Improbable Database Of A Farc Commander

[Judi Lynn]

Improbable Database Of A Farc Commander
Raúl Reyes' Hard Drive
July 07, 2008 By Maurice Lemoine
Source: Le Monde diplomatique

Media attention following Ingrid Betancourt's dramatic release from captivity should not obscure a surprising revelation: laptop computers implausibly retrieved from an obliterating air raid on a Farc base in Colombia are being used to sour the country's relations with Ecuador and smear the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, in western and Latin-American media.

The first of 10 smart bombs guided by GPS hit its target at 00.25 on 1 March 2008, less than two kilometres from the Ecuador-Colombia border, along the Putomayo river. Four Blackhawk OH-60 helicopters appeared out of the darkness with 44 special commandos from Colombia's rapid deployment force on board. But there was no fighting: the temporary camp of the Farc (the Marxist-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) had been destroyed by the explosions and 23 people killed in their sleep (1). Among them was Raúl Reyes, the Farc's second-in-command and the group's "foreign minister". His remains were taken back to Colombia by ground troops as a trophy.

Early that morning the Colombian president Alvaro Uribe contacted his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa, to brief him on the raid: the Colombian airborne unit had been attacked from within Ecuador and had pursued the rebels in legitimate self-defence. But, he assured Correa, their return of fire came from Colombian territory and didn't violate Ecuador's airspace. Colombia's defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, gave the same assurance later.

Initially Correa took Uribe at his word. Until this incident they had been on good terms and spoke on the phone every day. Two weeks before, Correa had said in private to one of the close advisers of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez: "Tell Chávez that I get on very well with Uribe and that if he wants I can help smooth things out between them." Correa felt betrayed, a feeling compounded when Ecuadorian military personnel arrived at the bombed camp: not only had the Colombians violated Ecuadorian territory, they had also, as Correa put it in a press conference on 2 March, conducted "a massacre".

Reyes' death sparked a crisis. Ecuador severed diplomatic relations with Colombia and deployed 11,000 men along its border. Venezuela also sent 10 battalions to its border. "We don't want war," Chávez warned, "but we won't allow the empire, nor its little dog , to weaken us." Nor were they willing to allow it to act with impunity on its neighbours' territory.

More:
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18120