Last week was a big win for Colombia’s new President, Juan Manuel Santos. FARC’s second in command and ideological leader was killed last week when intelligence gathered from a FARC fighter lead the Colombian Army and Air Force to target the underground base of FARC’s second in command, Mono Jojoy. Since the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian army and Presidency have had many newsworthy and tactical victories over the FARC in an effort to bring the longest running resistance movement in Latin America to its knees. Since the administration of President Pastrana and the implementation of Plan Colombia, funding and intelligence support by the US and innovative and persistent tactics by Colombia’s armed forces, and the dedication of President Uribe and now, Santos, have proven to have taken a large toll on the FARC for the first time in since the FARC was established almost 40 years ago.
He latest victory by Santos came with the defection of a FARC rebel to Colombia’s military. Information gathered from the rebel lead them to the hideout of Jojoy, leading to an airstrike and precision guided munitions being used to target Jojoy and the accompanying rebels. Often even smart weapons lack real precision in their use, but enough information was collected from the FARC soldier that an air strike was able to be used effectively against Mono and the legacy of one of FARC’s most important leaders and second in command came to a fiery conclusion. News of the death of Jojoy lead Santos to claim: “the symbol of terror in Colombia has fallen”.
Colombia is the only US ally, including the US themselves that has seemed to be able to deal with its own insurgency with a notable level of success over the last ten years. With progress and loss never being able to be guaranteed in Iraq or Afghanistan, Colombia to this point has been able to deal blow after blow against the FARC rebels. There are many reasons and comparisons, but the infusion of cash to fight the FARC in combination with a series of intelligence measures allowed the Colombian Armed Forces to take a heavy toll and gain important information against the FARC rebels and their support and leadership network.
With the successes against the FARC, also comes the reality the even without the FARC, drug violence will likely not stop and has been getting worse in places like Mexico. Mexico has been enveloped in their own drug war, reflective of parts of Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s and serving not only Mexican cartels, but is the battlefront for narcotrafficking from all over the Americas into the US, Canada and Latin America as a whole. Successes in Colombia cannot be truly awarded as long as drug violence permeates the border of the Americas as conflict in one area often is a sign of conflict to come in another. The FARC might be on the road to becoming a historical footnote, but narco-violence and the end result of a region-wide drug war will eventually come to Colombia’s shores without a concerted approach by all in the region to get rid of the violence, and more importantly, get rid of the demand.
