Center for a New American Security

I was really impressed with Anastasia Moloney's piece in the World Politics Review on Colombia's endgame with the FARC. The readership was as well and came up with some good questions. I asked those and a few more to Anastasia, and she joins us today to talk about the FARC, the Colombian military, and her experience living in South America.

1. First off, thanks for writing such a great piece. We at the blog mostly cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so your article on the FARC was of great interest to the readership. How long have you been based in Colombia, and why did you first go there?

I’ve been based in Colombia for the last seven years. I went to Colombia on a whim and because I was bored with life in London. I initially arrived in Bogota on a 2 year teaching contract in an international school. Haven’t looked back since.

2. One question a reader asked was about civilian casualties. How careful is the Colombian military to avoid civilian casualties? Do they place a priority on protecting the population in the same way as the U.S. military now does? Or is it just a case of the FARC being relatively more brutal than the government?

In my opinion, the Colombian military is very careful to avoid civilian casualties. This happens rarely, at least officially. The biggest problem for civilians is landmines rather than getting caught up in crossfire between the Farc and government troops. Civilians generally flee their homes to avoid fighting and this has lead to Colombia’s displacement crisis. The country has one of the world’s highest internally displaced populations in the world, over 3 million.

3. Another reader wanted to know more about Colombia's right-wing paramilitary organizations. What role have these organizations -- and primarily the AUC -- played in the fighting? What happens to them when the war is "over"? Can you describe their role and activities a little more?

Around 90% of AUC groups demobilized from 2005 onwards in a peace deal brokered with the government of Alvaro Uribe. At its height in the late 1990s, the AUC played a massive role in the conflict, fighting against the guerrillas and also collaborating with the Colombian military in secret, and meddling in local and general elections. Since then, around 30,000 men and women have laid down their arms and around 60% of those have joined government run rehabilitation programmes, where they receive money from the government on condition they go to school or get skills training. It has had mixed results. I have seen the successful reintegration of former combatants but also cases where former paramilitaries have re-armed and joined drug organizations or created their own new paramilitary groups. The re-arming and or the emergence of new paramilitary groups is a major problem for the government. The bottom line is that as long as Colombian produces cocaine, there will always be criminal / paramilitary gangs.

4. Have you studied any counter-insurgency theory, and if so, have you seen any of those theories validated or proven wrong in Colombia?

No! My university degrees were in history and anthropology. My only observation is that without a serious commitment to education and job creation, counter-insurgency campaigns are doomed to fail.

5. Is the U.S. assistance mission to the Colombian government at all controversial among Colombians?

Yes and No. For the Uribe government and the country’s armed forces, US aid is crucial. Others believe US aid and contractors undermine the sovereignty of Colombia. The country’s vice-president recently caused controversy when he went against the official line and said it was time for Plan Colombia to end so that Colombia could reclaim its sovereignty.

6. What role does Venezuela play in all this?

That’s the million dollar question. The Colombian government believes the country’s long jungle borders with Venezuela provides an easy safe haven for Farc, and that the Venezuelan government turns a blind eye to the problem.

7. And finally, if one is in Bogotá for a week, what are the top five bars one should visit?

The best bars in town change often. So I’ll give you the barrios (neighbourhoods) where to find the busiest bars all found in the posh bit of town in the north.. Zona G, Parque 93, la Zona Rosa, and Usaquen.

I'm sure most of you who read the Washington Post saw this article today on the lessons we can take from the COIN campaign in Colombia and apply to Afghanistan. The lessons are interesting -- I am sure there are more than just four -- and I was particularly struck by the one suggesting we de-emphasize the counter-narcotics mission.

First, a surge of U.S. combat forces to Afghanistan may be less useful than further increasing the number of military trainers being deployed to help build a viable Afghan army. Second, the administration should focus less on stopping the heroin trade and more on establishing functioning state institutions -- from schools to health clinics. Third, efforts to seal off border sanctuaries do not work and divert military resources from the central job of protecting civilians. The fourth lesson is a stark one: It will take time. The Colombian effort has taken nearly a decade and counting.

My friend Judah Grunstein at World Politics Review really put together a good feature on the "Age of Counterinsurgency." Anastasia Maloney has a particularly good dispatch from Colombia on the demise of the FARC.

Last year in particular was a vintage year for the Colombian armed forces. Two members of the FARC's seven-man ruling body, the Secretariat, were killed: the group's second in command, Raúl Reyes, killed by the Colombian army during a controversial cross-border raid into neighboring Ecuador; and rebel commander Ivan Rios, murdered at the hands of his own bodyguard. The FARC's legendary founder and leader -- Manuel Marulanda, alias "Sureshot" -- also died in 2008, of an alleged heart attack. But perhaps the biggest blow was the daring rescue mission -- in which OMEGA forces played a part -- that freed 15 FARC hostages last July, including three American contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

There is little doubt that the FARC is now on the defensive. The group's top commanders, protected by a security ring of dozens of bodyguards, are increasingly cornered, and now rely on human couriers to communicate with each other. The picture painted by Colombian military chiefs is of a FARC movement on the ropes, but still holding on."Their command and control structures are now limited but not yet neutralized," said Navas. "They've been badly hit but they aren't yet destroyed. There's still a way to go but we're in the last stages of war. They're trying at all costs to avoid combat."

Navas highlighted the fact that the rebels command little influence over civilians. "They don't control the masses as they once did," he said. "They are now deep in the jungle with sporadic contact with civilians."

The rebels are also having trouble in providing their combatants with uniforms and have resorted to using tracksuits. "When they walk around in those tracksuits," said Navas, "the FARC loses its revolutionary mystique."

Talk about population-centric! The idea that the FARC lost its power once separated from the rural population basically validates all kinds of insurgency and counterinsurgency theories going back to Mao. (Also, the part about trying to look tough in a tracksuit is pretty funny.) I spoke last year with a senior official in the Colombian ministry of defense who unashamedly pointed toward consistent support from the U.S. government as being the key to his government's defeat of the FARC.

The centerpiece of the government's counterinsurgency offensive in the south of the country is called Plan Patriota. The campaign is led by 14,500 OMEGA special forces troops, many of them U.S.-trained, who patrol an area totaling 3,300 square miles and covering three provinces. The U.S. has played a pivotal role in Plan Patriota, largely through the U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM -- a joint, regional command of the U.S. Department of Defense in Miami.

That comes on top of the roughly $6 billion that the U.S. has funneled into Colombia over the last decade, through the aid package called Plan Colombia. The money has gone to fight drug production in Colombia and train the Colombian army to battle rebel groups. Around 400 U.S. military personnel are based in Colombia as advisers, "supporting the Colombian armed forces with training, logistical, and limited intelligence support since we first began providing U.S. military support to Plan Colombia in 2000," according to the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá. The U.S. Congress has limited the number of military advisers in Colombia to a maximum of 800 personnel, while U.S. law forbids them from entering combat zones or joining military operations that could result in clashes.

Over the years, SOUTHCOM has provided military hardware, such as Blackhawk and Huey II helicopters, and key logistical and infrastructure support to the Colombian army to "help it modernize and operate more effectively against both the coca farmers and rebels," Gen. James T. Hill, the SOUTHCOM commander, explained to the U.S. Congress in 2003. He added, "We continue to train Colombia's helicopter pilots, providing their forces a growing ability to perform air assaults that are key in the battle against dispersed enemies. We have also trained the Colombian urban counterterrorist unit and continue to upgrade their capabilities and equipment." SOUTHCOM has also trained Colombian troops to protect the country's major 478-mile oil pipeline in the Arauca province, which has been the target of frequent FARC attacks in the past.

So ... an indirect approach focused on separating the insurgent from the population ... think there might be any lessons we can draw from this? Just maybe?

"What is victory?" reflected Navas. "When every day 20 to 40 narco-terrorists knock on our door wanting to lay down their arms."

According to the Colombian government as reported by Reuters:

The founder and chief commander of Colombia's FARC rebel force, Manuel Marulanda, has died after more than 40 years fighting the state from jungle and mountain camps, the government said on Saturday. If confirmed, the death of Manuel Marulanda, who organized the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas in the 1960s, would be the heaviest blow yet to Latin America's oldest insurgency, already weakened by a military setbacks.

Indeed, Colombia gives us a view as to the possible duration of a narcotic-funded, rural-based insurgency. Remind you of anywhere else that we are fighting?

Back when this blog had about 50 readers a day, it was fun because Abu Muqawama could pretty much write whatever the hell he wanted. Now that about 3,000 people read it daily it's less fun because of all the emails that flood in whenever one of us writes something vaguely contentious. You see, some of these people know our real names. And are kinda "important" in policy circles. Which is not to say that Abu Muqawama didn't enjoy David Kilcullen's point-by-point criticism of an earlier post which he found waiting in his inbox this morning. He just got a little frustrated: "Well %$#@, Dave, if you're so smart, why don't you blog on something?"

Eh, what's that? You say you just posted a long essay on the Small Wars Journal blog on road-building in Afghanistan? And that it's smarter than anything you're likely to read on this blog?

Damn.

... like the Romans and other counterinsurgents through history, U.S. forces in Kunar, in a close and genuine partnership with local communities and the Afghan government (most especially, a highly competent and capable Provincial Governor), have engaged in a successful road-building program as a tool for projecting military force, extending governance and the rule of law, enhancing political communication and bringing economic development, health and education to the population. Roads in the frontier area that are patrolled by friendly forces and secured by local allies also have the tactical benefit of channeling and restricting insurgent movement and compartmenting terrain across which guerrillas could otherwise move freely, and their political and economic effects are even more striking. All of this seems to suggest, in effect, that “roads ain’t roads”.

In all seriousness, the next time Abu Muqawama sees Kilcullen, he's going to ask him for his thoughts on whether or not Colombia's experience with road-building in FARC-controlled areas can be brought in as another case study. It might nicely complement the U.S. and NATO experience in Afghanistan.

There is a good article in Der Spiegel (English) on Hugo Chavez's relationship with the FARC. It will be interesting to see the long-term consequences of the Raul Reyes assassination on a) Chavez, b) Colombian-Ecuadorian relations, and c) the health of the FARC. It looks, at the moment, as if the Colombian government has the upper hand thanks to a very patient, US-supported counter-insurgency strategy. (Abu Muqawama's ladyfriend is in Colombia at the moment. But not with the FARC.)

Interpol specialists are currently analyzing the recovered data. Some of the information has been encrypted, but most of the files are easily accessible. Reyes felt safe in his camp, less than two kilometers (1.25 miles) from the Colombian border. In roughly two weeks, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble plans to announce the results of the investigation. But one thing is already clear: the laptops contain a political bombshell. They hold detailed information on FARC's relations outside of Colombia, the group' finances, their smuggling routes and records for cocaine deliveries. There are also details of bomb attacks carried out be the group.

But the most important man exposed by the files on the laptop is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- the same man who threatened his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe with war following the cross-border raid against Reyes. Now it’s clear why: Chavez apparently does more than just sympathize with the guerrillas in his neighboring country -- he also supports them with money and arms.

Reyes’ posthumous electronic correspondence reveals that Chavez had planned a meeting with legendary FARC leader Manual Marulanda, and he wanted to invite Nicaragua’s head of state Daniel Ortega and Bolivian President Evo Morales. Another e-mail refers to a “dossier” of over $300 million for the FARC. The government in the Venezuelan capital Caracas also apparently offered the rebels a share in the country's oil business and promised decommissioned arms from the country’s own army.

Chavez insists that he has never sent the rebels money or arms. After the saber rattling with Colombian leader Uribe, he is portraying himself as a man of peace. But former rebels and intelligence experts confirm the connection with the guerrillas.

Abu Muqawama mentioned the excellent briefing on Colombia and the FARC presented by Colombian Vice-Minister of Defense Juan Carlos Pinzón last weekend. Embarrassingly for a student of counter-insurgency, Abu Muqawama knows little about the FARC. Having said that, it appears as if Colombia is really kicking the snot out of them these days. Colombian officials are clear and unashamed about one thing: steady and generous U.S. aid has been critical to their success.

In a country where most people cannot remember a time of peace, Colombians are for the first time raising the possibility that a guerrilla group once thought invincible could be forced into peace negotiations or even defeated militarily.

Weakened by infiltrators and facing constant combat and aerial bombardment, the insurgency is losing members in record numbers. The FARC, as the group is known, lost 1,583 fighters in combat last year, its columns are plagued by command-and-control problems, and popular support is evaporating, the government of President Ýlvaro Uribe says.

Since 2000, the Uribe administration has received $5 billion in U.S. aid, mostly for military and anti-drug programs -- more than any other government outside the Middle East. The money has helped it revamp the Colombian army, paying for new helicopters and training for elite troops, although rights groups remain concerned about abuses, including the killings of civilians.

(Civilians? Those weren't civilians -- surely those were insurgent potentialities.)

Update: Charlie recommends...