The spectacular military operation in Colombia which freed the country’s former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages including three Americans from the clutches of the country’s left-wing FARC guerrillas is the stuff of Hollywood movies. Indeed the way it was handled, with the guerrillas cunningly deceived into handing over their captives to undercover army agents without a shot fired, it is a certainty it will be turned into a movie.
It is a triumph for President Alvaro Uribe. It validates his determination to smash FARC, which has led a guerrilla war against successive Colombian governments for 44 years. His hard-line policy had been criticized by a number of leading voices within the country, not least Ms. Betancourt’s mother, as well as by regional leaders such as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, all of whom demanded he negotiate with FARC and free jailed guerrillas in return for the hostages’ freedom. He was also under political pressure from France — Betancourt has dual French/Colombian nationality — again to negotiate with the terrorists. That pressure is gone. He has succeeded and his detractors have been left speechless on the sidelines.
In the case of Presidents Chavez and Correa, neither of whom has been able so far to convincingly refute accusations of aiding FARC, not only have their hopes vanished of earning themselves international clout by securing the release of Ms. Betancourt through negotiations, it can now be seen that their call for negotiations was never an option. FARC has only one objective: Power, total and unshared. It was never going to release Ms. Betancourt. Holding on to her was its guarantee of international publicity.
Obviously this is not the end of FARC. It still has hundreds of hostages. But it is a devastating blow. Already reeling from the Colombian Army’s raid against one of its bases across the border in neighboring Ecuador in March, which resulted in the death of one of its top commanders as well as putting the spotlight on support provided to it by neighboring governments, then the killing of another major commander a week later by a rebel-turned-bounty hunter and lastly at the end of the month the death of its founder and leader Manuel Marulanda, FARC is now in evident disorder and failing fast. Its credibility on which much of its power and appeal is based has been shot to pieces.
What does all this say to the Middle East, confronted as it is by its own guerrillas and terrorists?
The circumstances may be different but it shows the need not only to stand firm against those who would use violence to seize power and force change but to take the fight to their heart. It shows too the importance of good intelligence; this operation could not have happened without it. There are times when negotiations with rebels or at least making concessions to some of their demands may be the only option for a government faced with insurrection but in much of the Middle East, the threat comes from Al-Qaeda and its supporters whose aim, like FARC, is total power. Good intelligence and hunting it down wherever it is to be found are vital in the struggle. Colombia does not provide a lesson in this: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and others have been doing both for some time. Colombia is simply doing the same. But what has happened there provides a welcome lesson for anyone, no matter where in the world, who believes that violence and terrorism pay.
