January 7, 2008: FARC was more than a little embarrassed when
it was discovered that one of the hostages they were offering to release, the
three year old son of one of their adult captives (a woman political operative
who had been kidnapped in 2002) was found to be living in a foster home in the
capital. DNA tests confirmed the child's parentage. FARC had ordered the year
old child to be turned over to government welfare authorities in 2005, under a
false identity, so that it could get life-saving medical care. Recently, FARC
ordered the man who turned the kid in, to retrieve him, and the guy (a poor
rural farmer) couldn't. FARC didn't know that the government had sent the baby
to the capital for medical care, and then put the kid into foster care. The
government then got word of this and quickly found the poor farmer (who now
feared being murdered by FARC) and the three year old child. FARC at first
denied all this, but then admitted it. This is all part of a larger deal,
wherein FARC would release 45 high profile hostages in return for the government
releasing 500 FARC members from prison. FARC has long stalled going through
with this deal because of their insistence that the government also clear out
of a large chunk of the country to provide the rebels with a "neutral zone."
The government did this once before and refuses to do it again, because the
last time the rebels turned the neutral zone into a sanctuary for kidnappers
and drug operations. But the real reason the FARC has not gone through with the
prisoner swap is that the top FARC commanders are no longer sure where the 45
hostages are, or who exactly controls them.
The FARC offer to release three
hostages as a "good will gesture" fell apart largely because it appears that
FARC is suffering from combat fatigue. FARC has been losing its war for the
last five years, driven out of areas they had long controlled. FARC has lost
even more of the support it had among the population. Over the last two
decades, FARC has evolved into a criminal organization, more interested in
making money on kidnapping and drugs, than in establishing a communist dictatorship.
Their military reverses have resulted in higher desertion rates, and
subordinate commanders defecting to set up their own criminal crews. The
current fiasco reveals the sorry state of communication and coordination within
FARC. This is a defeat on a par with some of the military setbacks the rebels
have suffered recently. FARC ally, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was also
dismayed that he was unable to depend on FARC.
