Colombia: Death of FARC-held hostages - full text
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Immediate Context
The developments in August were the most recent in a protracted standoff between FARC leaders and the government of President Uribe over the possibility of a humanitarian exchange of some 60 FARC-held hostages for around 600 government-held rebel prisoners. FARC was renowned for kidnappings and had held hundreds of hostages, some for as long as nine years, as part of its ongoing insurgency against the government. President Uribe had vowed to crush the rebel group when he assumed power in August 2002.
The government faced considerable domestic and international pressure to secure the release of the rebel-held hostages. Three US defence contractors and Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian citizen who had been abducted by FARC in February 2002 whilst campaigning as a candidate in the Colombian presidential elections, were amongst those being held by FARC rebels. Military rescue operations were, however, a highly sensitive issue. In May 2003, 10 hostages were executed by FARC rebels during the course of an attempted rescue raid mounted by Colombian special forces.
In June 2007 FARC officials claimed that the 11 kidnapped legislators, all from the city of Cali, were killed in crossfire after the rebel jungle camp, in the western department of Valle del Cauca, was attacked by “unidentified forces”. In contrast, President Uribe said that Colombian security forces had not launched any operations in Valle del Cauca on the day of the attack and claimed that rebels had “assassinated” the hostages. Video footage released by FARC in April 2007 showed several of the kidnapped legislators sending personal messages to their relatives and calling on Uribe to enter into peace negotiations with FARC leaders. In the footage one of the legislators appeared to oppose the idea of the government launching a military rescue operation, saying that such a venture could end in a massacre.
In December 2006 Fernando Araujo, a former minister of economic development who had been held hostage by FARC rebels since 2000, escaped from his captors during a rescue operation staged by the army. In February 2007 Araujo was appointed as foreign minister, following the resignation of María Consuelo Araujo, whose brother, Alvaro Araujo, was one of several legislators to be implicated in an ongoing “para-political” scandal concerning illicit links between politicians and rebel groups.
Reaction and Outlook
Despite President Uribe's offer in early August of a prisoner exchange, commentators thought it unlikely that FARC would agree to Uribe's terms. However, in a statement issued on July 10, FARC officials had said that they had “failed” in their “mission to care for” the legislators who had been killed “and bring them to a hostage swap”, prompting some analysts to suggest that rebel leaders might have been preparing to begin negotiations with the government over the release of other hostages. In a statement released on July 26, FARC officials invited the International Red Cross to “contact” a rebel unit in the “the western part of the country and go immediately to the location” to collect the legislators’ bodies.
In a television interview broadcast in Venezuela on July 23, FARC spokesman Raul Reyes revealed his suspicions about the alleged emergence of “foreign mercenaries” working in Colombia on behalf of the government. Reyes said that “there are a lot of rumours of commando units including American, British and Israeli mercenaries penetrating the jungle and looking for ways to brings down the FARC”, according to a report published on July 24 by the Reuters news agency.
In the first week of July hundreds of thousands of Colombians participated in nationwide protests against the death of the 11 legislators and demanded an end to FARC kidnappings.
Historical Context
Although Colombia was widely regarded as one of the most politically advanced countries in Latin America, it had suffered many years of endemic violence. In 1899-1903 some 120,000 people were thought to have died during a civil war (known as “The War of a Thousand Days”) between supporters of Colombia’s Liberal Party (PL) and the then-ruling Conservative Party (PC). In April 1948 the government imposed martial law and strict censorship measures after a violent revolt erupted in Bogota in protest against the assassination of a prominent LP politician. The uprising resulted in a civil war that lasted until 1957 and in which at least 250,000 people were killed.
Most of the armed groups fighting the civil war responded to an amnesty in the early 1950s, but some hardline left-wing groups refused to demobilise. FARC was formed in the 1960s by a former guerrilla and member of the Colombian Communist Party. FARC launched hundreds of bomb attacks (against military, government, and civilian targets), kidnapped hundreds of people (including politicians, other public servants, business executives, and foreign citizens--some of whom had been murdered), and used drug trafficking to finance its activities. The rebel left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) was also formed in the 1960s, with an ideology influenced by Christian liberation theology. The United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) was formed in 1997 to co-ordinate right-wing paramilitary groups fighting FARC and the ELN.
In the 1980s and 1990s Colombian drug traffickers, such as the Medellin and Cali cartels, gained international notoriety after committing a series of brutal and high profile murders. The assassination in August 1989 of Luis Carlos Galán Sarmineto, a prominent PL legislator widely regarded as a future presidential candidate, provoked widespread public anger and prompted President Virgilio Barco Vargas to announce sweeping emergency measures to combat the illegal drugs trade.
President Andrés Pastrana Arango in January 1999 opened preliminary peace talks with FARC commanders in San Vicente del Caguán, marking the first time that a sitting Colombian president had met with FARC leaders. However, the talks were postponed indefinitely in July and a peace agreement with FARC rebels had subsequently remained elusive.
Despite FARC’s ongoing insurgency, the government had made significant progress towards ending Colombia’s civil conflict since President Uribe assumed power. In April 2006 the AUC completed the demobilisation of its fighters, whilst an “experimental” ceasefire agreement with the ELN was announced in April 2007 after a series of peace talks in Havana (the capital of Cuba).
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