Terrorism, calling it what it is. In all cases.

A little more than a week after meeting in Santo Domingo to defuse the regional crisis, Latin American countries met again in Washington yesterday to bury the conflict once and for all.

The meeting of the Organisation of American States, (OAS) was decidedly different from the Rio Group summit. This time round the US had a voice and a vote.


Where as the last meeting saw the region condemning the violation of national sovereignity in general and calling on Colombia to apologize for an unlawful incursion on its territory, yesterday’s summit was unlikely to yield a similar result.

The Bush-doctrine, as reiterated again by Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice on her recent trip to Brazil, stood in the way of any forceful rejection of Colombia’s behaviour. National security and the demands of the so-called “War on Terror” weigh heavier than national borders and the integrity of the state. What goes for Israel goes for Colombia too. In other words it’s OK to bomb your neighbours if you’re chasing terrorists.

The problem in Colombia is that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the good guys and the bad. Almost certainly, the FARC are terrorists. Yesterday, for instance, a court in Granada, Colombia, sentenced the central command of the group to 39 years in prison for stuffing the corpse of 14 year-old child with explosives and using it in an attack in May of 2002.

But if they are terrorists, then so are the paramilitary groups responsible for executions, death squads and massive forced evacuations. These groups, accused of massacring peasants who fed the guerrillas, have benefited from a mass pardon and decommissioning of arms. They are free to go home. Meanwhile, Colombia has 3 million displaced people, second only to Sudan.

And if the paramilitaries are terrorists then so is the army that collaborated and supported them, as countless testimonies prove. And if found guilty, then the 40 congressmen under investigation for ties to the paramilitaries are also terrorists, including Senator Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin. So who do we bomb first?

Over to Ecuador. Up until now Rafael Correa was able to play the victim card with relative success, especially in the region. Unfortunately for Ecuador, it’s starting to look more and more like the Correa government has something to hide. Two damaging reports in Spain’s El Pais newspaper suggest that there was a lot more to relations between Correa and the FARC than the Ecuador’s president has acknowledged.

An article on March 12 reported on the apparent network of clandestine settlements that the FARC have in northern Ecuador. Basing its reports on the testimonies of defected rebels, El País claims there are eight functioning FARC bases that provide support for a large scale drug running network. “Ecuadorean army officers provide us with uniforms and logistical support,” says Miguel, an ex-guerrilla leader who worked closely with the slain Raul Reyes. He explained how Ecuador’s roads were used to transport drugs to and from Colombia, with the explicit knowledge of local authorities and army officers.

The sustained presence of the FARC in Ecuador was echoed by a story in Ecuador’s El Comercio yesterday. Ecuador’s police report that since 2004 26 rebel fighters have been arrested in the country and 117 FARC camps dismantled, as well as various drug rings in which local police and military were involved. The FARC obtain weapons from Peru in the south and treat their wounded in medical camps on Ecuadorean soil.

A second article in El País details the alleged funding of Correa’s presidential campaign by the 43-year-old insurgency group. Relying mainly on documents retrieved from Reyes’ three computers and on testimony of the same “Miguel,” the newspaper claims the FARC paid up to 100,000 dollars to “our friends in Ecuador.”

The former guerrilla fighter was quoted as saying that “we were informed that if we supported Rafael’s campaign economically and morally, in the case that Correa became president we could expect some benefits for the FARC, like for instance discussions about security in the border area.”

If the above is true, then Correa is in serious trouble (Afghanistan was bombed for less). He will have discredited himself with regional leaders, such Peru’s Alan Garcia and Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, who sided with him in his indignation over the Colombian attack. At home, where opposition figures initially rallied around the president and against Uribe, the outcry will be even greater. It doesn’t look good for the Correa administration, already struggling with a constitutional rewrite.

For now though, we must wait for the examination results of the computers seized from the FARC, a task entrusted to Interpol. The secretary-general of the international police organization went to Colombia personally, insisting his team will do an objective job.

Meanwhile though, the FARC has suffered a number of serious blows. A second guerrilla leader was killed by his bodyguard, turning himself in along with information as to the whereabouts of the body, EFE news agency reported yesterday. The fate of “Emilio,” as the commander of 37 Front was code named, is similar to that of “Ivan Ríos,” the FARC commander who was killed by his security chief 11 days ago. Ríos’ killer, who shot his boss, took his laptop and chopped of his right hand as evidence, will receive part of the 2.5 million dollar bounty, the Colombian government announced on Friday.

The decision to pay the killer will no doubt spurn more guerrilla fratricide. It has also turned President Alvaro Uribe into nothing better than a mob boss, forking out taxpayer’s cash for the deadliest hitman. Some might call that terrorism, too.

War? Statistically unlikely

Latin America is just no fun anymore. Last week around this time, war correspondents from London to New York and Rome were tossing flack jackets into suitcases and making last minute updates to their life insurance policies, about to embark on what surely promised to be career-enhancing clash of nations.


But no such luck. To everybody’s relief, especially for those living along both sides of Colombia’s borders were anxiety was most felt, an armed conflict has been averted.

The meeting of the Rio-group on Friday was a breath of fresh air after a week in which presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador exchanged barbs with their Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe. The row, as has been exhaustedly reported, was over Colombia’s bombing of a guerrilla-camp on Ecuadorian soil, followed by raid to collect the body of FARC commander Raul Reyes. Correa says Uribe lied about the nature of the attack. Uribe claims that both Correa and Chávez were cutting secret deals with the FARC.

What the meeting in Santo Domingo proves is that diplomacy among Latin American states does work, while boosting the regional and domestic status of those leaders who played peace brokers. The day was drawn out and at times got messy as Correa and Uribe both vehemently defended their points of view¬ (Chávez – behaving like a puppy dog after ordering 10 battalions to the border, showed his musical side and sang a Dominican folk tune). But despite the swaggering egos, a clear conclusion was reached, satisfactory to all parties, at least for the time being.

Uribe apologised and promised never to violate Ecuadorian soil again. Meanwhile an investigation will probe Correa’s alleged dealings with the FARC. The most important result of the summit, however, was the unanimous condemnation of the violation of sovereign states. Colombia resisted heavily, claiming that its citizens had a right to security over all other issues. But this was the Rio group and not an OAS meeting. The significant difference is that the US is only a member of the latter.

Last week the United States was the only country to back Uribe all the way. The US supported Colombia’s right to strike so-called terrorists outside its borders, as it has supported Israel’s right to do so in Lebanon and the Palestinian Occupied Territories and done so itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, without the presence of its northern ally, Colombia was forced to accept the will of its neighbours.

A four-nation team took the lead in bringing about the negotiated truce. In the absence of Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón was the natural leader of that group. He has already shown himself a far more competent governor than his predecessor Vicente Fox. Internationally he has had less success – an absurdly low profile visit to the US last year without a single significant meeting was the absolute low point. After a cool headed display on Friday Mexico look forward to vying for regional leadership with Brazil.

The second member of that team was Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández. Mrs Kirchner, whose ties with Calderon are particularly close, stuck with the Mexican throughout pushing for a deal that would enshrine the sanctity of national sovereignty. After a disastrous state visit here in Argentina by an obscure and brutish African dictator last month, it was good to see an Argentine president making a difference for good in an international arena. Credit where credit is due. Ecuador’s Rafael Correa singled out Mrs. Kirchner’s intervention in the debate as a “tipping point”. She called on the delegates to condemn unilateralism while scolding “the boys” for their schoolyard rhetoric.

The other two to make a difference were Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, a classic product of Itamaraty, the temple to Brazilian diplomacy. Chile, historically at loggerheads with Bolivia and Peru, sees Ecuador as natural ally. But Bachelet didn’t leave nearly the footprint of her neighbour to the east.

Although there is still much to be learnt, for now at least things are back to normal. Venezuela and Colombia have announced the return of diplomatic ties. Ecuador has said it will take a while yet for the wounds to heal. Much must still be learnt from the extent of ties between Ecuador, Venezuela and the FARC.

Meanwhile though a war has been averted, and Latin America remains an exemplary exception in the world. Wars between nations are extremely scarce in the region. According to Princeton professor Miguel Centeno in Europe 62 percent of border disputes have ended in war, while in Latin America only 5 percent turned into armed conflict. Most of the borders between countries have hardly shifted since the days of the independence struggle.