COLOMBIA
Rescue of hostages may stir FARC's wrath
Residents of Colombia's rebel-controlled jungle region brace for a backlash by guerrillas over the recent hostage rescue.
Posted on Sun, Jul. 06, 2008
By MATTHEW BRISTOW
Special to The Miami Herald
SAN JOSE DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia -- This remote ranching and jungle region 200 miles south of Bogotá is one of the historic heartlands of the Marxist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which continues to control large swaths of territory despite recent advances by the Colombian military.
The dramatic rescue last week of their most valuable hostages by Colombian soldiers disguised as guerrillas is a devastating humiliation for the insurgency, known as the FARC. Four of the 15 rescued hostages, particularly former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and the three American contractors, were the FARC's main bargaining chip in any possible negotiation with the Colombian or U.S. governments.
FEAR OF BACKLASH
With the hostages free, Guaviare residents are bracing for a FARC backlash, as the rebels try to recover their military pride. Police officials here say they are checking into reports that the guerrillas have executed 16 of their own people so far.
''We can't deny that this might cause public order problems in Guaviare,'' Giovanny Gómez, a local politician in Guaviare's regional assembly, told The Miami Herald on Saturday. ``We still don't know how the FARC is going to react. Those of us who work in political institutions travel frequently to rural areas, but now that's going to be restricted.''
People in areas controlled by the FARC believe they will now lash out as a way of reasserting their presence. They spoke on condition that their full names not be published for fear of reprisals.
''If you are working in health or education you can travel to the deepest corners of Guaviare,'' said Maria, a local official who recently visited Tomachipán, the town closest to the coca plantation where the hostages were rescued on Wednesday. ``For anyone else to enter that area it is very complicated. . . . Now everyone is frightened to travel. We want to stay alive.''
Orlando, who lives in a FARC-controlled area close to the rescue site, and who frequently meets FARC guerrillas passing through the zone, said: ``There are a lot of rumors that they are already preparing to retaliate against the army.''
Orlando said that the guerrillas ''seemed very active'' for a time following the Colombian military's killing of senior guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes in a bombing raid in March. But they did not act out against residents.
But many are concerned retaliation will come this time.
NO PROBLEMS YET
''Since the rescue there haven't been any public order problems -- not yet,'' said Pedro, a local government official in a rural area of Guaviare. ``They were blowing up bridges four or five years ago, but they haven't blown up energy towers, as they do in other parts of the country.
``I'm afraid the FARC could do something against us in retaliation. We have to be prudent, and be careful about going to areas where the people don't know us.''
Pedro said the FARC, which uses cocaine trafficking as a source of income, has shown their might in previous years.
''In 2001, they had a very strong presence. They would stop us and search us, and if they found coca paste (unrefined cocaine) the most likely thing is that they would shoot you,'' he said. ``There were a lot of deaths because of that. The FARC has a monopoly [on coca paste] but other people pay better, and the guerrillas often take the coca away on credit and pay a couple of months later.''
The Colombian province of Guaviare is only a 50-minute flight from the capital city of Bogotá. But it is a different world.
Travelers to this region from Bogotá take off from a shiny new airport, with its Dunkin' Donuts outlet and flights to Miami and Houston, to land in Colombia's sweltering ''llanos'' or plains. It is home to six indigenous tribes, where men wear broad hats and ponchos. More than a quarter of the population in the provincial capital are ''displaced persons'' -- civilians who have fled the violence of the four-decade-old war -- and much of the economy revolves around the cultivation of the coca plant.
Long a rebel stronghold that functioned in fear, locals had been able to move more freely recently as a result of government intervention that has pushed the FARC further into the jungle.
''This year we've had the opportunity to arrive in areas that the state has never been before,'' Gómez said. ``The police have provided us with escorts, and we've been going out into remote areas of the countryside. But, right now, it is better to stay in the town for security's sake because we don't know if the guerrillas might target these kind of trips.
``Unless the army can guarantee our safety, we are going to sit tight.''
In recent months, there has not been any kind of FARC action against teachers, health workers or other public officials in Guaviare, Gómez said.
''Up to now, thank God, they have respected the humanitarian nature of these kind of services. This year it has even been possible to go out into the countryside and do road maintenance,'' he said. ``In the past, the guerrillas would destroy machinery belonging to the local government, or steal it.''
It is not clear whether the guerrillas stopped these kinds of attacks because it was costing them support with local people, or because they no longer maintain the strong presence they once did in these areas.
But this much is clear: The FARC is not the force it once was in Guaviare.
When President Alvaro Uribe was elected in 2002, the U.S. ally implemented a policy of ''democratic security,'' which involved massively increasing the strength of the country's armed forces with the aim of extending government control to areas like Guaviare, where the state has traditionally had little or no presence. FARC's power in the provincial capital San Jose del Guaviare has diminished to such an extent that U.S. contractors working at local military bases now drive around the town and visit bars and coffee shops without bodyguards.
JUNGLE WARFARE
But fighting the FARC on cattle-ranching land close to the town is another matter than fighting them deep inside the triple-canopy rain forest that covers most of the province.
''Any combat gets decided in the first five minutes,'' said Colombian Army Maj. Ricardo Lozano, head of an anti-guerrilla battalion. ``You can't see more than 30 meters. You can't pursue them. You can't go more than 3-6 kilometers a day in those conditions. When it's raining you are often walking knee-deep in water. The trees are huge, there is no light.''
And FARC's 1st Front, which operates in the area and was the guerrilla unit responsible for guarding the hostages, are experts in mines and IEDs, the major said. The guerrillas claim to have about 70 fronts, but some of them are really small or defunct. In Guaviare, four main fronts operate -- the 1st, the 7th, the 27th and the 44th.
The jungle terrain here is brutal. After 5 p.m., the jungle air is thick with clouds of mosquitoes, and Lozano's skin is covered in bites. He estimates that in a four-month tour of duty, 15 out of every 100 of his troops will be hit by leishmaniasis, a skin-eating disease transmitted by flies.
Leishmaniasis is an even bigger problem for the guerrillas and their hostages.
The army heavily restricts the supply of the treatment drug glucantime so that the guerrillas can not easily get hold of it. Two of the three Americans freed Wednesday are suffering from the disease, according to U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield.
The army is trying to gain control of this region by restricting the guerrilla's ''corridors of mobility'' along the rivers.
''I had been controlling a supply route since November, then a month ago I received the order to withdraw,'' said Lozano. ``It was to let the hostages pass, though I didn't know that at the time.''
The major says the army is now waiting to see what retaliation the FARC will take, though he doubts it will amount to much.
``They don't have the capacity anymore.''
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