Introduction

   The U.S. State Department replaced its travel advisory for Colombia with a stronger warning on 29 July 1992.  The new advisory reflects an increased threat to U.S. interests as a result of the escape from prison of a major Colombian drug trafficker and, in general, a steadily deteriorating security situation in the country.  It warns U.S. citizens to exercise extra caution in Colombia, and to travel there only when it is essential.

   Guerrillas have recently bombed foreign-owned businesses, and power cutbacks have resulted in blackouts, with a resultant rise in violent crime.  Several terrorist/guerrilla groups are active throughout the country.  Guerrillas are believed responsible for recent bombings of U.S. and other foreign-owned companies and banks.

   Colombian authorities expect the bombing campaign to continue.  Kidnapping for ransom or political purposes is an ongoing threat in Colombia, and U.S. citizens have been held for ransom or for political purposes.  Serious crimes (such as homicide, rape, assault and kidnapping) have greatly increased since these blackouts began.

The ELN and FARC

   The National Liberation Army (ELN) has emerged as the best organized and most sophisticated of the guerrilla groups operating in Colombia.  Formerly sponsored by Cuba, it now actually lends financial support its old benefactor with monies earned from its extortion and kidnapping operations.  Its membership is believed to have grown to more than 5,000, plus an equal number of sympathizers.  It is engaged in a total of six major "war fronts" containing at least 27 "guerrilla fronts."  The ELN is also the most dangerous threat to stability within the country.  In addition to planning the two unprecedented offensives (January, February and March -- and the first two weeks in July) which targeted the country's economic infrastructure with bombings of electrical power stations and power lines, airports, air control installations, pipelines, refineries, railroads, highways, etc., the ELN attempted to assassinate President Gaviria and the mayors of Cali and Bogota.

   The new ELN modus operandi is to select targets for dynamiting throughout the country and then set the stage for a future attack.  Electrical cables are set in the ground and run to a safe place a hundred or 50 meters away, a cavity is prepared at each end of the wire, one to hold the explosives and the other for the battery and detonator package.  Explosives and control packages can then be added at the last minute with less risk to the sapper just prior to the attack.  This is how the bombing of the Cartangena airport was set up in advance.

   The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), formerly guided by the pro-Soviet Colombian Communist Party, is also increasing its activities throughout the country.  It obtains its leadership and financial assistance from the ELN, boasts 6,000 full-time members, and operates on 48 organized guerrilla fronts.  The new FARC headquarters, a new casa verde, is located in El Pato in southern Huila province on the border of three provinces.  The FARC participated in both recent nationwide offensives, despite a serious setback late last year which resulted in the loss of 80 percent of its communications equipment.  FARC's operational focus remains in the rural areas of Colombia, where it continues to engage in the narcotics trade as well as essentially criminal operations such as the kidnappings of ranchers, extortion, blackmail, and protection rackets.  But the new wrinkle is that the FARC, with ELN guidance and material assistance, is now a much more effective fighting force, better able to attack military and police installations and personnel.  In short, the FARC has become more dangerous and must be considered a major threat.

   The FARC was responsible for the mid-March kidnapping of American rancher and crop duster, William Griebling, from his farm in southeastern Tolima province.  On 28 May, the Colombian Administrative Security Department (DAS) made an ill-advised attempt to rescue the 71 year-old American, and Griebling was killed in the gunfight that ensued.

   Three more small guerrilla groups formally demobilized during the past few months, joining the April-19 Movement (M-19), which gave up its guerrilla struggle in March 1990 (although it remains a political force in the country).  They are:  the EPL, the Workers Revolutionary Party (PRT), and the Amerindian guerrilla organization, Quintin Lame (QL).  The three groups were officially recognized as political entities on 28 June, when their representatives were installed by the National Normalization Board of Bogota.

Background

   During the past decade, and particularly over the last five years, Colombia has suffered a calculated reign of terror of awesome proportions.  In addition to the daily murder of ordinary citizens, the country's desperados have assassinated a Justice Minister, an Attorney General, a newspaper editor, 25 journalists, at least 40 judges, and 170 court officials.  In 1986 alone, 11 Supreme Court judges were killed in a shootout between the Army and Leftist guerrillas believed to have been hired by the drug barons.

   Assassination continues to be the instrument of choice for criminal mercenaries, the military, Rightwing death squads, and Leftist groups.  Colombia has thus become one of the worst violators of human rights in the hemisphere.

   There were over 5,000 reported assassinations in 1989, and again in 1990, with the ELN and FARC as the leading perpetrators.

   Colombia has one of the highest murder rates ever recorded by a country not officially at war.  A professional killer can be hired for as little as $20 (although the price is higher for a prominent victim), making murder the number-one cause of death for males between the ages of 15 and 44.

  The drug bosses have formed alliances with militants on both the Right and Left, and more than 140 paramilitary organizations operate in the country with such names as "Rambo" and "The Terminator."  Although Colombia has a tradition of violence dating to the post-independence wars in the last century, political analysts agree that the situation is now unprecedented:  seven different guerrilla movements battle the army and police throughout the country; 137 paramilitary groups kill with impunity.  Typical of such groups is "Amor por Medellin" (Love for Medellin), a vigilante squad that frequently goes on shooting rampages to "clean up the city."  Amor, which claims 600 militants, recently announced its intention to kill all those "who are not decent people."

   Some of the latter paramilitary groups are allied with Colombia's drug mafia, which has its own army of thugs and more money at its disposal than the government itself.  (During the Betancur administration the families offered to pay off Colombia's US$3.1 billion foreign debt if Betancur would deny their extradition to the U.S.  Although the government refused the offer, it was an indication of the financial power of the Colombian mafia, which has infiltrated almost every sector of the economy, including agriculture, real estate, industry and finance.)

   In addition, bands of professional kidnappers and extortionists terrorize the urban population (in Bogota alone police have counted over 1,500 such groups).  There were 1,200 reported kidnappings in 1990 (twice that of 1989), which amounts to about five per day for a country with a total population of about 30 million.  The kidnappings appear to be equally divided between criminal elements and Leftist guerrilla groups.

   Many Colombians carry a gun for self-protection, but the upper classes also use the services of 376 private companies, which employ over 40,000 security guards.

   Colombia is tragically used to violence, but not of the present, highly organized kind, with bombs and bullets going off in banks, restaurants, and other public places, killing innocent bystanders as well as their targets with impunity.

   Cautious Colombians do not venture out after dark.

Roots of Violence

   The roots of violence in Colombia are similar to those in El Salvador and Guatemala where a small upper class dominates industry, agriculture and government, while 45 percent of the people live in poverty and 20 percent in extreme poverty.

   The gulf between rich and poor in the cities and the deep disparities in the countryside have fueled peasant rebellions for nearly five decades, but not until the 1950's, during a civil war between the Liberals and Conservatives, did peasant movements begin to evolve into Marxist guerrilla bands.

   The FARC emerged from that decade of bloodletting known as La Violencia.  FARC was followed by a number of other guerrilla organizations including the ELN, and M-19.  The latter's attack on the Palace of Justice in 1985 brought an end to a sputtering nationwide cease-fire negotiated earlier by then President Belisano Betancur.  These groups later joined together in declaring war on the government under the banner of the National Guerrilla Board, or Coordinadora.

   Peace in Colombia is a tactic rather than an objective.  The government and the armed forces want to use it to disarm and demobilize guerrillas whom they have been unable to defeat on the battlefield, while the guerrillas want to use it to win recognition.  Neither side really wants peace until it has won; both sides must tell the public they want it, but each still believes absolute victory is possible.

   The certainty of victoryless warfare is implicit in the fragmentation of political power in Colombia.  The civilian government is weak, yet neither a leftist revolution nor a rightist coup is likely.  Although the various guerrilla groups appear strong in numbers, they control only a few sparsely-populated regions, and enjoy little support in the cities.  The mainstream political parties' domination of the cities would be threatened by army power if the army were given the mandate and weapons to defeat the rebels.

   Thus, despite insurgency, and largely thanks to drugs, the economy continues to grow, democracy remains, and the fighting continues.

The Role of the Military

   Throughout La Violencia and the bipartisan governments of the National Front, the military served as the mainstay of the political and economic elites.  In essence, so long as civilians did not interfere with the military's mandate to deal with internal security, the former had a free hand in running the economy and foreign policy.

   The paramilitary squads of today actually have their origins in a 1968 law giving the military the right to train and arm civilian groups for reasons of internal security.  And even if the civilian authorities were inclined to control the armed forces, their powers are limited by laws that give the military the right to judge and sentence civilians arrested on charges of endangering national security, including the illegal possession of arms.

   When Betancur took office in 1982 he pledged to end the thirty-year insurgency.  His government soon signed a truce with most of the eight rebel groups, including the self-styled nationalist 1,000 man strong M-19 organization.  But Betancur's peace process ground to a halt in the ruins of the Palace of Justice.  By refusing to negotiate with the M-19 forces who were occupying the building to protest government violations of the cease-fire, Betancur set the stage for the death of some 100 guerrillas and civilians who were slain in the army's counterattack.  Colombians refer to the two-day battle as the 28-hour coup.  The Palace of Justice was the turning point, and the initiative was passed to the military.  A military pacification effort began and the seeds of civil war were planted.

   Then, in early January 1990, the military expanded its activities to include what it termed "the ravages of narco-terrorism."  It launched "Operation Democracy," which was part of a stepped-up counterinsurgency campaign targeting rural areas where local guerrilla forces -- not drug traffickers -- were active.  The operation left hundreds dead, mostly peasants caught in crossfires, and had little or no effect on drug trafficking.

   The U.S. was duped into pouring US$65 million of military aid into the bogus anti-drug effort (including eight A-37's which were used to bomb rural communities).  It even had to go to the extent of having the State Department issue a "determination" that Colombia had an acceptable human rights record to qualify it for the assistance.  The Export-Import Bank added another US$170 million in loan guarantees to the package.

   The following year (1991) Colombia received US$60.5 million in military assistance, making Colombia the recipient of the second largest military aid package (behind El Salvador) in the hemisphere.  In theory the aid is intended to protect Colombia's democracy from the ravages of narco-terrorism; in practice, it is facilitating one of the most brutal counterinsurgency campaigns in Latin America.

The Drug Lords

   The fight against the drug lords who are pushing Colombia toward the brink of anarchy is further complicated by the substantial number of drug abusers in every stratum of the society.  Over 600,000 Colombians use drugs derived from the coca shrub, and an estimated 800,000 regularly smoke marijuana.  Many of the street people in Bogota are strung out on basuco, the residue of coca leaves laced with gasoline, hydrochloric acid and lime.  Mixed with tobacco, it is smoked like a marijuana cigarette and is said to have an effect comparable to that of crack.  Like crack, it is much cheaper than refined cocaine.

   In addition, the country is notorious for exporting an estimated US$35 billion worth of cocaine annually.  More than 70 percent of all cocaine entering the U.S., and 90 percent to Europe, is Colombian.

   The drug barons, perhaps the most sophisticated urban terrorists, have given Colombians a simple choice: "plata or pluma" (money or the bullet).  Many have discreetly opted for the former.

   The narco-traffickers' penetrations of the Colombian government and military are a big part of the problem. Internal corruption has meant that police and military operations against the traffickers are most often compromised before they even begin.

The Future

   The prospects are great for another upsurge in guerrilla activity in the near future.  Despite the Caracas attempts at negotiation, the May/June round and the July round of talks ended in failure to agree on any major points.  The next round of negotiations is scheduled to begin on 26 August.  But the major sticking point is this:  the guerrillas demand concessions that no sovereign state can afford to grant -- e.g. promises not to patrol the countryside, or political status without disarming.  The guerrillas say they haven't been defeated on the battlefield, so why should they not be treated as equals at the bargaining table?

   The prognosis for the future is not good.  Most Colombians believe their country has been plunged into a de facto civil war.  They worry about it becoming another Lebanon.  Rightists are killing Leftists; Leftists are killing Rightists.  Many in the middle silently give their support to the Right-wing death squads.  On top of that, the drug traffickers appear to be in league with both sides. The violence gets worse every day.  The military views the situation as total war, as do the guerrillas.  Then there are the drug traffickers and the common criminals.  People are getting used to the idea that life doesn't have any value in Colombia.