did not find it.

Sorry, should have provided a link.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/06/nic.colombia/index.html?iref=newssearch

It's from the very bottom.

 

[Danjanou]

Dont worry about a shooting war.This is going to be an economic war of sorts. With the state of Venezuela's economy it wont take much to get the students and working folk out into the streets.

Probably right with the obligatory machismo saber rattling for the TV cameras tossed in.  As Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Colombia aren't exactly economic super powers either this may dissolve into a Latino version of two little fat kids slap fighting in the playground.

 

[Lumber]

Well, there goes the fun,
and by fun I mean the fun of analyzing.
Actaul war would not be fun.

The presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia have shaken hands at a regional summit, marking the end of a diplomatic crisis in the Andean region.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7284597.stm

 

[tomahawk6]

A border incident  ;D
Rough translation.
http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/?p=12667

In a confused incident, a unit of the DISIP (Venezuelan Security forces) has crossed the frontier and has penetrated into Colombian territory in Paraguachón. The inhabitants have surrounded the patrol and they have not allowed that the Venezuelan officials to recover the patrol.

Apparently, the unit of the DISIP was recovering a vehicle. The group of citizens of Paraguachón has exchanged insults against the DISIP of Venezuela and, with their aggressive attitude, units of the National Guard have crossed the border to help them and to protect them.

After minutes of tension, the situation returned to the calm but the vehicle of the DISIP still is in Colombian territory surrounded by the inhabitants of the locality. Colombian police units have approached the place.

 

[tomahawk6]

Uribe shames President Correa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080307/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_venezuela_55

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Friday that Colombian rebels helped Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa get elected, citing as evidence a rebel's letter seized during a cross-border raid that has sparked an international crisis.

Correa walked out of the 20-nation Rio Group summit after the accusation, but an aide said he had merely gone to the bathroom. As other leaders complained, Uribe waited for Correa to return before continuing.

Uribe said his forces seized a letter during their raid Saturday on a rebel camp just across the border with Ecuador in which Raul Reyes — the rebel leader killed in the raid — told the guerrillas' top commander about "aid delivered to Rafael Correa, as instructed."

Correa, who has broken off relations with Colombia and sent troops to the border over the raid, denounced the accusation and proposed an international peacekeeping force to guard the Colombian-Ecuadorean border.

"I reject this infamy that the government of Rafael Correa has collaborated with the FARC," Correa bellowed into the microphone as he accused Uribe of lying. His comments drew loud applause from other leaders, who met Uribe's speech with silence.

The summit was to have focused on energy and other issues, but those were overshadowed by the diplomatic crisis in the Andes after the deadly Colombian cross-border raid into Ecuador on Saturday that killed a senior Colombian rebel and 24 others.

It began quietly, with the host, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, appealing for unity. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said it was time to cool tensions and predicted the summit "is going to be positive."

"People should go cool off a bit, chill out their nerves," Chavez said before the summit started. "I think the meeting today is going to be positive, because it is going to help the debate. We have to debate, talk, and this is the first step toward finding the road."

But the accusations began quickly, with Correa criticizing "the aggression of Colombia" and Uribe saying that Correa is a dishonest partner in the fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"We didn't inform him (of the raid) because we have not had cooperation from the government of President Correa in the fight against terrorism," Uribe said.

Latin American foreign ministers on Thursday drafted a statement saying national sovereignty must be respected. The draft, to be submitted to the presidents on Friday, mirrors one earlier in the week from the Organization of American States, said Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley.

Chavez has ordered thousands of troops and tanks to Venezuela's border with Colombia and threatened to slash trade and nationalize Colombian-owned businesses. Correa has also sent troops to the border, although Uribe has said he won't do the same.

The summit marks the first face-to-face encounters between Chavez, Correa and Uribe since the international crisis began.

Correa told reporters he wants Uribe to apologize for the attack in Ecuadorean territory and give his "formal and firm commitment" that Colombia will never "violate" the sovereignty of another country.

On his arrival in Santo Domingo late Thursday, Chavez claimed the strike was "planned and directed by the United States." Later, he said he had information that "gringo soldiers" participated in the attack, but provided no evidence.

U.S. Southern Command spokesman Jose Ruiz neither confirmed or denied this week that the U.S. military took part in the attack. The latest body was discovered Thursday, according to Ecuador's security minister, Gustavo Larrea.

Uribe is hugely popular among Colombians cracking down on the FARC, which finances itself through kidnapping and drug trafficking.

Nicaragua, a leftist ally of Venezuela and Ecuador, broke relations with Colombia on Thursday.

The attack also cut off all contacts between the rebels and France, where the freedom of French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt has become a national cause, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Friday.

Uribe has refused to rule out future military incursions into Ecuador or Venezuela, saying he first needs assurances from Correa and Chavez that they are not harboring rebels.

One of the rare regional voices offering support for Colombia was Salvadoran President Tony Saca, who said the Colombian government should be able to defend its citizens.

"We need to understand Colombia has the legitimate right to go after terrorists ... wherever they may be, of course without harming the sovereignty of another country," Saca said

 

[cameron]

Hello guys

If someone has posted this story already forgive me but I just signed onto the internet and saw the story on Yahoo! news that Betancourt and several other hostages were rescued without a shot being fired by Colombian specop helicopter pilots and spies masquerading as guerillas.  I'm going to listen to the BBC News at the top of the hour and see if I can hear more details but kudos to the Colombian intelligence and special forces community and thank God those hostages are now safe and sound.  Lets hope the remaining hostages will soon gain their freedom too.  Again to the Colombian forces

 

[Colin Parkinson]

FARC sure seems to be falling apart lately, I wonder if this is the begining of the end as major insurgent?

 

[Mike Baker]

Heres a link


-Dead

 

[wannabe SF member]

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080702/twl-colombie-otages-betancourt-5c16fb8.html


It's just out.

The French-Colombian hostage has finally been freed after 6 years of detention by the FARC.

 

[King Elessar]

props to the Colombians for coming up with that brilliant plan to free those hostages. 

 

[old medic]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-colombia-farc19-2009jan19,0,5274066.story


Shine is off FARC rebel army
Desertions rise as status and perks are replaced with constant harassment by the Colombian army. But the guerrilla group is known for its resilience.
By Chris Kraul
January 19, 2009

Reporting from Villarrica, Colombia -- Life was good for "Ernesto" when he joined Colombia's largest rebel group at age 14. He loved the leftist fighters' swagger, the perfumed rebel groupies and the stolen SUVs he and his buddies drove unchallenged over the roads of this cattle- and coffee-growing zone.

But eight years later, Ernesto's life as a foot soldier in the 25th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had lost its charm. Gone were the status and the free-spending ways, a lifestyle financed by kidnappings and extortions here in the west-central state of Tolima.

In their place came constant harassment from the Colombian army, which deployed 1,200 additional soldiers here in May, 10 times the existing garrison. Hunger became a constant, and the peasants who once were supporters began to ignore him and collaborate with the army.

"The army never let up. Wherever you slept, you'd better be gone early the next day because soldiers would be there soon," said Ernesto, 22, who gave an alias for security concerns. "We were really suffering."

In November, Ernesto made his separate peace, enlisting in a government demobilization program that promises education and housing in exchange for disarmament.

The surrender of Ernesto and 2,900 other fighters and urban supporters didn't make headlines like those generated by the Colombian military's more dramatic successes last year: the killing in March of the FARC's second in command, Raul Reyes, and the rescue in July of three U.S. subcontractors and onetime presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

But military officials say the 20% increase in desertions last year from the 2007 level is equally compelling evidence of their increasing battlefield dominance over the FARC, which the military has been fighting for more than 40 years.

That success, substantially underwritten by U.S. taxpayers through the Plan Colombia aid program, should not be confused with victory. The FARC has demonstrated its resilience time and again -- and, if Ernesto is to be believed, is now just waiting out President Alvaro Uribe's term in hopes it will have an easier time under his successor.

But what is clear is that added pressure from Colombia's military last year caused the rebels to lose control of significant chunks of geography, including this crucial crossroads zone connecting rebel forces in the jungle plains to the east with FARC drug-trafficking operations on the Pacific coast.

"This year, the army took the secure center of the country, consisting of the big cities, and pushed out the internal limits of what they control, closer to Colombia's true geographic frontiers," said an American government official at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. He spoke anonymously because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record.



'Presence' is down

In an interview late last month at a police graduation ceremony in the Tolima town of El Espinal, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the FARC "has a presence" in 188 of the 1,099 counties, down from 514 a couple of years ago. "That to me was the most important of all our accomplishments," he said.

Colombian and U.S. military experts say the strategy is producing a cycle of dividends: Desertions such as Ernesto's lead to better intelligence, which leads to more battlefield success and a weaker enemy.

Locally, the climax of the strategy came last month when the Colombian army cornered and killed Ernesto's former commander, 25th Front leader Englio Gaona Ospina, alias Bertil, as he hid on a jungle cliffside a few miles north of here.

Although the members of his eight-man security detail had already given up or been captured, Bertil was defiant to the end: When soldiers demanded that he surrender, he threw a hand grenade at them.

In the end, Bertil was undone by his own men. Intelligence provided by demobilized FARC members was crucial in bringing down the rebel leader, Colombian army officials said.

"The front is done. It's dismantled. Bertil was with the FARC for 22 years. It's a big loss," Ernesto said at a safe house in the state capital, Ibague, that he shares with four other recently demobilized rebels from his unit. The slight but powerfully built former squad leader spoke with a calm demeanor and fiercely flashing eyes. "It's gone from 300 fighters when I joined to less than 50."

In Villarrica, the tide turned with the arrival in May of the additional soldiers from the Ibague-based 6th Army Brigade, including a 120-member mobile brigade unit modeled after U.S. Special Forces teams. The army launched the offensive with one objective: to wipe out the 25th Front and Bertil.

The army built a base in a pasture just north of this town's central plaza, bringing security and generating goodwill among residents long accustomed to violence.

For Villarrica, that's quite a change from the dark days of October 2007, when the FARC gunned down a mayoral candidate and left many of the town's 5,000 residents too afraid to venture out of their houses after dark. The FARC had been in de facto control of the town and its environs since 1999, when rebels briefly took over, dynamiting several buildings.


To get here from the closest big city, Melgar in the Magdalena River valley, visitors must travel three hours over winding roads that cut through sparsely populated mountain terrain that provided rebels with ideal cover. Some residents expressed disbelief that a Times reporter made the trip in 2007 shortly after the mayoral candidate was killed and when FARC control was still uncontested.

The area was such a fertile ground for extortion that FARC units from outside the zone used to frequent the region to blackmail local oil services firms that worked in various fields.

"How much has it improved? One hundred percent," said Mayor Hernando Trujillo. "Now, we can leave town to work our farms, take drives. We have been waiting for this for a long time."



'People are happier'

At a packed Christmas Eve service at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medallion, several residents expressed appreciation for the army.

"Lately we have had God's blessing in all its meaning," said Roman Catholic priest Jose Peralta. "People are happier and less suspicious of one another. Businesses are reopening and there is more prosperity. Let's hope the changes last a long time."

Added patrols and checkpoints also created supply problems for the rebels, who depended on sympathetic farmers or rebel family members to bring food and clothing to drop points in the zone.

At the same time, the army stepped up its campaign to urge rebels to lay down their arms and join the demobilization program, promising cash for intelligence. The message was written on thousands of leaflets thrown from helicopters over the rugged mountains ringing this town, and read out regularly over the 6th Army Brigade's radio station in Ibague. The army says it even knows the decimated 25th Front's remaining soldiers and unit commanders: Accumulated intelligence has enabled it to re-create an organizational chart.

Promised a reward

Ernesto was reluctant to dial the phone number given out over the radio, fearing that he could end up being killed in the process, a fear heightened by the recent scandal of "false positives," in which the Colombian army killed civilians and later claimed them as battle casualties.

But he called and agreed to meet an army patrol at a predetermined location. He later surrendered his machine gun and was promised a $500 reward. For providing intelligence that led to the capture of an extortion specialist known as Chucho, he was promised a second sum of $25,000. He said, smiling, that he was still "patiently waiting" for the government to pay up.

"The FARC treated its people well. They taught me how to read," Ernesto said. "But it was time to start a new life. I want to be an engineer."

 

[old medic]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-colombia1-2009mar01,0,7985218.story

FARC caches located in caves
Colombian officials had been searching for the hide-outs for years. They find weapons and medical supplies.
Reuters  March 1, 2009

La Macarena, Colombia -- Colombian soldiers have unearthed guerrilla hide-outs in caves deep in the jungles where rebels evaded attacks, stashed land mines and stored medical supplies, authorities said Saturday.

Colombia's largest rebel group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has been battered by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed offensive, which has driven guerrillas deep into jungles and mountains.

The army said troops had been searching for the hide-outs for five years in their hunt for a top FARC commander, Jorge Briceno, known as Mono Jojoy, a member of the group's leadership secretariat.

"They used to feel safe. . . . Now, they are living in caves they use to hide away," said Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, showing a group of reporters the caves in La Macarena region in Meta province, southeast of Bogota.

Troops were led to the caves after a tip-off from a FARC deserter. Reporters at the site were shown weapons, land mines, surgical equipment and explosives discovered in camps surrounding the caves.

The FARC, labeled terrorists by the United States and Europe, once controlled swaths of Colombia. It has funded its activities with drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.

But violence and kidnappings have declined since Uribe sent troops to retake parts of the country. Fighting goes on in remote areas, especially around cocaine trafficking routes. The FARC lost three top commanders last year and has suffered a string of military setbacks.

 

[Danjanou]

During the bad old days of the Cold War FARC received the majority of its financial support and weapons from the Soviet Bloc via Cuba. The actual cost of support was minimal for the Soviets in return for a running sore in the West’s southern flank.

Post 1990-93 the Soviets were gone and Castro could barely feed his own much less continue to export the revolution. FARC was able to maintain itself by switching to the profitable narco trade and kidnapping. Actually they were able to move into the vacuum made as the Cartels began to lose power. There was a three-way war being waged between The Government and their military and para militaries, the Cartels, and FARC.

Most of the Government effort supported by the US was directed at the Cartels leaving FARC alone and giving them time to regroup and eventually move in and take over the Cartels drug trade. Problem is it’s now a two way war and as FARC are now the drug lords the US aid continues to flow in down there.  Also hard to keep selling yourself as agrarian Marxist freedom fighter to the local peasantry you need to support you when you kidnapping locals and shilling coke.

Hopefully they're now on the way out.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

5 part series on youtube about Narco-subs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVQgjeUWzOc

 

[daftandbarmy]

I know a couple of people moving to Columbia this week to start up a (legal) business. I'll have fun sending them the articles in this thread and seeing their reaction. Being 'typical' Canadians, I'm sure they'll be horrified...

 

[CougarKing]

Seems Hugo Chavez again wants to stir the pot with his neighbour Colombia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8173709.stm

Chavez freezes ties with Colombia

Hugo Chavez strongly denies supplying weapons to Colombian rebels
Venezuela is withdrawing its ambassador from neighbouring Colombia and freezing relations, following a dispute over weapons supplied to Colombian rebels.

President Hugo Chavez, who announced the move on Venezuelan TV, also said he was halting trade deals with Colombia.

The announcement came a day after the Colombia government said weapons bought by Venezuela from Sweden had made their way to left-wing Farc guerrillas.

Mr Chavez denied this and accused Colombia of acting "irresponsibly".

"I've ordered to withdraw our ambassador from Bogota," the Venezuelan leader said on Tuesday. "We will freeze relations with Colombia," he added.

Base row

As well as a diplomatic freeze, Mr Chavez warned trade relations would also be frozen.

Venezuela, he said, would substitute imports from Colombia - which currently account for about a third of the country's trade - with goods from other countries, notably Brazil and Ecuador.

On Monday, the Colombian government said its troops had recovered Swedish anti-tank weapons in a raid on a Farc camp. The Caracas government denied supplying them.

The Swedish authorities have launched an inquiry into how the Farc had acquired the weapons.

The Marxist rebels have been fighting the Bogota government since the 1960s.

The BBC's Will Grant in Caracas said the dispute between the two neighbours comes as Colombia prepares to allow the US to use four military bases on its soil, a move which has angered Venezuela.

Mr Chavez says it is part of an effort by Washington to turn Colombia into the "Israel of Latin America".