[southnews] Settling of Crisis Makes Winners of Andes Nations Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 23:47:18 -0600 (CST) After leaders in the Andes tiptoed from the edge of war to bear hugs and oaths of brotherhood, Latin America was trying to sort out the winners and losers in the regions worst diplomatic dispute in years. Settling of Crisis Makes Winners of Andes Nations, While Rebels Lose Ground By SIMON ROMERO New York Times : March 9, 2008 After leaders in the Andes tiptoed from the edge of war to bear hugs and oaths of brotherhood, Latin America was trying to sort out the winners and losers in the regions worst diplomatic dispute in years. A day after the crisis was resolved at a summit meeting in the Dominican Republic on Friday, it was already clear that nearly all of the players lost something. The leaders of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela traded charges that muddied each of them. Colombia and its ally, the United States, found themselves isolated in the region. And Latin Americas largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, lost two senior commanders in a week, the latest in a string of tactical and strategic defeats. But the biggest winner appears to have been the region itself, which resolved its own dispute without outside help and without violence. The crisis began when Colombian security forces hunted down and killed Razl Reyes, the FARCs second-in-command, and 23 others in a raid last weekend on the guerrillas camp in Ecuador. Venezuela and Ecuador assailed Colombia as having violated Ecuadors sovereignty, cut diplomatic ties and sent troops to the Colombian border in a show of force, effectively defending the FARCs nebulous operations in their countries. Colombia insists it has the right to attack its enemies, but the military response by its neighbors President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela vowed war if Colombia pursued its fight with the FARC into Venezuela could allow the FARC to operate with more freedom outside Colombia. Still, that victory may be small consolation for the FARC, whose very presence in neighboring countries is a reflection of its loss of strength within Colombia, as a brutally successful counterinsurgency has driven it out of territory it once controlled. Reports emerged on Friday of yet another senior commander of the FARC who had been killed. No cross-border raid was involved. A deserter simply brought the guerrillas severed right hand as proof that he had killed his own commander. The killing of the guerrilla, Manuel Jesus Muqoz, who went by the nom de guerre Ivan Rmos, was extraordinarily macabre even in the annals of Colombias four-decade war. Mr. Muqoz, a member of the FARCs guiding secretariat, was the fifth senior member of group killed in the past year. Colombias government contends that the FARC, which finances itself through cocaine trafficking and abductions for ransom, has seen its ranks fall from 16,000 members at the start of the decade, when the guerrillas had advanced close to the capital, Bogota, to between 6,000 and 8,000 now. For Colombia, too, the results were mixed. It found itself diplomatically isolated in the region, its tactics rebuked and President Alvaro Uribe under siege as a too-willing ally of the United States. The raid was one of the most controversial chapters of Plan Colombia, the American program that has disbursed more than $5 billion in aid to Colombia since the late 1990s. And in carrying out the operation without getting Ecuadors permission beforehand, Mr. Uribe took a page from the Bush administrations playbook. The predawn operation bears remarkable similarities to one carried out in late January by the United States in Pakistan. In that case, the Central Intelligence Agency used a Predator drone aircraft to drop missiles, killing Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior commander of Al Qaeda who had hidden from American officials for years. Both operations used local informants to track the men down. Both operations were carried out in foreign countries without getting permission beforehand. Both were tactical victories, killing enemies classified as terrorists. But in killing Mr. Reyes in Ecuador, Mr. Uribe may have misjudged the reaction that would follow. A firestorm of criticism was directed at Colombia, a nation increasingly viewed as a redoubt of loyalty to the United States in a region chafing at Washingtons waning influence. The Bush doctrine openly rejects nonintervention in other nations affairs, something that runs counter to the ideal of sovereignty that is so precious in Latin America, said Greg Grandin, a professor of Latin American history at New York University. The methods employed by Mr. Uribe, whose father was believed to have been killed by guerrillas in the early 1980s, may be hard to swallow in a region that has largely seen its other cold war-era insurgencies vanquished. On Thursday, Nicaragua joined the fray on the side of Venezuela and Ecuador. But the wrath of Colombias neighbors is a price Mr. Uribe seems content to pay. Despite Colombias insistence that it acted alone, speculation persists as to whether the technological prowess of the United States was involved in the hunt for Mr. Reyes. Mr. Chavez emphatically denied reports last week that he had placed a call to Mr. Reyess satellite phone; such a call might have allowed intelligence agencies to track the guerrilla down in Sucumbmos, an Amazonian province in Ecuadors northern frontier. In their war of words, Mr. Uribe accused his counterparts in Ecuador and Venezuela of having financial ties to the FARC, a group resembling a criminal syndicate that dresses up its actions in leftist rhetoric. And the presidents of Ecuador and Venezuela reminded Latin America of the ties between many of Mr. Uribes top supporters in Colombia and the paramilitary death squads that have evolved into nothing less than criminal syndicates trafficking in cocaine. Cocaine, guns, private armies and guerrillas remain the ingredients of Colombias war even as the last element is being visibly pushed into the porous border regions of the countrys neighbors. In the end, Latin America eased its own crisis. But the celebratory behavior of its leaders in the Dominican Republic belies the tension that persists around a war without closure. Just because the FARC is weakened does not mean it will wither away. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/world/americas/09colombia.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin _______________________________________________________- Phone led US to Farc leader Raul Reyes By Bill Lowther in Washington and Philip Sherwell in Lago Agrio, Ecuador Telegraph.(United Kingdom ): 12:45am GMT 09/03/2008 The top Colombian Marxist rebel leader killed in a jungle air strike last week was tricked into using a satellite phone tracked by American experts, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. The location of Raul Reyes, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), was pinpointed just inside Ecuador after Colombian hostage negotiators deliberately intensified talks over the release of captives to force him either to authorise, or to stop, the next stage. Ecuadorean soldiers carry two corpses of FARC guerrillas killed in their Angostura camp by the Colombian strike Ecuadorean soldiers carry two corpses of FARC guerrillas killed in their Angostura camp by the Colombian strike The raid, which involved a Columbian air attack just across Ecuador's border, sparked an international confrontation which was defused only on Friday after a tense week of threatened military escalation, also involving forces of nearby Venezuela. Local paid informants had already told Colombian authorities that Reyes was operating along a stretch of the Ecuadorian-Colombian frontier. So although he only used the phone sparingly for security reasons, he gave away his precise hiding place when he switched on the machine to deal with the latest development in the negotiations. The Farc switches satellite phones for its senior commanders regularly and bought several new devices in Miami last September, but US intelligence learned the numbers at an early stage. advertisement As part of its anti-narcotics programme, the US has supplied Colombia with the technology to track satellite phone calls. A team of freelance American technical experts hired by the Colombian government runs the operation. During a recent bout of negotiations to free Farc hostages, the team was able to identify the phone being used by Reyes from calls he made to Venezuela. It was at this stage that the plan to trick him into making further exchanges was put into action. When Reyes made the fatal call - his only means of communicating orders from his Amazon hideout - the Colombian air force deployed an air strike force already on standby. The cross-border raid brought South America to the brink of war as Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and his Ecuadorian counterpart Rafael Correa condemned the incursion and deployed troops to their border with Colombia. But the crisis eased after Colombian president Alvaro Uribe apologised for his government's action at the end of a combative regional summit on Friday. The meeting culminated with handshakes and hugs between Mr Uribe and his two main protagonists, although the men had earlier exchanged angry insults. US intelligence hopes that Reyes' death will unleash a power struggle and possible rift within Farc ranks, especially as the ageing rebel commander Manuel Marulanda is reportedly seriously ill and being cared for on an estate in Venezuela near the Colombian border. Marulanda's presence is believed to be a major reason that Mr Chavez moved 10,000 men and tanks to the Colombian border - to warn off Bogota from another cross-border attack. Another senior Farc leader Ivan Rios was killed by his bodyguard on Friday, further fuelling hopes of a split in the guerrilla movement. The rebels have been trying to use their profits from cocaine trafficking and hostage ransoms to buy new weapons for their 44-year-old insurgency. But in Thailand last week, notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was captured in a sting operation by US drug enforcement agents while attempting to sell the Farc surface-to-air missiles and armour-piercing rocket launchers. Meanwhile, Mexico has launched an investigation into reports that five of those killed alongside Reyes in the Farc camp were Mexicans believed to have been attending a political seminar with the rebels in a show of solidarity. One of the three female survivors currently under guard in an Ecuadorian military hospital is a left-wing Mexican student. The news has caused shock waves in Mexico. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/09/wfarc109.xml The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/