FARC in disintegration

LA Times:

The sensational rescue of 15 hostages from the grip of Latin America's largest rebel group has highlighted the diminished state of an organization that just six years ago threatened to overrun the Colombian government.

Once fueled by Marxist ideology and awash in narcotics profits, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, now finds itself facing a more robust Colombian military led by a popular president. The group has suffered the deaths of top leaders, seen large-scale defections of supporters, and is being squeezed for the money it needs to sustain its operations.

Now the FARC has lost its trophy hostages: ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors whom the rebels viewed as human shields against all-out government attacks. The nature of the rescue mission -- in which government agents posed as rebels and freed the hostages without firing a shot -- was widely seen as a deep humiliation and public relations disaster for the FARC.

Security officials warn that the rebel group retains some sting. The number of militants has dropped by about half in the last decade, but it still has about 10,000 armed guerrillas spread from the Caribbean to the Amazon jungle. And it continues to hold 700 hostages, bargaining chips that preclude a quick end to the group's 44-year-long insurgency.

But President Alvaro Uribe's strategy of aggressively taking the fight to the FARC, backed by a $5-billion U.S. aid package, appears to have seriously degraded the rebels' ability to challenge the state.

Uribe took office in 2002 as the Colombian capital was virtually encircled by FARC forces. A missile and mortar attack marred his inauguration.

He has bolstered the number of government troops by 40% while greatly improving surveillance abilities. Troops have disrupted logistics and killed or captured numerous key FARC lieutenants, leaving guerrillas beleaguered and demoralized.

"Every time we looked up, there was the army," Nelly Avila Moreno, a 24-year FARC veteran and renowned guerrilla leader known as Karina, told interrogators after surrendering in May. "We were totally besieged."

The FARC has also seen a drastic decline in support among average Colombians, even with its traditional bastions of peasants and leftists.

"You couldn't confide in the people [any longer] because they would betray you," Avila said.

The FARC no longer controls any significant towns and has been reduced to bands operating in isolated redoubts with fragmented central command, according to intelligence officials. They contend that recruitment is down and that tensions with civilians have risen as the FARC seeks younger recruits, some as young as 13, while forcing urban sympathizers to join rural combat units.

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Defectors have described semiautonomous guerrilla bands operating with little direction from top-level commanders. Avila, the operative of the FARC's Front 47, said she had been out of touch with her commanders for more than two years.

Compounding the rebels' isolation is their fear of U.S.-supplied eavesdropping equipment, which has forced commanders to abandon radios, satellite phones and computer communications in favor of couriers who must sometimes travel long distances to deliver messages. That lack of communication was exploited in this week's rescue mission, in which rebels holding the hostages were duped into thinking the captives were being taken to see FARC chiefs.

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There is no doubt their loss of command and control has hampered their operation. It was an attempt to communicate that led the Colombians to the camp in Ecuador where Reyes was killed and the infamous laptops were found. Uribe has outfoxed them on the political as well as the military level. The US assistance has been key. It is one of the benefits of the US war on terror that would have been unlikely in a Democrat administration.