Rebels Losing Their Edge in Colombia’s Civil War

A month after peace talks collapsed, this is what Colombia’s war looks like:

In the countryside, leftist guerrillas have demolished bridges, detonated car bombs and killed soldiers and police in small groups. In the cities, people go on Sunday bike rides, dine at fine restaurants and attend fashion shows.

In other words, the war looks pretty much the same as it did before Feb. 20, when President Andres Pastrana ended negotiations with the country’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Despite predictions, the end of talks has not produced a blood bath. Instead, more than three years after a devastating series of rebel victories prompted the talks, there is growing evidence that the guerrillas have lost their military advantage.

The Colombian military is stronger, with more troops and better equipment. The country’s right-wing paramilitary groups have turned into a powerful enemy. And the U.S.-supported battle against cocaine production and trafficking has cut into the rebels’ primary source of revenue, analysts believe.

As a result, the war is at a deadlock. The rebels seem to be positioning themselves for an eventual return to talks rather than national conquest, launching hit-and-run attacks against political figures and infrastructure to improve their negotiating position.

“It’s going to take much blood, much destruction and thousands of dead. Then the talks will start again,” said Armando Borrero, a former national security chief.

There is a ray of hope: Negotiations with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, have improved. Both sides are examining the possibility of a truce in coming months. The ELN, thought to number fewer than 5,000 rebels, has been devastated by paramilitary attacks.

Fears of a Blood Bath So Far Seem Unfounded

The end of the peace talks with the FARC, which is more than three times the size of the ELN, has not produced a massive surge in casualties in Colombia’s internal conflict, which has simmered since 1964. Fighting this year between the military and rebels has killed about 40 combatants a week, up from last year’s average of about 26 a week.

Nor have the rebels been able so far to unleash a promised wave of attacks against cities, where more than 70% of the population lives. Military and police have detained dozens of alleged urban guerrillas. The federal prosecutor’s office has conducted nationwide raids, seizing dynamite and bombs.

The FARC, made up mostly of impoverished, uneducated peasants, has so far been unable to mount complex operations that would suggest its fighters are ready for the urban warfare necessary to take control of Bogota, the capital, experts say.

“They are historically weak in the cities,” said Adam Isacson, the Colombia analyst for the Center for International Policy, a center-left think tank based in Washington. “I don’t think they have that capacity.”

Even in rural areas, both rebel groups have had difficulty asserting the dominance they once showed. Congressional elections held March 10 went smoothly in all but 15 of the more than 1,000 counties nationwide, a major achievement considering that the two groups control an estimated 40% of rural areas and the FARC had demanded a boycott.

None of this means that the rebels are on the verge of defeat. Their ubiquitous presence and proven ability to destroy infrastructure have frustrated the military. The result is a stalemate, say officials and analysts, with no side able to dominate and years of bloodshed ahead.

“Terrorism is an endemic disease,” said Gen. Fernando Tapias, the armed forces chief. “It cannot be totally eliminated, but we can cut down the levels of destruction.”

The standoff has changed the character of the war. In the late 1990s, the FARC had grown strong enough to attack army bases and cities in sustained operations with hundreds of fighters.

The rebels wiped out an elite counter-guerrilla battalion outside the southern town of El Billar during a two-day battle in March 1998, killing 107 of the unit’s 154 soldiers. In November that year, as Pastrana was preparing to hand over a demilitarized zone to the rebels as a prelude to talks, hundreds of FARC rebels overran Mitu, a regional capital in eastern Colombia, killing 150 soldiers.

More recently, the rebels have had trouble mounting such logistically complicated operations, thanks in part to U.S. military hardware and satellite intelligence.

Last August, an elite Colombian strike force of about 5,000 soldiers transported by U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters routed a column of about 1,000 rebels who were trying to recapture a crucial drug-and-arms-smuggling corridor in a remote corner of southeastern Colombia.

The rebels also face a better-paid, better-trained army. The number of professional soldiers in the 140,000-member military has more than doubled, from 20,000 to 50,000, in the last three years. The rest are draftees who by law are not allowed into combat situations. The army plans to add 10,000 more soldiers each year for the next two years.

“Both sides got stronger during the past three years. But the army strengthened themselves more,” said Mauricio Silva, an analyst who has written about the FARC.

As a result, the rebels in small squads have returned to hitting police and military outposts, then fleeing into the jungle. On March 12, army officials accused the guerrillas of detonating a car bomb near a police station in a town about 100 miles south of Bogota, killing three soldiers and four civilians.

At the same time, the FARC has stepped up sabotage attempts, launching attacks against vulnerable targets: railroad tracks, bridges, roads and electrical towers in the countryside. Guerrillas blew up more than 143 transmission towers through the beginning of this month, compared with 254 for all of last year.

Politicians Among Those Being Targeted

The rebels have also made it clear that they plan to kidnap political figures, even those who have previously shown sympathy for leftist causes. Only days after the peace process ended, guerrillas kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, an independent whose fight against Bogota’s political machinery mirrored FARC complaints about the country’s entrenched corruption.

“The FARC have returned to being guerrillas,” said Alfredo Rangel, a military consultant. “They are seeking to strengthen themselves in negotiations.”

The motive seems clear. Such attacks target both politicians and ordinary people, increasing pressure for negotiations. One key point in coming months will be presidential elections in May. The FARC may stage a show of force then to intimidate the incoming president.

But there are few who expect talks to begin soon. Hard-liner Alvaro Uribe, the front-runner, has said he will not negotiate unless the FARC stops the kidnapping, extortion and violence it uses to finance its operations.

After three fruitless years of talks, the country seems in no mood for a return to the table.

“How long will it take? How much blood will be spilled? Who knows? But eventually, we will get back to the peace process. Neither side can defeat the other,” said Antonio Navarro, a senator and former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, which signed a peace accord with the government in 1990.

Military analysts attribute the change in the FARC’s tactics to serious internal and external challenges. Its membership has shot up in numbers, jumping from about 7,000 in 1995 to an estimated 17,000 today. The fighters also have spread from their base in eastern Colombia to operate in every department, or state, in mainland Colombia.

That growth has required more money at a time when attacks against FARC financing seem to be bearing fruit. A U.S. State Department report recently found that aerial fumigation in Colombia, performed by U.S. contractors, has sharply cut back the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

Gen. Gustavo Socha, the head of Colombia’s anti-narcotics unit, estimated that the drop has resulted in millions of dollars in lost revenue for the rebels, who tax coca production and have become more directly involved in production and trafficking over the years.

The FARC has also become increasingly besieged by paramilitary forces, which have grown from a few hundred fighters in the 1980s to more than 10,000 today.

The paramilitary forces--which boast of fighting the guerrillas like guerrillas, conducting lightning raids and massacres--have sealed off large areas along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and on the borders with Venezuela and Ecuador.

That in turn has hurt the guerrillas’ ability to move drugs and weapons. Recent military intelligence reports indicate that rebels have begun to reduce the number of bullets they issue to fighters.

Finally, there is some evidence that the FARC is having problems gaining and retaining recruits. Defections have increased. And there are anecdotal accounts of a jump in forced recruitment of teenagers as more and more rural youths flee to cities in search of jobs and an escape from violence.

“What I most worry about is that FARC are increasing their forced recruitment, like all sides are,” said Edgar Florez, the director in Colombia for World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian group that works to protect children. “It is very troubling for us.”