The reported kidnappings this past week of four Israelis and four Europeans, while touring Colombia?s ?Lost City?, on the northwestern tip of South America, has led to Israeli media interest in the group assumed to have carried out the kidnappings - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As FARC is a terrorist gang that has plagued Colombia for nearly as long as Yasser Arafat?s Fatah has plagued Israel, it is of some interest to examine the Colombian response to FARC?s activities.
The organization?s battle with the government of Colombia goes back to 1964, when it was established as the armed wing of the local Communist party. In the intervening forty years, FARC - Marxists, lest we forget - has made a profitable business of the drug trade, hostage-taking, extortion and murder. There are currently over ten-thousand active members of FARC, along with an unknown number of sympathizers and rural supporters.
The government of Colombia struggled with the FARC for many years, until, in an effort to end what had turned into a bloody ?cycle of violence?, according to some, the government of President Andres Pastrana opened negotiations with the terrorists. That was in 1997. By 1998, as part of Pastrana?s efforts to obtain a ceasefire, the government ceded 42,000 square miles of territory in southern Colombia - similar in size to Switzerland - to the terrorists. It became known as the despeje (?clear zone?).
And clear it was. Cleared of the rule of law, the FARC autonomy became a staging ground for kidnappings, drug running operations and the recruitment of young men and boys into FARC ranks. In response to these alarming developments, President Pastrana and the Communist leader Manuel (?Tirofijo?) Marulanda met several times between 1998 and 2002. Each time, Pastrana was convinced to continue allowing FARC to use the despeje - in the hopes that, with time, peace would be established. No doubt, Marulanda told the Colombian president that FARC will root out the ?real terrorists? given enough time and authority.
However, the years of meetings, negotiations and autonomy only led to a series of high-profile terrorist acts, targeting Colombian leaders and others. In March 1999, FARC terrorists kidnapped and murdered three US citizens, Indian rights activists in Venezuela; in October 2001, FARC terrorists kidnapped and murdered of a former Colombian minister of culture; in February 2002, FARC terrorists kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, a presidential candidate; in addition to four kidnappings of Colombian congressmen between June 2001 and February 2002.
On February 20, 2002, FARC terrorists hijacked a domestic aircraft and kidnapped Senator Jorge Gechem Turbay, making him the fifth congressman to be kidnapped while FARC maintained its agreed-upon despeje. Within hours, President Pastrana ordered the Colombian armed forces to start retaking the FARC-controlled zone.
Perhaps after four years of maintaining hostile activities from within their autonomous territory, FARC leaders simply assumed that they would maintain their rule without interference for as long as Arafat?s Fatah had in the Palestinian Authority in Israel. As it turned out, if that is what they thought, they were wrong.
An interesting point, for Israel, is that FARC terrorists had made the exact same use of Colombian territory ceded to them as the PLO terrorists made of Israeli territory ceded to them. Concessions made to totalitarian-minded terrorists, then, invariably lead to the strengthening of totalitarianism and terror, not to conciliation or peace.
A more painful comparison between Colombia?s experience with FARC and Israel?s with the PLO is the resolve eventually displayed by the Colombian leader regarding eliminating the FARC autonomy. While President Pastrana did, like all of Israel?s leaders, give his terrorist enemies repeated chances to crack down on violence stemming from the ceded territory, he only allowed the FARC farce to continue for four years. Israel is still playing games with PLO terrorists ten years after awarding them their own Arabic despeje.
Moreover, several high-profile kidnappings and a handful of murders constituted sufficient cause for the Colombian president to order the reoccupation of FARC-controlled territory. Ordinary Israelis, on the other hand, have suffered ongoing, horrific mass murders for years, carried out by suicide bombings, shootings in the streets and on the roads, the murder of children in their beds, and more. As an additional point of comparison, it bears noting that the motivation of the Arab killers of Jews in Israel is, for the most part, genocidal in nature. FARC has no such genocidal aims.
Praying that the FARC captives are released before the start of the Jewish year of 5764 next week, we also hope to see the dismantling of the PLO?s despeje in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the near future.
The organization?s battle with the government of Colombia goes back to 1964, when it was established as the armed wing of the local Communist party. In the intervening forty years, FARC - Marxists, lest we forget - has made a profitable business of the drug trade, hostage-taking, extortion and murder. There are currently over ten-thousand active members of FARC, along with an unknown number of sympathizers and rural supporters.
The government of Colombia struggled with the FARC for many years, until, in an effort to end what had turned into a bloody ?cycle of violence?, according to some, the government of President Andres Pastrana opened negotiations with the terrorists. That was in 1997. By 1998, as part of Pastrana?s efforts to obtain a ceasefire, the government ceded 42,000 square miles of territory in southern Colombia - similar in size to Switzerland - to the terrorists. It became known as the despeje (?clear zone?).
And clear it was. Cleared of the rule of law, the FARC autonomy became a staging ground for kidnappings, drug running operations and the recruitment of young men and boys into FARC ranks. In response to these alarming developments, President Pastrana and the Communist leader Manuel (?Tirofijo?) Marulanda met several times between 1998 and 2002. Each time, Pastrana was convinced to continue allowing FARC to use the despeje - in the hopes that, with time, peace would be established. No doubt, Marulanda told the Colombian president that FARC will root out the ?real terrorists? given enough time and authority.
However, the years of meetings, negotiations and autonomy only led to a series of high-profile terrorist acts, targeting Colombian leaders and others. In March 1999, FARC terrorists kidnapped and murdered three US citizens, Indian rights activists in Venezuela; in October 2001, FARC terrorists kidnapped and murdered of a former Colombian minister of culture; in February 2002, FARC terrorists kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, a presidential candidate; in addition to four kidnappings of Colombian congressmen between June 2001 and February 2002.
On February 20, 2002, FARC terrorists hijacked a domestic aircraft and kidnapped Senator Jorge Gechem Turbay, making him the fifth congressman to be kidnapped while FARC maintained its agreed-upon despeje. Within hours, President Pastrana ordered the Colombian armed forces to start retaking the FARC-controlled zone.
Perhaps after four years of maintaining hostile activities from within their autonomous territory, FARC leaders simply assumed that they would maintain their rule without interference for as long as Arafat?s Fatah had in the Palestinian Authority in Israel. As it turned out, if that is what they thought, they were wrong.
An interesting point, for Israel, is that FARC terrorists had made the exact same use of Colombian territory ceded to them as the PLO terrorists made of Israeli territory ceded to them. Concessions made to totalitarian-minded terrorists, then, invariably lead to the strengthening of totalitarianism and terror, not to conciliation or peace.
A more painful comparison between Colombia?s experience with FARC and Israel?s with the PLO is the resolve eventually displayed by the Colombian leader regarding eliminating the FARC autonomy. While President Pastrana did, like all of Israel?s leaders, give his terrorist enemies repeated chances to crack down on violence stemming from the ceded territory, he only allowed the FARC farce to continue for four years. Israel is still playing games with PLO terrorists ten years after awarding them their own Arabic despeje.
Moreover, several high-profile kidnappings and a handful of murders constituted sufficient cause for the Colombian president to order the reoccupation of FARC-controlled territory. Ordinary Israelis, on the other hand, have suffered ongoing, horrific mass murders for years, carried out by suicide bombings, shootings in the streets and on the roads, the murder of children in their beds, and more. As an additional point of comparison, it bears noting that the motivation of the Arab killers of Jews in Israel is, for the most part, genocidal in nature. FARC has no such genocidal aims.
Praying that the FARC captives are released before the start of the Jewish year of 5764 next week, we also hope to see the dismantling of the PLO?s despeje in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the near future.