FARC chief calls for a General Offensive in 2008
By Aaron Mannes
When OBL or his sidekick Ayman Zawahiri sneeze the world media leaps to broadcast it. Yet, a long-standing terrorist chief with a world spanning network calls for a "General Offensive" and it barely makes the wire services.
FARC chief, Manuel Marulanda Velez, in his year end message, called for a General Offensive in 2008. This seems as though it ought to be significant. FARC has formidable capabilities and international links through its criminal activities. And, it has a record of violence - having killed thousands in Colombia's ongoing civil war.
This should also raise questions about FARC's intentions in light of the sputtering hostage negotiations. Certainly, efforts should be made to free the long-suffering FARC hostages. But the FARC's insistence on a demilitarized zone is troubling. By many measures the FARC is in decline, with large numbers of defections, loss of ideological enthusiasm, and some serious command and control problems. These problems were exemplified by some of their mis-steps during the recent round of hostage releases - such as embarrassing their ally Hugo Chavez and not knowing the location of hostage Clare Rojas' child. (The full story of this tragic chapter has not come out, but while the FARC portrays itself as egalitarian organization the actual treatment of its female cadres rarely approaches their propaganda.)
The antidote to FARC's malaise is a large demilitarized zone where the officers can engage and train (this is how they used the large demilitarized zone they were granted during the peace process from 1998-2002. Colombia, is a massive country, 440,831 sq miles (more than 2.5 times as large as Iraq). Most of the population lives in the cities, affording the FARC plenty of places to hide in the rough terrain that characterizes the countryside. However this asset is also a curse - it can make bringing the cadres together for functions that must be done in person (such as training and indoctrination.)