FARC leader 'at a crossroads'

2008-07-10 14:06

Henry Orrego

Bogota - The spectacular rescue of 15 hostages from the hands of FARC rebels has left Latin America's oldest insurgency in a bind just as its new leader Alfonso Cano was weighing negotiating with the Colombian government, analysts said.

The Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has waged a four-decade battle against the government and is believed to be still holding hundreds of hostages, mainly Colombians, in jungle hideouts.

Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three US nationals and 11 Colombians were rescued on July 2 in a military operation in which troops who had taken acting lessons posed as rebels and plucked the hostages from FARC's grasp.

Now Cano "is at a crossroads, and hopefully he will understand that the possible option is leading his organisation to a serious and realistic negotiation", said Alejo Vargas, with the political science department of the National University here.

An initial signal that Cano may be favourable to negotiation came in his first remarks after he took the helm of the insurgency, following the death in March of the group's historical leader Manuel Marulanda, Colombian television has reported.

"Our proposal to meet with the government to define the terms for an agreement remains in effect, as does the decision to maintain communications," Cano said in a statement dated prior to the hostage rescue.

The rescue marked one of the biggest setbacks for the rebel force, which had been seeking to use 39 of its hostages - including the 15 rescued - as bargaining chips, swapping them for about 500 FARC guerrillas now behind bars.

The FARC also lost two of the group's top leaders in fighting this year, including number-two official Raul Reyes who was killed by Colombian troops inside Ecuador.

Simultaneous challenges

The rebels also have been hard hit by the desertion of some mid-ranking officials, communications snafus and troubles securing supplies, several of the released hostages said.

Strikingly, its ranks have shrivelled in five years to below half what they were, according to the government, which says the FARC had fewer than 8 000 fighters in early 2008.

"The outlook for the FARC is a difficult one. Its deeds have made it worthy of enormous domestic and international political repudiation, just as it has suffered major military blows, so the outlook for Cano is not an easy one," said Alvaro Villarraga, director of the private Democratic Culture Foundation.

Vargas voiced hope that Cano would "consolidate his leadership (and) given his education and experience in politics, be likely to assess the new situation properly".

Cano, 59, is a Bogota-born guerrilla who studied anthropology and long was considered a heavyweight on the FARC's political wing rather than its fighting enterprise. He does not have the widespread personal backing of the FARC's main base of rural fighters.

He was the FARC's negotiator in failed efforts by the Colombian government in the early 1990s in Tlaxcala, Mexico and Caracas.

Dario Acevedo, an expert on the history of Colombian armed conflict, said Cano was up against several simultaneous challenges. First, he needs to consolidate his leadership and move past strains with the military wing under Jorge Briceno, known by the alias Mono Jojoy.

Cano's "challenge is stopping the process of slumping morale and overcoming internal rivalries", Acevedo said.

Cano and Briceno have been known to be at odds for some time. Cano has been the pro-negotiation voice while Briceno is a second-generation guerrilla who rose up in the FARC's ranks with military strikes.

- AFP