A Terrorist Regime Waits in the Wings
Posted on 03/30/2004 12:48:20 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
See part one of series, Castro's Power Grows, and map of dictator's influence. Part two: Brazil Shifts Left, Considers Nuclear Option. Part three: Venezuela Falls Into Castro's Orbit.
In this final part of the series we examine the unfolding of the new pro-Castro alliance that stretches from his island gulag to Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Colombia: For some years Colombia has been the target of Marxist narcoterrorists who finance their drive to take over the government and install a communist regime by operating a huge and multibillion-dollar drug operation. The guerrillas, known as FARC, have murdered thousands of Colombians, kidnapped or killed Americans and earned for themselves the reputation as one of the most brutal terrorist groups in the world.
FARC closely cooperates with other communist movements in South America and with Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba.
The FARC and ELN communist narco-guerrillas, supported by Castro since 1962, now control more than half of Colombia and seek to replace the republican government.
According to "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002," issued by the U.S. Department of State in April 2003, FARC was established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. It is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency.
FARC, governed by a secretariat, is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts. In February 2002, the group’s slow-moving peace negotiations with the Pastrana administration was terminated by Bogota afer the group’s plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian senator from the aircraft.
Communists Killing the Poor
On Aug. 7, FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace, where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations, including from the United States, attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack.
FARC engages in bombings, murder, mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military and economic targets. In March 1999, FARC executed three U.S. Indian rights activists on Venezuelan territory after it kidnapped them in Colombia. Foreign citizens often are targets of FARC kidnappings for ransom. It has well-documented ties to full range of narcotics trafficking, including taxation, cultivation and distribution.
FARC is composed of 9,000 to 12,000 armed combatants and several thousand more supporters, mostly in rural areas. In addition to Colombia, is engages in extortion, kidnapping, logistics, and provides rest and relaxation for its guerillas in Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. Cuba provides some medical care and political consultation.
Argentina: Washington officials say President Nestor Kirchner’s left-leaning government is too soft on Cuba and note that last year Kirchner restored full diplomatic ties with Castro’s communist regime. Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently expressed his "disappointment" that during Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa's recent trip to Cuba he failed to meet dissidents.
In response, Vice Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana told a radio station:
"We consider the declarations aggressive ... and inopportune, and the foreign minister has expressed this in the name of the Argentina government."
Tensions are growing between the United States and Argentina, as Kirchner has continued to establish closer ties with Washington's main political enemies in Latin America, from Castro to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Last year, for example, Kirchner appeared in a regional summit photo opportunity with Chavez and Evo Morales, a leader of coca growers in Bolivia who angers Washington by opposing the U.S.-led war on cocaine trafficking from Latin America which has been fueling communist insurgencies in Colombia and elsewhere in the hemisphere.
The Worst Kind of Big Labor
Bolivia: Under siege from the far left, led by Evo Morales, who heads Movement Towards Socialism, Bolivia has faced violent demonstrations that have brought the nation to a standstill and led to the resignation of its former president. Morales is a controversial figure whose base of power is in the coca-growing areas of central Bolivia where his connections to the growers caused ousted President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to call him a "narco-trade unionist" and, in the past, open condemnation from the United States.
His influence in Bolivia was obvious when he came in second in the presidential election campaign two years ago, and widespread support he won during Bolivia’s "gas riots" shows the radical socialist congressman is a key figure in Bolivian politics.
In the presidential election, his campaign received a healthy boost when the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, warned that Washington could cut off aid if Bolivians chose candidates like Morales. The comments reinforced Morales' position as a radical anti-U.S. candidate.
Venezuela's military attache to Bolivia was expelled a few months ago for giving money to Morales, and it is reported that Morales received money from Venezuelan officials in a visit to Caracas.
Ecuador: Another pro-Castro radical, Col. Lucio Gutierrez, known for his Chavez-supported coup against the government in January 2000, was imprisoned, given amnesty and then elected president in November 2002. Reliable sources report that Chavez provided most of his campaign money. Gutierrez is an open admirer and friend of Chavez and is also likely to emulate Chavez by openly or secretly helping pro-Castro radicals in other countries.
He announced that he would seek to mediate in the war in neighboring Colombia. Given the support for FARC by Castro and Chavez, Gutierrez is likely to use any mediating role to secretly assist FARC and help it take power.
There are credible reports that Ecuador is permitting FARC to have more than six bases on its territory.
No political leader wants to be a visionary - it's much safer to stick with what can be easily explained to the lowest common denominator voters.
You left out the drug war aspect - we aren't serious about it at all. If we fought WWII like we fought the drug war, Germany would still rule most of Europe. We'd only engage them when they left the continent and landed in England.
I think a lot of drug money is flowing into groups that nobody will care about until it is too late.
By what means? The only alternates that have a prayer of doing this are nuclear and methane hydrates. Surely you don't seriously suggest something silly like windmills...
--Boris
Legalize drugs and the rug is pulled out from under these scum, but, i guess a lot of people would rather control what people put into their own bodies than fight those who want to take away their freedom.
why is it that back at the turn of the century, when all drugs were completely legal, drugs weren't a problem??????????
the group that is most in favor of keeping drugs illegal? why the drug dealers of course... the second largest? those who want more government control, since "illegal drugs" gives them the ideal excuse for taking away more and more of our freedoms... (can you say search and seizure?)
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