Posts tagged Farc
RCN’s Brian Andrews Chased Out of Colombia — NOT!
0566 days
by Tom Germain
in News
It was to my greatest shock that I learned from the most respected newspaper in Colombia, El Tiempo, that the American expatriate, Brian Andrews, affectionately known as El Gringo by his colleagues at RCN News in Bogota, had his life threatened and quietly made his exit from this country, vowing never to return. Then I visited Andrews’ blog, where he claims the story is a fabrication.
Andrews has been the English voice for the RCN News web site for two years, occasionally speaking in Spanish in his unmistakable thick American accent for the network’s promos on television. While he confirms that he faces a “security situation”, not much else is true and he never spoke to any reporter from El Tiempo, the Bogota newspaper that broke the story.
El Tiempo’s article gives very specific details about Andrews supposed brush with the FARC, Colombia’s drug trafficking rebels. It said he was doing a report on location in Cerrito, Valle, when he was approached by two men on a motorcycle and given the stern warning that if he did not leave Colombia, he would be kidnapped. This, they allege, came on the heels of having been contacted by Interpol and informed that they had credible evidence that he had become a military target for the FARC, the rebel group turned drug traffickers. The story goes on to say that the outgoing US ambassador, William Brownfield, also advised him that he should pack-up and go.
If this is all fictitious, the reporter behind the article should immediately be fired and return to journalism school (if he ever went) and pay special attention to the part about ethics. I admit sheepishly that just before writing this article, I had written another based on the El Tiempo story, posted it here, and syndicated it on two other sites. I quickly had to remove them when I found-out Andrews has a blog and saw his comments on the matter.
We will give Andrews the benefit of the doubt in this matter, but that should not change the rules for all expatriates living here: those of us who have their wits about them know that if you receive a threat in this country, it will be carried out. That is if you even get the courtesy of a warning! As a rule, you do not ask questions of your hosts, as the criminal groups have tentacles that still reach everywhere in this society. The Colombian government has made enormous progress toward improving security here, but there is still a long way to go.
Good luck Brian Andrews!
The New Face of the Colombian Cocaine Trade
2649 days
by Tom Germain
in Narc & Farc
Colombia has fought and won an arduous battle spanning decades against the cocaine cartels that had at one time reduced the country to a failed state. However, it did not win the war. It’s estimated that more cocaine is being exported from Colombia than ever before. If the ring leaders are all dead or in jail, how is this possible?
Photo by Rotorhead
The void left by the cartels’ dismantling was quickly filled by a multitude of smaller criminal gangs, disbanded paramilitary, as well as the armed rebels of the FARC and ELN, who have formed an alliance. The cocaine trade is far too lucrative to not attract new players, despite the heightened risks. Since their enormous size proved to be the undoing of the cartels, it was only logical that the new organizations would seek to function as a series of disconnected cells, making them less vulnerable. The most fundamental change is the high level of cooperation that exists nowadays among criminal groups. Whereas the cartels feuded constantly in the 80′s and 90′s, often informing the authorities on one another, the tendency now is to network. One organization might specialize in production, another refining, and a series of others handle the distribution. Even the execution of enemies is handled by specialized organizations disconnected from the illegal drug trade, such as the feared Oficina de Envigado.
Another major difference is that the Colombians no longer control all foreign distribution. Home grown traffickers in Mexico, the most important drug route into the biggest market, the United States, have developed organizations so large and powerful that they can only be called cartels. A completely new development is the alliances secretly forged between the armed rebel groups in Colombia, now major players in the drug trade, and the government of Venezuela, and, by proxy, its allies Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. The FARC and ELN are known to funnel considerable amounts of drugs without hindrance through Venezuela.
While the flamboyance and brashness of a Pablo Escobar wouldn’t work today, bribery and blackmail are still widely used by drug traffickers to facilitate their business. Politicians, judges, the police and military, as well as ordinary people are still routinely approached with an offer of “la plata o el plomo” (the money or the bullet), despite the Uribe’s government’s great strides in rooting out corruption. It’s no mystery that the routine extradition of captured major drug traffickers to the USA to be prosecuted there is the only way to insure they won’t manipulate the corrupt Colombian justice system rather than a favor to the United States. Even ordinary Colombians are useful to the traffickers, as they cannot only be used to transport drugs, but also to launder money by putting their names to business contracts and property. Every year, billions of dollars in drug money is invested in this way, and it makes it very difficult for the authorities to discover the real owners, despite laws that allow the state to summarily seize such assets once the link is uncovered.
The new Colombian traffickers have become more sophisticated in their smuggling methods as well, building countless million dollar submersibles that can transport a ton of cargo virtually undetected. They’ve also found every unimaginable way to camouflage drugs, including sewing them into the bellies of pets and corpses. For every kilo intercepted, there’s countless others that make it through. Cocaine isn’t the only drug marketed by the drug traffickers, as they’ve diversified into heroin and marihuana, which are also easy to grow in the vast, mountainous tropical forests of Colombia.
The most wanted list of drug traffickers currently features Daniel El Loco Barrera, who is considered the most powerful drug lord in the country, particularly in the north. Barrera has been particularly successful at making alliances with other illegal groups, including the FARC. Another being actively hunted for is “Comba“, who leads Los Rastrojos and controls most of the production centers and routes of the deep south. Others facing capture and extradition are top FARC commanders, including Alfonso Cano, the maximum leader, and Ivan Marquez.
Drug trafficking is still a massive problem for Colombia, hampering its efforts to clean its international image and spur foreign investment, not to mention tourism. Few are those who believe it can ever be eradicated while the drugs are in demand in developed countries, particularly the USA. However, the Colombian government, with the help of the US financed Plan Colombia, now has the upper hand and the country can never again be overrun to its very core by drug lords.
Colombia, Then and Now
1762 days
by Tom Germain
in Narc & Farc
Photo courtesy of Daniel Andres Forero
Colombia was one of the most dangerous countries on earth. Colombia is still one of the most dangerous places on earth.
Not so long ago, armed rebel groups such as the FARC and the ELN, as well as the paramilitary factions meant to counter them, terrorized the population in most of the rural areas across the country, while the cities were ruled by the powerful drug cartels. Adding further grief to this sorry panorama was the rampant corruption found in all government, military and judicial levels. It’s not an exaggeration to say that at one time, this was a nation ruled by criminals.
Nonetheless, public security has improved dramatically since. First, with a large dose of help (and pressure) from the United States, the dominant cartels based in Cali and Medellin were dismantled by the mid-nineties. The power vacuum left behind was soon filled by smaller criminal groups, as well as the rebels and paramilitary, but it also allowed the government to gradually regain control of its cities. At first, the authorities made the fatal mistake of trying to negotiate with the rebel groups, which only resulted in them gaining more strength and controlling more territory.
The turning point came in 2002, with the election of President Alvaro Uribe, who won on a platform of national security and soon put his plan into action. The first part of his plan was to clean-up corruption from within the military and judicial wings. Next he negotiated the surrender of most of the paramilitary groups, giving them pardons and reintegrating them into society, in tandem with an all-out war against the rebel groups, which continues to this day.
While rebels still haunt parts of the country, they’ve been routed from most, suffering heavy losses at the hands of the military. For the first time in decades, it’s now possible for Colombians as well as tourists to travel by land between most large cities, where before there was a high risk of being captured for ransom or just plain killed by the armed groups. Cities like Medellin and Bogota are now safer than many of their Brazilian counterparts. The body counts are still too high, however, but most of the violence happens within the slums.
There are a few dark clouds on the horizon, however: 2010 is a Presidential election year. Proponents of a Uribe third reelection bid are running out of time, as the Colombian constitution forbids a third mandate. Since pushing through a constitutional amendment in time is unlikely, the big question is whether his successor will be able to maintain the pressure on the illegal armed groups and the criminal gangs, or will we see a return to the chaos that once brought this country to its knees? Another danger lurking around the corner comes from outside Colombia: Venezuela.
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