Good news from Colombia

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  • Keith Wilson
    Trying to be reasonable
    • Oct 1999
    • 64114

    Good news from Colombia

    Uribe's been on a roll lately. The FARC's in very bad shape. Serves the bastards right.



    It was an ending happier than any Hollywood director would dare to dream up. After years of captivity at the hands of left-wing FARC guerrillas, Ingrid Betancourt, three American defence contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers were rescued on Wednesday July 2nd by the army, without a shot being fired. It was a “miracle”, said Ms Betancourt, a former presidential candidate who holds French and Colombian nationality and who had been detained for more than six years, for much of that time in chains and in poor health. It was a triumph for Colombia’s president, Álvaro Uribe, who at some political cost had resisted pressure to negotiate for the release of Ms Betancourt. And it was a disaster for the FARC and its sympathisers in Latin America who hoped to use the hostage issue to weaken Mr Uribe.

    The rescue operation involved years of planning. But it was also testament to the army’s new sophistication in intelligence and infiltration. The army built on its recent successes in disrupting the FARC’s communications and isolating its leaders. An attempt to rescue other guerrilla hostages in 2003 had ended in disaster, when a dozen were killed by their captors.

    This time the army relied on trickery. A former hostage who escaped last year supplied details of the jungle camps in the remote south-eastern departments of Guaviare and Vaupés. Army intelligence agents, posing as senior FARC members, made contact with the guerrilla commander guarding the hostages. They gave him a false order purporting to be from the FARC’s new leader, Alfonso Cano, that the hostages were to be taken to two helicopters sent by a humanitarian organisation—mimicking the arrangements when five other captives were released earlier this year after mediation by Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez.

    Once on board the helicopters, the two guerrilla escorts were overpowered and the army agents, dressed in Che Guevara T-shirts, broke the news to the hostages that they were flying to an army base and freedom. “We couldn’t believe it. The helicopter nearly fell because we jumped for joy,” said Ms Betancourt.

    The operation is the latest of several devastating blows suffered this year by the FARC, which mixes an antiquated Marxism-Leninism with drug-trafficking and racketeering. In March, the army bombed a guerrilla camp just over the border in Ecuador, killing Raúl Reyes, a member of the group’s seven-man secretariat. The incident yielded a huge haul of documents from Mr Reyes’s computers. Days later another member of the secretariat was killed by his own bodyguard. Then Manuel Marulanda, the FARC’s founder and undisputed leader, died, supposedly of a heart attack.
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
    for nature cannot be fooled."

    Richard Feynman
  • Saltiguy
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2008
    • 1434

    #2
    Re: Good news from Colombia

    I would wonder about ALL the players in this story - in a world where you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.

    Comment

    • Duncan Gibbs
      Ninety percent sandpaper
      • Oct 2007
      • 18339

      #3
      Re: Good news from Colombia

      Originally posted by Saltiguy
      I would wonder about ALL the players in this story - in a world where you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.
      If FARC never happened Colombia would be a far more sophisticated and advanced nation than it is today. FARC really are scum.
      Jarndyce and Jarndyce

      The Mighty Pippin
      Mirror 30141
      Looe
      Dragon KA93

      Comment

      • Phillip Allen
        new member
        • May 2002
        • 63618

        #4
        Re: Good news from Colombia

        Mr. Chavez must be dissapointed to have been a cog in the release...poor Hugo, bless his heart
        The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
        Personal failures are too important to be trusted to others.

        Comment

        • Keith Wilson
          Trying to be reasonable
          • Oct 1999
          • 64114

          #5
          Re: Good news from Colombia

          . . .in a world where you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.
          That's often true. In this case, the FARC really are bad guys. There have been some pretty nasty folks on the government's side too, but the FARC is indeed scum, leftover Communists turned to drug-dealing and hostage-taking once their foreign funding dried up. Without the FARC and the American appetite for cocaine, Colombia would be a much happier place.
          "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
          for nature cannot be fooled."

          Richard Feynman

          Comment

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