Colombia: FARC Goes Global

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February 11, 2010: The FARC is struggling to adapt to their more constrained circumstances. Driven out of territory they had long operated in, and taking in a lot less money, some FARC factions have taken to recruiting pre-teen boys. Teenage gunmen have become common in the FARC (they work cheaper). Senior FARC leadership is split on whether the organization even has a future in Colombia, and there is pressure to simply shrink the organization and move it elsewhere. There are already over a thousand FARC based in Venezuela, and hundreds setting up more operations in Europe. But many FARC leaders, and gunmen, still believe in the original goal of the organization; to set up a communist dictatorship in Colombia. These diehards don't want to give up that goal. But the diehards are increasingly a minority. Many FARC members accept that the organization has turned into a drug gang, and they are alright with being wealthy gangsters. But to enjoy the money, you have to get out of Colombia, where most of the population agrees that FARC has evolved into a drug gang, and wants them gone.

Neighboring Venezuela slips further into chaos. Water, power and food shortages increase, and inflation is running at 25 percent a year. People publicly mock president Chavez, who uses his control of the legislature to pass more laws that will keep him in power. If Chavez will not allow himself to be voted out, he faces insurrection.

February 9, 2010: Near the Venezuelan border, troops captured ten FARC gunmen. Elsewhere, a two year investigation led to twenty arrests and much damage to Mexican drug cartel operations in Colombia. Ten of those arrested were pilots for aircraft that flew cocaine out of the country.

February 6, 2010: In the south, police captured another senior FARC leader.

February 3, 2010: In the south, twelve FARC gunmen were killed when soldiers tracked them down.

January 31, 2010: In the northeast, four policemen and three soldiers were killed in FARC ambush.