VZCZCXYZ0021
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBO #3814/01 1211720
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
R 011720Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY BOGOTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4577
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

S E C R E T BOGOTA 003814 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/18/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER CO
SUBJECT: COLOMBIA SECURITY UPDATE - Q1'06 
 
Classified By: William B. Wood, AMB 
For reasons 1.4(a), (b), (d) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (C)  This quarterly review of the security outlook in 
Colombia considers Plan Patriota, FARC, ELN, and 
paramilitaries.  The first quarter of 2006 was dominated by 
FARC pre-election actions and by large paramilitary 
demobilizations.  Near the end of President Uribe's first 
term, his security initiatives on multiple fronts are in 
progress, showing substantial results but also raising new 
challenges to push them through to completion.  Henceforth 
Plan Patriota gets harder, the COLMIL must get tougher and 
smarter, and thousands of ex-paramilitaries must be 
reinserted into lawful society. 
 
------------------------ 
PLAN PATRIOTA - Phase 2B 
------------------------ 
 
¶2. (C) Joint Task Force Omega (JTF-O) continues its efforts 
to retake FARC strongholds in the rural south.  Sustained 
military pressure has been focused since 2004 on the 
guerillas' former safe haven (despeje).  By most indicators, 
the FARC is on the strategic defensive - with a shrunken 
sphere of control and constrained mobility.  FARC columns are 
now compelled to be more regularly on the move in remote 
terrain, suffering more sickness and disease, with more 
difficult access to supply routes, and in more limited 
contact with ideological leadership.  Financially, too, 
Farclandia's golden age may be over due to disruption of 
local narco-economies.  Morale in ranks is said to be low, 
not fully reflected by deserters (1,135 in 2005) because 
desertion is punished by death.  Under pressure to defend its 
core territories and coca assets, the FARC has engaged with 
JTF-O out of necessity rather than by choice, without holding 
the strategic initiative.  JTF-O reports improved casualty 
ratios: 598 FARC killed/captured against 25 COLAR soldiers 
killed in 2005, compared to 481 FARC killed/captured and 67 
COLAR troops killed in 2004. 
¶3. (C) Offensive actions by the FARC have been more limited, 
with a predominance of political or economic rather than 
military attacks.  Typical targets are unarmed civilians 
(including town councilmen and mayors as well as the general 
public) or isolated infrastructure, wreaking terror and 
damage to give the impression especially to the media of 
offensive capability.  The FARC's handful of attacks on 
government security forces have in several cases inflicted 
high tolls in military and police casualties, most notably in 
the coca fields of Meta Department (detailed below). These 
attacks, however, have been opportunistic and sporadic, 
targeted at isolated and vulnerable government units caught 
off guard.  In no case has the FARC recently met the COLAR 
head-on in a frontal assault on a COLAR position. 
 
¶4. (S) The most important contrary indicator to a defensive 
FARC posture is the new accumulation of substantial guerilla 
forces in a more exposed location poised for offensive 
operation.  In the last few months the FARC are reported to 
have concentrated on the Sumapaz plateau, a key entry 
corridor to Cundinamarca Department and gateway to Bogota. 
Such a move is difficult to reconcile with intelligence 
indicators that the FARC considers itself to be at the 
weakest moment in its history.  While the insurgency 
maintains a long-term strategic goal of taking the capital, a 
broad attack now is extremely unlikely. Concentration at 
Sumapaz is more likely short-term preparation for more 
limited pre-election operations or counterattacks on JTF-O. 
In either case it indicates a hybrid posture: primarily 
defensive of threatened core territory, making mostly limited 
risk-averse offensive attacks -- but possibly now preparing 
for more assertive action against Bogota or against the COLAR 
in Meta in the run-up to presidential elections. 
 
¶5. (C) The FARC's strategic stance varies by location, with 
multiple geographic and functional centers.  The FARC's 
central fronts protect the guerillas' historical heartland 
and economic base of coca cultivation; the south is important 
for coca supply and access to the Ecuadorian border; northern 
blocks function as cartels in narcotics sales and weapons 
procurement; and cross-border territory in Venezuela serves 
as a rear guard and safe haven.  This configuration of 
multiple centers of gravity throws into question JTF-O's 
narrow focus on Meta, perhaps months past its prime utility 
in signaling an end to the safe haven, and after the FARC had 
already shifted its weight northward.  The newly appointed 
JTF-O Commander Gilberto Rocha has reportedly recently 
rebalanced the effort. 
¶6. (C) Looking ahead, Plan Patriota Phase 2B is progressing 
but will be increasingly tough to close.  JTF-O has yet to 
meet its primary strategic goal to kill or capture high value 
targets from among senior most FARC leadership.  The FARC is 
highly adaptive to new tactics and terrains, an important 
advantage as they retreat into more difficult and remote 
locations.  The guerillas can operate nimbly in small mobile 
columns, invisibly in dense jungle, and silently with good 
discipline in communications.  This compares with the COLAR 
operating at battalion/brigade scale for the safety of its 
troops and from the habits of its training, slow to react to 
real-time intelligence of enemy movements, and lax in keeping 
its attack plans quiet.  Moreover, the FARC always retains 
the option to 'go to ground,' fading under cover until COLAR 
withdraws. 
 
¶7. (C) For the COLMIL, the desired end state of the conflict 
is its diminution from a problem of national security to one 
of public security, i.e. from a unified terrorist insurgency 
to fragmented criminality, perhaps after a negotiated 
settlement has dismantled major organizational structures. 
To that end, the COLMIL's goal is to strike a series of 
decisive blows to splinter the leadership.  Strikes against 
high value targets (HVTs) would be required to cut broadly 
across the Secretariat and into the next level down of the 
command structure, since the FARC's talent is deep enough to 
refill the top ranks.  Since 2004 the HVT effort has been 
costly and without result.  While the pursuit has presumably 
diverted some FARC resources and disrupted some of their 
operations, the impact is difficult to quantify in 
cost/benefit terms.  New COLAR Commander General Montoya is 
emphasizing attrition through a push for kills and captures 
from throughout the FARC hierarchy, without yet diminishing 
the HVT effort. 
 
--------------------------------- 
FARC Resistance in Coca Territory 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) The year opened under the pall of the deadliest 
guerilla attack since the inception of Plan Patriota: on 
December 27 the FARC ambushed and killed 29 soldiers guarding 
coca eradication workers in Meta Department.  This incident 
caused President Uribe to mount a massive operation of manual 
coca eradication in the Macarena National Park, with heavy 
police and COLMIL security.  After guerillas killed twelve 
police officers in the area within two weeks, the GOC made 
the decision to bomb the FARC inside the park.  Despite an 
increase in police protection to 1500 officers guarding 
600-900 civilians, over half of the eradicators quit under 
threat of ambushes, snipers, and coca bushes booby-trapped 
with explosive mines.  Meanwhile in Tolima Department, as 
COLAR went on a similar offensive to reclaim rebel territory, 
nine soldiers and 35 guerillas were killed in heavy clashes. 
 
¶9. (C) Taking the fight directly to the FARC, the military 
and public security forces will suffer more casualties.  The 
death toll among security forces in Meta and Tolima is an 
indicator of Plan Patriota's progress, its penetration deeper 
into FARC heartland, and its direct assault on the guerillas' 
livelihood.  In the Macarena case COLMIL admits that the unit 
had not observed all standard operational precautions and had 
made itself vulnerable to attack.  Each phase of the Plan 
threatens the FARC more closely and will draw accordingly 
more resistance.  Among the FARC's weapons of choice are an 
increasing usage of land mines to protect coca fields: 
Colombia now leads the world in land mine casualties, with 
1,077 deaths and injuries reported in 2005. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
FARC Actions to Discredit Uribe in Elections 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (U) Further FARC attacks occurred in the weeks prior to 
the March 12 legislative elections.  These included the 
killing of nine civilians whose bus was torched after being 
separated from an Army escort in Caqueta Department, where 
the FARC had imposed a travel ban.  Two days later gunmen 
opened fire at a municipal council meeting in Huila, killing 
nine councilors who had been under explicit FARC threat for 
several years.  In the departments of Putumayo and Caqueta 
the FARC hit oil wells and electrical towers, spilling 
thousands of liters of crude oil and leaving some 400,000 
citizens powerless for several days.  FARC-mandated work and 
transport strikes, called 'paros armados,' brought commerce 
and movement to a standstill in several rural communities. 
In some FARC strongholds, the population was sufficiently 
threatened against voting that the GOC was obliged to suspend 
marking voters' fingers with indelible black ink. 
 
¶11. (C) According to communiqus from FARC leaders, these 
attacks aimed to discredit President Uribe's "Democratic 
Security" program in the lead-up to elections.  However, most 
attacks were small-scale and opportunistic, in isolated 
locations, not a concerted and sustained show of substantial 
force.  On election day itself the FARC's actions were 
anemic.  Some argue that this was a matter of risk aversion 
in the face of 200,000 security personnel deployed by the GOC 
on election day; they suggest that the FARC may be biding its 
time, saving its thunder for presidential elections in May. 
Others believe the FARC is incapable of mounting the attacks 
it threatened.  Presidential election day and inauguration 
day will be further tests. 
 
------------------------------ 
FARC Intransigence on Hostages 
------------------------------ 
 
¶12. (C) In December 2005 a newly-formed international 
commission comprised of individuals from France, Spain, and 
Switzerland called for the creation of a 'security zone' to 
discuss a humanitarian exchange of FARC-held hostages for 
jailed guerillas.  The GOC quickly accepted the plan, despite 
the fact that such a zone is a concession the Uribe 
government had vowed never to make.  A few weeks later the 
FARC refused.  Supreme Leader alias "Tirofijo" tried to claim 
the FARC never received the proposal at all.  A French 
attempt to negotiate for hostage Ingrid Betancourt also 
failed, despite a visit to Colombia by the French Foreign 
Minister. 
 
¶13. (S) In this electoral season the FARC is making no 
concessions that could be parlayed into positive publicity 
for Uribe.  Tirofijo has stated that no humanitarian 
exchanges will occur under an Uribe administration.  By 
contrast, the guerillas offered to release two police 
officers into the custody of presidential candidate Alvaro 
Leyva with ample press in tow.  Uribe charged the FARC with 
playing politics with the hostages' lives.  The two police 
were released to the Red Cross (ICRC) the next week, absent 
Leyva. 
 
----------------------- 
ELN: Days Are Numbered? 
----------------------- 
 
¶14. (C) The ELN is in a tough spot, under pressure from 
multiple quarters.  Its Marxist ideology is dated, popular 
support has nearly evaporated even in traditional ELN 
strongholds, it lacks financial resources, its numbers are 
down from even a few years ago, and it faces a stronger 
COLAR.  Its relationship with the FARC is bipolar: in the 
west of Colombia the two rebel armies share co-located camps, 
cross-training, and joint operations; whereas in eastern and 
central areas the FARC is reportedly plotting to wipe out the 
ELN in the next few months, partly as punishment for the 
perceived 'treason' of peace talks.  With all of these forces 
bearing on it, the ELN could be approaching its demise as an 
effective guerilla movement along multiple tracks - perhaps 
some members to demobilize, others to splinter off and join 
the FARC, and still others to be destroyed and supplanted by 
the FARC. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Paramilitaries: Risks and Challenges 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶15. (C) The first phase of paramilitary demobilization was 
completed this quarter, when the last of 33 AUC blocs 
ceremonially surrendered its arms to the Peace Commissioner. 
All signatories to the Ralito Accord of 2003 have now been 
brought in from the field, amounting to over 28,000 AUC 
demobilized.  While a few more non-aligned armed groups may 
also join in, essentially this phase is done.  To date the 
significant achievement is the thorough registration of 
former fighters, with their government identity cards, 
headshot photographs, fingerprints, and in some cases DNA 
captured in a database.  This registration is a unique 
innovation of Colombia's peace process, aimed to act as a 
barrier to recidivism. 
 
¶16. (C) At the end of the disarmament phase, concerns have 
emerged about inherent risks of recidivism and criminality in 
the reinsertion of ex-paramilitary into mainstream society. 
An OAS report claims to have verified the regrouping of 
subsets of ex-paramilitaries, in some cases uniformed and 
equipped exactly as before.  The OAS cites reactivation of 
three AUC blocs and gang trends in five departments. 
Complaints have surfaced of kidnapping, murders, and 
extortion among ex-AUC.  Narcotrafficking is an immediate 
lure. 
 
WOOD