Pubdate: Sun, 17 Jul 2005
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Steven Dudley,  http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COLOMBIAN REBELS WIDENING REACH

The Colombian Rebel Group FARC Has Extended Its Operations Beyond Its 
Country's Borders And Is Involved In Politics As Well As A Range Of 
Illegal Activities

BOGOTA - A series of recent arrests around Latin America have 
revealed that the FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest leftist 
guerrilla group, is involved in everything from political lobbying to 
kidnappings and drug and weapons trafficking.

The discovery of links that allegedly are focused in Venezuela but 
extend from Argentina to Mexico has created new worries in Colombia, 
its immediate neighbors and other parts of Latin America.

FARC leader Raul Reyes suggested earlier this year that the rebels 
would try to create "refuges of coexistence" inside their neighbors' 
territories. "The FARC hopes to build on the borders . . . with 
Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Panama and Peru," he said in an interview 
with Colombian television.

With an estimated 17,000 fighters, the FARC -- the Spanish acronym of 
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- is the largest rebel 
group in the hemisphere. Its humble beginnings -- as a small group of 
communist-backed rebels in the early 1960s -- belie its now 
sophisticated international logistical and political support networks.

The bare bones of this network began to emerge with the capture of 
Rodrigo Granda in Venezuela last December by bounty hunters paid for 
by the Colombian government. Granda, whose capture caused a brief 
diplomatic rift between Bogota and Caracas, was ferried to Colombia, 
where he awaits trial on charges of rebellion.

Granda is an admitted member of the FARC's International Committee, a 
small group of members who go quietly to places like Mexico and 
Europe to win support for their insurgency and seek alliances with 
like-minded organizations and governments. Colombian authorities say 
their job also includes brokering arms purchases, establishing a 
"Latin American revolutionary movement," and possibly facilitating kidnappings.

Documents held by Colombian government intelligence agencies, for 
instance, include a report that a former FARC member had testified 
that Granda also trained guerrillas in explosives. Colombian 
authorities say that he trafficked guns from points abroad. 
Paraguayan and Colombian authorities also claim they intercepted 
e-mails linking Granda to the kidnapping of Cecilia Cubas, the 
daughter of former Paraguayan President Raul Cubas, and they allege 
that Granda met with Cubas' kidnapper in Caracas. Cecilia Cubas' body 
was found earlier this year.

"Granda isn't just international political spokesman of the FARC," 
said Col. Oscar Naranjo of the Colombian police intelligence unit 
known as DIJIN. "He's involved in arms trafficking. . . . Granda also 
ends up consulting on that kidnapping. Granda also facilitates a 
number of encounters, promoting the establishment of various armed 
groups in Latin America."

Just 'Relations'?

For his part, Raul Reyes, a top FARC leader inside Colombia and head 
of its International Committee, acknowledges that the rebels have 
numerous contacts abroad but denies that his envoys are involved in 
kidnapping or other criminal activities.

"Sure, the FARC has relations with Paraguayan revolutionaries. We 
don't deny it," Reyes said in a recent interview published on the 
rebels' website. "We also have relations with Brazilian 
revolutionaries, with Venezuelans, with the Communist Party of Cuba, 
and with different governments that for obvious reasons I won't name here."

Investigators in Colombia and the United States say that Venezuela 
has become the FARC's most important hub of activity abroad. 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has often expressed sympathy with 
revolutionary movements like the FARC throughout Latin America, but 
knowledgeable U.S. officials say there has been no evidence linking 
Chavez personally to the rebels.

These officials nevertheless say that Venezuela has become the FARC's 
principal route for trafficking guns in exchange for drugs. 
Venezuelan authorities have detained several FARC members involved in 
kidnapping and drug trafficking in recent months, and a Western 
anti-drug official said FARC members were linked to a seven-ton load 
of cocaine seized last year in the state of Guarico.

Venezuela is equally important as a political hub for the rebels. At 
a 2003 meeting in Venezuela, according to Colombian intelligence 
agencies, an international conglomerate of left-of-center 
organizations, including the FARC, formed the Bolivarian Continental 
Coordinator as part of a regionwide plan to foment resistance to U.S. policies.

With offices in Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, 
Brazil, Panama and Honduras, the Coordinator is the FARC's means of 
reaching out to other Latin American organizations like Brazil's 
Movement of the Landless, the Popular Front in Peru, the Mothers of 
Plaza de Mayor Movement in Argentina, and Chile's Manuel Rodriguez 
Patriotic Front, authorities in Colombia say.

Strong Links

This network may be tied together in part by money as well as 
political sympathy. According to a report by Veja magazine in Brazil 
earlier this year, intelligence agents there witnessed FARC 
emissaries offering donations to the Workers' Party for its 2002 
campaign. The agents could not prove whether the money actually 
entered the coffers of the party. Both the Workers' Party and the 
FARC are part of the so-called Sao Paulo Forum, another leftist 
conglomeration that meets yearly in different parts of Latin America. 
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is a member of the party.

Brazil and Ecuador have also become extremely important supply lines 
for the guerrillas, investigators claim. Both largely jungled borders 
serve as transit points for guns and drugs, and rest and recreation 
areas for FARC fighters. Some investigators fear that Ecuador has 
become more than a refuge for the FARC. Last month, guerrillas 
launched an attack from Ecuador that killed 19 Colombian soldiers and 
led Colombian military officials to call for their neighbors to beef 
up their border patrols.

FARC operatives also are alleged to have been extending their reach 
into the drugs and arms trafficking along the so-called Triple 
Frontier area where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet.

In May, Argentine authorities captured Alberto Galvalisi, an alleged 
FARC member accused of kidnapping at least a dozen Brazilians since 1994.

And late last month, Paraguay extradited alleged FARC member Ivan 
Carlos Mendes-Mesquita to the United States to face drug charges. He 
was captured last November on his ranch in northeastern Paraguay, 
along with a twin-engine aircraft loaded with 500 kilograms of cocaine.

"Mendes-Mesquita operated a powerful cocaine, currency and weapons 
smuggling enterprise," the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said 
at the time. "He was the source of supply for numerous Brazilian 
trafficking organizations, including several with strong ties to the 
Middle East and Europe."

Leadership Loss

But the FARC's increasing international presence has also cost it 
some of its top leaders. Early last year, Ecuadorean authorities 
arrested a FARC chieftain, Ricardo Palmera, also known as Simon 
Trinidad, as he strolled the streets of the capital city of Quito -- 
with his wife and daughter, according to Colombian military sources.

One of the sources said that when Palmera was detained, he "said he 
was on a diplomatic mission for the FARC."

The highest-ranking FARC commander ever captured, he was quickly 
deported to Colombia and then was extradited to the United States 
early this year to face charges of drug trafficking, kidnapping and terrorism.
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