A-Infos (en) Colombian Rebels Gaining Strength in Cities, Police Say

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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     COLOMBIAN REBELS GAINING STRENGTH IN CITIES, POLICE SAY
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     War-related violence spreading from rural areas 
   
     THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
     Tuesday, May 19, 1998
     By Tod Robberson, The Dallas Morning News
     http://www.dallasnews.com/international-nf/int1.htm
 
     BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's two main guerrilla groups have
launched efforts to recruit and outfit new "urban militias,"
which could signal a dangerous development in Colombia's civil
conflict, authorities say.
   
     Military analysts say the effort coincides with a recent
increase in war-related urban violence and poses a potentially
big problem for government forces as the nation heads toward
presidential elections May 31.
   
     A confidential National Police intelligence report, a copy
of which was shown to The Dallas Morning News, identifies as many
as 300 guerrilla-backed armed groups operating in Bogota. Most
are in the city's poorest neighborhoods, where there is little
presence of government authority.
   
     The groups are thought to contain three or more members
each, suggesting that about 1,000 rebels and rebel operatives
reside in the capital. Thousands more are known to operate within
a 30-mile radius of the city, according to foreign and Colombian
military assessments.
   
     The National Police commander, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, said
in March that guerrilla forces nationwide are estimated at
20,000, consisting almost entirely of fighters from the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and its smaller
counterpart, the National Liberation Army, or ELN.
   
     The police study details the activities of an estimated 110
rebel sub-commanders in Bogota who are thought to be organizing
training centers for urban assaults and kidnappings, weapons
warehouses, recruitment offices and safe houses for use by
guerrilla leaders visiting from their rural command posts.
   
     The report follows an analysis earlier this year by the U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency warning that the Colombian army's
level of preparedness is so low that the rebels could move beyond
their rural-based operations to seize control of the entire
country within five years.
   
     Last month, Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri dismissed
the U.S. analysis as "absurd."
   
     But the urbanization of Colombia's civil conflict was
underscored last week in Bogota by the assassination in broad
daylight of retired Gen. Fernando Landazabal, who served in the
early 1980s as defense minister and chief of the armed forces.
   
     Although no group has claimed responsibility, army officials
say they suspect that the assassination was carried out by urban-
based rebels in retaliation for the recent killings of three
human-rights activists in the capital.
   
     Reacting to Mr. Landazabal's death, army leaders ordered a
raid last Wednesday on the offices of a Bogota-based human-rights
organization that the military alleged was serving as a front for
urban guerrilla operations.
   
     Rebel activities have increased in other major cities as
well.
   
     In the nation's second-largest city, Medellin, police said
"popular militias" allied with the guerrillas were responsible
for the burning of 12 municipal buses April 29.
   
     Rebels have so thoroughly infiltrated the third-largest
city, Cali, that the U.S. State Department is warning citizens
not to travel there and is restricting visits by government
personnel.
   
     Diplomats and military analysts say the upsurge in urban
violence could be a temporary phenomenon tied to the elections
this month or could signal a long-term shift in the way the
rebels are prosecuting the war.
   
     "I don't believe this is related to the elections. It is
part of an increasing dirty war that each side has been waging
against the other in the city," said Jose Luis Cadena Montenegro,
a former army intelligence officer.
   
     In elections in November, guerrillas swept through rural
towns across the country, kidnapping or killing hundreds of local
candidates in a declared attempt to sabotage the vote.
   
     The main presidential candidates are now escorted by up to
48 armed government bodyguards each, even when they campaign in
heavily populated areas such as Bogota. Most have avoided
campaigning in rural areas.
   
     Observers say the turn toward urban-based guerrilla activity
is worrisome because it threatens major commercial centers deemed
by military leaders as vital to maintaining a functional
democracy.
   
     "The guerrillas' objective is to take the city. They are
trying to do it now," said Father Alirio Lopez, a Roman Catholic
priest.
   
     He identifies his parish and other poor neighborhoods in
southern Bogota as the rebels' main targets for establishing an
urban militia.
   
     "I'm personally very worried," he said. "If this situation
does not change, the southern and western parts of the capital
will be immersed in war within the next five years."
   
     The armed forces commander, Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett,
insisted in an interview last month that the army remained in
control of Colombia's major urban centers and that the guerrillas
had failed in efforts to establish a foothold beyond the remote
jungles where they are most prevalent.
   
     But he acknowledged that the army faces logistical
difficulties in countering a guerrilla hit-and-run strategy
employing "the use of populations as human shields."
   
     He cited as an example a roadblock established March 23 by
the FARC less than 30 miles southeast of Bogota in which about
2,000 people were detained at gunpoint for several hours. The
guerrillas temporarily seized more than 30 hostages, including
four Americans.
   
     In such settings, Gen. Bonett said, "the army can't just go
there with guns blazing and killing everyone in sight."
   
     Evidence of a guerrilla support network abounds in the
capital, particularly at university campuses.
   
     At the National University, for example, graffiti urging
students to "prepare for the armed struggle" is so prevalent that
it is almost impossible to find a single building free of
pro-rebel, anti-government slogans.
   
     "In the past year, there has been a notable increase in
organizing and recruitment efforts by the guerrillas here, not
just among the students but also among professors," political
scientist Eduardo Pizarro Leon Gomez said.
   
     "You might say that the increased activity of the guerrillas
has awakened the young student population, especially among the
disaffected middle class and lower-middle class."
   
     Dr. Pizarro said that, like many rural activities of
Colombian rebel groups, it is difficult to distinguish between
the actions of authentic guerrilla urban cells and those that are
merely groups of "delinquents" that maintain a loose alliance
with the rebels.
   
     Students say that a relatively small group of pro-rebel
activists, known as the Red Guards, is responsible for the
graffiti that covers most buildings at the National University.
   
     "Five people throwing rocks through some windows can give
the impression that they're everywhere," said university student
Adriana Castellanos, 21.
   
     She motioned toward various spray-painted signs, including
one urging students to "fight to the death" in support of the
National Liberation Army, and added, "You never see them. You
never know who they are or where they are. But obviously someone
is here doing this."
   
     Father Lopez said the blame for any guerrilla advances into
the city would have to fall largely on the shoulders of the
government and armed forces for having neglected Bogota's poorest
neighborhoods.
   
     "It is easy for the guerrillas to come here and take
advantage of the situation," he said. "There are so many young
people who have no job opportunities. They're living in poverty,
they have no self-respect. If someone comes and offers them a
gun, of course they'll take it. It gives them power. It gives
them an identity."
   
     He burst out laughing when asked how people in his
neighborhood would react if the army were to stage a patrol
there.
   
     "It wouldn't happen. It just wouldn't happen," he said.
"That's the difference between the guerrillas and the army. The
guerrillas plan and then execute. The army executes, and then it
plans. That is why they are losing."
 
     Copyright 1998 The Dallas Morning News
 
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