Ending Colombia's FARC Conflict: Dealing the Right Card

Bogotá/Brussels, 26 March 2009: The Uribe government needs to complement its military approach to defeating the FARC with a political negotiation strategy if it is to end Colombia’s half-century long armed conflict.

Ending Colombia’s FARC Conflict: Dealing the Right Card,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, argues that the rebel group has suffered severe setbacks, but under its new leader, Alfonso Cano, is not close to military defeat. Since President Álvaro Uribe took office in 2002, it has seen its capability weakened by an aggressive government offensive, but it retains remarkable adaptive capacity.

“President Uribe’s strategy aims at ending the conflict through military victory without political negotiations”, says Mauricio Angel Morales, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst in Colombia. “However, evidence suggests that the insurgents are not close to defeat in the short- or even medium-term and that the best option for the government is to complement continued military pressure with a comprehensive strategy aimed at establishing peace negotiations.”

In the past seven years, the FARC has seen many of its top commanders captured, killed in combat or even murdered by their own men. Thousands of fighters have deserted, bringing the guerrillas’ troop strength down by almost half, to perhaps 10,000 today. In response, the FARC has decentralised tactical command-and-control and is prioritising ambushes on government forces as well as indiscriminate use of unconventional weapons such as landmines. It also seeks to retain control of routes and strategic areas in the Andes mountain ranges and along the Pacific coast and the borders with Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. It continues to rely heavily on drug trafficking to finance the war, and some fronts have established alliances with paramilitary successor groups and organised crime.

To end Colombia’s protracted conflict, the government should sustain military pressure on the FARC and other illegal armed groups but also design a strategy for peace talks with the still-functioning rebel leadership. Otherwise, FARC splinter groups could end up joining the ranks of Latin America’s criminal underworld. Likewise, it should keep open all options for freeing the remaining hostages in FARC captivity, including exchanging FARC prisoners it holds for them, and seek the help of outside actors such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Brazil and possibly Chile.

“FARC’s military capacity has been weakened, and it has lost almost all political support in Colombia as well as abroad. However its resilience should not be underestimated”, warns Markus Schultze-Kraft, Crisis Group’s Latin America Program Director. “The FARC is not close to defeat, and under Alfonso Cano is having some success in adapting to the changed strategic scenario and regaining internal cohesion”.

To view our multimedia presentation on “Colombia’s FARC Conflict”, click here.