02 June 2008
Death of Terrorist Leader Might Help End Colombia’s Civil Unrest
Analysts comment on significance of Manuel Marulanda’s passing
Washington -- The death of the founder and longtime leader of a Colombian left-wing terrorist group bodes well for the South American nation, a former State Department official tells America.gov.
Roger Noriega said the death in March of Manuel Marulanda, head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the killing or surrender of other FARC commanders and the extradition of “capos” of the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) represent the "beginning of the end" of Colombia’s internal conflict. Capos are the leaders of drug trafficking rings, which have been tied to the AUC. The FARC, since its creation in 1964, has been trying to overthrow the Colombian government.
“Much work remains to be done, but the Colombian people should take pride in what they've accomplished,” said Noriega, a former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs who also was U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States. Noriega, now a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, coordinates the public policy group’s program on Western Hemisphere issues.
Noriega said Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s “hard-nosed, unrelenting policies to literally impose the rule of law in the country has made all Colombians safer and the [Andean] region more stable today.”
He said that “to consolidate these gains, the Colombians should make bold and effective use” of captured FARC documents to hold Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and others “accountable for abetting FARC terrorism” and to deny “the external support that keeps it alive.”
Citing intelligence sources, the Colombian government said Marulanda, nicknamed “Sureshot” for his notorious ability to ambush army patrols, died of a heart attack March 26. His real name was Pedro Antonio Marín.
STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS FARC AT POTENTIAL TURNING POINT
The State Department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Marulanda’s arrest and/or conviction. Marulanda was the FARC’s “ultimate decision maker” who approved the group’s expanded efforts into cocaine trafficking that sent hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world, according to the department.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said May 27 that Marulanda’s reported death is “another potential turning point for the FARC; they can either turn once again to violence, kidnapping, and narco-trafficking, or they can try to work on behalf of the Colombian people and lay down their arms.”
McCormack said at his daily press briefing that hostages being held by the FARC in Colombia, including three Americans, should be released immediately and returned to their families. The United States continues to be concerned about the hostages’ fate and will keep working for their safe release, said McCormack.
LATIN AMERICAN SCHOLAR COMMENTS
Latin America scholar Riordan Roett told America.gov that Marulanda was the “most important leader of the FARC to either die, be killed, or surrender.” In March, Colombian army commandos killed a senior FARC leader, Raul Reyes.
But the FARC remains “entrenched in the Colombian countryside,” and “it will take a massive diplomatic effort by the Uribe government to open a dialogue with the new leadership, which is not impossible but improbable in the short term,” said Roett, a professor and the director of the Latin American Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
Roett added that “there is no doubt that the FARC is a weakened organization with dwindling popular support in Colombia.”
FARC’S FUTURE
Markus Schultze-Kraft, Latin America program director for the International Crisis Group in Bogotá, Colombia, says his nonpartisan group that works to prevent conflict worldwide thinks Marulanda represented a point of reference for the FARC’s origins in 1964.
His death will have a psychological effect on the FARC because Marulanda was the group’s founding father, Schultze-Kraft told America.gov.
Marulanda’s successor is Alfonso Cano, who is associated with the group’s political wing and who may reach out to other political figures in Latin America sympathetic to FARC’s agenda, said Shultze-Kraft. He added the FARC’s new leadership may adopt a somewhat different strategy that emphasizes a political focus rather than hard-line military tactics to achieve its ends.
Schultze-Kraft said he does not believe the FARC’s leadership is ready to negotiate with the Colombian government to bring peace to the country. But, he added, there could be individual negotiations with some of the FARC’s lesser-ranking commanders.
Brian Jackson from the Rand Corporation, a nonpartisan U.S. research institute, said a terrorist organization’s loss of its central leader, particularly for a rebel force like the FARC, is “at the very least a sign that there’s going to be more instability and change in what the group is doing over the near term.”
Jackson, associate director of RAND's homeland security program in Washington, told America.gov that the FARC’s future as an important force in Colombia comes down to how effective the organization is at succession planning.
For additional information, see “Overriding Interests Help Prevent South American Conflict,” and “Remarks by President Bush on Situation in Colombia.”
