IPS-English MEXICO: Questions Raised by Deaths of Students at FARC Rebel Camp
 
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:40:21 -0800

 
Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar 11   (IPS)  - ”There is solidarity with the FARC,
nothing else. Don't spread nonsense, our ‘compañeros' are not guerrillas,”
said a spokesman for a student group at the National Autonomous University
of Mexico (UNAM), referring to several Mexicans who were wounded or
killed in the bombing of a Colombian rebel camp in Ecuador.

At least four Mexicans were killed and one was injured when the Colombian
military attacked a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
camp in Ecuador, three km from the Colombian border, on Mar. 1.

”We are seen as criminals because we are on the left, but I can assure
you that our ‘compañeros' who were killed were on a research trip,”
activist Francisco Cerezo, who heads a student organisation demanding
the release of political prisoners in Mexico and declaring solidarity
with ”liberation struggles” in Latin America, told IPS.

Other student groups in UNAM, like the Bolivarian Continental Coordinating
group, the Che Guevara Anti-Capitalist Coordinating group, and the
Mexican FARC Support Group, also said the students in the camp were
carrying out a study.

The Mar. 1 cross-border bombing raid by Colombia, which killed FARC
international spokesman Raúl Reyes and two dozen other guerrillas
or sympathisers, triggered one of the worst diplomatic crises in history
in Latin America, which was resolved at a Rio Group summit of Latin
American leaders on Mar. 7.

Although several of the bodies have not yet been identified, due
to the state of decomposition, it was reported that the victims of
the attack included Mexican citizens 
Juan González, Fernando Franco, Verónica Velásquez and Ulises Soren
Avilés, while Lucía Andrea Morett was wounded and is recovering in
a military hospital in Quito.

What were the UNAM students or former students doing in a FARC jungle
camp, alongside one of the insurgent group's top leaders? 

Professor Guillermo Garduño, an expert on security issues at the
Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City, said that in his
view, the Mexicans ”were part of the FARC.”

”Maybe they weren't part of the military front, but they belonged
to some group involved in international operations, which is why they
were sharing a camp with one of the insurgent group's leaders,” he
told IPS.

The camp was apparently a ”permanent” rather than short-term structure,
and was located in Ecuadorian territory with the approval of the Ecuadorian
government, he said.

”If it didn't have Ecuadorian consent, it is inexplicable why they
were all apparently sleeping peacefully when the attack was staged,
or why the group had no counter-attack or escape plan, as guerrilla
camps always have,” he said.

As IPS reported in an earlier news report, three personal envoys
of French President Nicolas Sarkozy were in Ecuador since October
2007, with the approval of the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe,
and their contact in negotiations for the release of hostages by the
FARC was Raúl Reyes. 

After the bombing raid, the French president's envoys were on their
way to meet with Reyes (who unbeknownst to them was already dead)
when they received a phone call from Colombian Peace Commissioner
Luis Carlos Restrepo, who warned them not to go to the meeting because
they would be in danger, according to a French diplomatic source who
spoke to IPS in Ecuador on condition of anonymity.

Before heading to Ecuador's border with Colombia, the Mexican students
who were killed and injured in the FARC camp had flown from Mexico
to Ecuador to take part in the Feb. 24-28 second Congress of the Bolivarian
Continental Coordinating committee in Quito, which was attended by
around 400 people from several Latin American countries.

The participants signed a proclamation in which they described themselves
as ”political organisations, social movements, individuals, coordinating
committees and networks, and the broadest range of expressions of
the fight against the system of domination by big capital, U.S. and
global imperialism, and Latin American and Caribbean oligarchies.”

In the document, the activists committed themselves to ”wage all
of the necessary battles, using all kinds of fighting to change the
system: peaceful and non-peaceful struggles, civic demonstrations,
insurgent struggles by the oppressed classes and segments of society,
transformative electoral options, civil disobedience, just social
struggles and rebellions, popular mobilisations and all kinds of protests
and political irreverence.”

Mao Viter, one of the Ecuadorian organisers of the congress, confirmed
to the Mexican newspaper Reforma that the UNAM students had taken
part in the gathering, but said no one was aware of their plans to
travel to the jungle or that they had any ties to the FARC.

According to Morett's parents, who flew to Ecuador to see their daughter,
she does not belong to the FARC, but was carrying out a research project.

”I respect their position, but it is impossible for anyone without
ties to the FARC to visit a remote camp belonging to that group, where
one of its leaders is staying,” said 
Garduño.

However, Cerezo, of the Cerezo Committee, insisted that his fellow
activists were only carrying out an academic study, and said he was
sure that the reason the Mexicans were in the FARC camp would be clarified
once Morett ”is released -- she will provide a satisfactory explanation.”

UNAM officials have stated that none of the Mexicans in the guerrilla
camp were on an academic mission involving the university.

The Ecuadorian government of Rafael Correa said the justice system
in his country may not take legal action against the young Mexican
woman who was injured in the attack, due to ”humanitarian attenuating
factors,” such as the fact that she was found abandoned and injured
in the jungle.

But Ecuadorian Defence Minister Wellington Sandoval had previously
stated that Morett would be prosecuted, as a foreign national captured
in Ecuadorian territory in the company of ”an irregular armed group.”

In Colombia, visiting a FARC camp is sufficient to merit charges
of ”rebellion.” Only visits to the guerrillas by journalists are tolerated,
although reporters who meet with insurgents face the risk of threats
and allegations aimed at undermining their reputation and discrediting
them.

The Mexican government of Felipe Calderón announced that it would
carry out a joint investigation with Ecuador into what the Mexicans
were doing at the FARC camp.

Jorge Castañeda, who served as foreign minister under conservative
president Vicente Fox (2000-2006), said the deaths of the Mexican
students were ”a regrettable tragedy.” 

He pointed out, however, that the students were not visiting the
offices of a political party, but ”were in a guerrilla camp, the refuge
of a criminal terrorist organisation that is recognised as such by
the countries of the European Union and which was expelled from Mexico
in 2002 for the same reason (when a FARC diplomatic office was closed
down in Mexico City). So, well, each person decides what they are
going to get involved in.”

Authorities at UNAM, which has a student body of 300,000, lamented
the deaths but clarified that the university has no ties with the
FARC.


*****
+ COLOMBIA: French Negotiators Were to Meet Reyes the Day He Was
Killed (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41513)


(END/IPS/LA IP HD BO/TRASP-SW/DC/DCL/08)


 
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