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War resumes after collapse of Colombian peace process
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| 27 March 2002 |
By Jeremy McDermott
Colombia is entering a brutal new phase of war after the collapse on 20 February of the peace process between the government of Andrés Pastrana and the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC).
The country has moved into open warfare and the guerrillas are seeking to punish the government for breaking off peace talks with a wave of attacks on the country's infrastructure along with a campaign to bring the war into the cities.
As a result, the hardline presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Velez now looks unstoppable in the upcoming elections in May. His talk of getting tough with the FARC could not have been better timed. The question is not whether he will win the presidency, but whether he will win in the first round: an unprecedented outcome in Colombian political history.
The state of the armed forces
Today, the armed forces are confident they can contain the guerrilla threat and take to the offensive, as demonstrated by the invasion of the 42,000km2 FARC safe haven in February. However, this operation and its lack of real success is symptomatic of the problems facing the armed forces and the short-term future of the civil conflict.
The estimated 4,000 guerrillas that were in the safe haven at the time of the invasion simply vanished back into the jungle from which they emerged three years ago. Indeed, the guerrillas have almost mocked troops by blowing up bridges and electricity infrastructure in the area and even chatting with journalists while evading the security forces' desperate attempts to find them.
The fear of an outright FARC victory has now subsided, but the reality is that with only 150,000 troops the army is too small to effectively protect areas under government control, never mind retake the 40% of the country under guerrilla domination.
The FARC campaign
As stated by Comandante 'Romaña', commander of the FARC 53rd Front, the rebels' current strategy is to: "Bring them all down: bridges, pylons and the dam, make urban attacks, so that the oligarchy feels the war."
The FARC have changed their tactics in 2002. The chaos and fear they have sown is greater than ever before and the worst nightmare of urban Colombians, until now largely isolated from the violence, has been realised: the war has come to the cities.
The PIRA connection
The arrests of Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley in August 2001 in Bogotá brought into focus what had long been suspected but never proven: that international terrorist organisations had links with the FARC and were training guerrillas in urban terrorism and the use of explosives.
Of the three, Connolly was Sinn Fein's representative in Cuba, while McCauley and Monaghan have both been in prison for offences connected with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and according to British intelligence sources are active members of the PIRA.
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