A multiday Colombian bombing raid, culminating with a ground operation Thursday, has killed the FARC’s second in command – the 57 year old field commander “Mono Jojoy” (aka Jorge Briceno), perhaps the most emblematic face of the rebel group. According to the New York Times, some 20 other FARC rebels were also killed in the attack, which took place in the mountains of Meta, some 150 miles southwest of the Colombian capital of Bogotá . Colombia’s defense minister, Rodrigo Rivera, said the strikes came after receiving intelligence from informers about the whereabouts of Jojoy’s concrete bunker which the strikes targeted. Speaking to the press Thursday Rivera said the FARC was “crumbling from within.” The AP calls the killing of Jojoy a “demoralizing shock to an already weakened insurgency.” In New York for the UN General Assembly, President Juan Manuel Santos, meanwhile, said it was “the most crushing blow against the FARC in its entire history,” arguing it surpassed the controversial 2008 cross-border raid which killed then FARC #2 Raul Reyes. President Santos:
“It is as if they told New Yorkers that Osama bin Laden had fallen.”
So who exactly was Mono Jojoy and what does his death mean for the future of the FARC and Colombia? According to Aldo Civico, co-director of the conflict resolution center at Rutgers University (quoted in the Washington Post’s coverage this morning), Jojoy was the “military mastermind of the FARC” for the last 25 years. He was a “rigid hard-liner,” the Post adds – someone who “favored the use of kidnapping to apply pressure on the government.” But he was at the same time the most beloved leader within the FARC, a sort of “living legend,” according to Ariel Avila of the Colombian think tank Nuevo Arco Iris. Jojoy, whose real name is Victor Julio Suarez, according to the military, joined the FARC when he was just a teenager, leaving his peasant upbringing to take up the guerrilla fight against the Colombian state. At the FARC’s height of power, he controlled the Eastern Bloc, the FARC’s most potent military force, which a few years ago had some 7,000 fighters. [Today the Eastern Bloc is believed to be made up of just 3400 rebels].
As for the future, the AP’s report says analysts have predicted Jojoy’s loss “could lead many rebels to give up the fight and might lead the FARC to seek peace in earnest.” But the group’s leader, Alfonso Cano still remains at-large and, says WOLA Colombia expert Adam Isacson, Jojoy’s “exit from the scene is unlikely to bring the group close to surrender.” Here’s Isacson, in a great blog post on Thursday’s military operations:
“The FARC continues to have 7,000-9,000 members scattered across at least half of the country’s departments (provinces), including vast empty zones. It has a steady stream of income from the drug trade. And it has increased the frequency of its attacks in the past two years, albeit in more remote areas of the country.”
And, in the short term, “violence could get worse,” Isacson says, with the FARC likely increasing “the tempo of its violent attacks to avenge the death of its ‘martyred military’ leader.” Nevertheless, Jojoy’s death does seem to make the possibility of Colombia-FARC negotiations more likely, at least in the “medium term,” as less military-minded leaders, such as Cano, gain more clear control of the FARC. Concluding, again Adam Isacson:
“If the FARC does eventually send good-faith signals of its willingness to talk, the Colombian government must respond positively and creatively by taking steps necessary to move toward dialogue. The United States, which has so generously funded Colombia’s war machine, must also be ready to accompany a possible peace effort.”
Staying with Colombia:
· The Washington Post has an interview out today with Juan Manuel Santos, conducted prior to news of yesterday’s strikes. He discusses the Uribe presidency, the FARC, Hugo Chavez, trade, and drugs. He saves the best for last. Santos on the drug problem and the need for Plan Colombia to “evolve” into something different:
“[Plan Colombia] should not finish because we still have the drug problem. As long as you have yuppies here snorting coke in New York, you have coca production in Colombia.”
· Also on drug policy, Brookings’ Vanda Felbab-Brown says marijuana legalization in Mexico is not a panacea for overcoming violence and organized crime in the country. In fact, she argues, legalization could exacerbate violence and paradoxically increase the drug trafficking organization’s [DTOs’] political power, in the short-term. Her recommendation is to focus rather on “improving Mexico’s law enforcement,” [see interesting data published by Reforma, on how slow-going one part of this process has been thus far.] Felbab-Brown:
“Without a capable and accountable police that are responsive to the needs of the people from tackling street crime to suppressing organized crime and that are backed-up by an efficient, accessible, and transparent justice system, neither legal nor illegal economies will be well-managed by the state.”
· Other stories on Mexico this morning include news of another Mexican mayor being murdered by suspected cartel hitmen. The murder took place in Doctor Gonzalez, a small municipality outside of Monterrey. The killing was the fourth of a public official in the country this month. The El Paso Times reports yesterday that Felipe Calderon claims the government has made an arrest of a suspect in the murder of journalist, Armando Rodriguez, a crime reporter for El Diario de Juarez who was killed two years ago. More on the new government protections being implemented for journalists, from the Wall Street Journal. From Frontera NorteSur, an excellent look at resident outrage with drug traffickers and organized crime – outrage which led to a mob citizen attack on two suspected kidnappers in the town of Ascensión this week. And outside the drug war, the New York Times yesterday on how the Mexican state is cracking down on abortions.
· Venezuela votes Sunday in highly anticipated legislative elections. The Wall Street Journal has a rather alarmist take on what’s at stake, ending its reporting with this perhaps overly dramatic quote from one Venezuelan opposition leader: “What is at stake on September 26 is that I believe we will choose between a Cuban-style Communism that we are being led to, or a Venezuelan-style Democracy.” Ditto from Armando Duran of the Center for Hemispheric Policy, in a Miami Herald opinion. Rory Carroll at the Guardian has a more nuanced view of Venezuela on the eve of elections. And MercoPress directs attention to an interesting COHA report on Venezuelan communes that is certainly worth a look. With elections on our minds, the take away line of the report:
“Ultimately, the debate over Venezuela’s communes demonstrates perfectly the opposition’s central flaw. They are not debating the issues relevant to the life of ordinary Venezuelans, or analyzing the merits of Chávez’s proposal. Instead, they paint all his proposals and ideas as a plot to turn Venezuela into the next Cuba. Regardless of how one feels about Chávez, this is a regrettable practice that undermines Venezuelan democratic institutions and deprives the Venezuelan people of a meaningful debate about the issues facing them today.”
· In New York City, Nicaragua’s consul general was found dead in his Bronx apartment yesterday, his throat cut and abdomen stabbed. No suspects and no motive as of yet.
· Two interesting pieces from this week’s Economist. A fascinating look at the possible rise of a new left in Peru – one of the only Latin American countries absent from the “pink tide” of the last decade.
“If the opinion polls are correct, Susana Villarán, a human-rights activist who is standing for a new left-wing party called Fuerza Social (Social Force), will be elected mayor of Lima, the capital, on October 3rd. It would be the first time the left has won the capital since 1983.”
And finally a look at the modernization of the Brazilian military, part of what the magazine characterizes as Brazil’s very concerted effort to enter onto the international stage.
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