Plan Colombia and Beyond

13 Responses to “Current “para-politicians” list”

1. Jaime Bustos Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

   The parapolitics list and the associated ruffian density map is another proof of what I sustain, that is, that the Colombian government is in the hands of low life criminals. What becomes more manifest is that the more to the north the more political criminality is found, and what should be evident for all, the ‘department’ in which the now president of Colombia holds his blockhouse, bordering Mancusos’ lands, is non other than the reddest one in the map.

2. jcg Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

   Jaime Bustos: If that were *all* there is to it, then we wouldn’t even have a parapolitical scandal to begin with, thinking things through.

   Btw, the reddest department on this map is Magdalena, followed by Sucre…I don’t recall Uribe’s having a “blockhouse” in Magdalena.

3. Robin Cheesman Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 9:50 pm

   I can certainly share your feelings, but your argument is false. The “reddest” department in this map is Magdalena. Uribe and Mancuso have properties mainly in Córdoba and Antioquia. But their lands are not close and I doubt that they are personally close. I think it is important to use correct facts, to make things more difficult for the adversaries – Uribe and Mancuso.

4. Jaime Bustos Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 10:02 pm

   I am sorry, my bad. Anyway Cordoba is in the maroonish area very nearby

5. LFM Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 2:09 am

   This is on another topic, but is pertinent to the blog:

   I proudly did not vote for Pastrana in 1998 and have always considered him a lightweight, definitely not my favorite statesman. That said, I think his peace process has been unfairly criticized. Yes, it was flawed, I myself believed that at the time, but it did not turn the country over to the guerrilla as the furibistas now like to yell. At no point during that process were the FARC even close to taking over Bogota. Knowing that some people believe that, even frequent visitors to this blog, I recently closed the deal on a fancy bridge in Brooklyn that might interest them. It’s pretty nice and carries lots of cars.

   Why am I bringing all this up? Because today’s El Tiempo carries an interview with Pastrana. He can help showing his preference for the “lite” every now and then, as when he talks up the “diplomatic victory” over the FARC or when he tries to kiss up to Uribe in pretty implausible ways. But some of the stuff he says there is quite thought-provoking, especially his theory about Florida and Pradera and the inner splits of the FARC.

   Take a look.

6. Camilla Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 11:02 am

   Under investigation? They must be guilty then. If some leftwing lawyer says so. /s

7. Camilla Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 11:03 am

   Heaven help any of them if they are acquitted or not charged. Then, it will be another sort of plot.

8. Camilla Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 11:05 am

   LFM: Pure baloney. Colombians took me up to the hills where FARC circled the city and explained that the battles by the point were not sneaky guerrilla hit and run attacks but full blown pitched battles. There is a reason Plan Colombia came into existence. It wasn’t some party favor from Bill Clinton, there was a capital about to topple. What you claim is utterly false.

9. LFM Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

   Is this as “baloney” and “utterly false” as my previous guesstimates about Colombia’s exports several posts ago? If that’s the case, then I’m in good shape.

   First, Plan Colombia is, for better or worse, a brainchild of the Pastrana Administration. I don’t like the thing. But it takes a lot of head-burying to fail to see that “Mr. Appeasement” Pastrana actually engineered the single largest increase in the military capabilities of the Army. Again, I’m not discussing the merits of the idea. Just the facts, ma’am.

   Second, the closest the FARC has ever gotten to stage a combat near Bogota was the attack on the town of Gutierrez and another one at La Calera, a popular entertainment spot for Bogotans. They might have been quite a scare at the time, especially for urbanites. But from other countries’ experience we know what it really means to have a guerrilla about to topple a capital. The FMLN, probably the guerrilla that ever got closest to winning in Latin America without actually doing it, laid siege on San Salvador for several days on end and managed to cut the power supply. That’s what toppling feels like. Even better, that’s what attempted and failed toppling feels like. Compared to that, La Calera and Gutierrez were just firecrackers. It takes several hours to go from Gutierrez to Bogota in a sunny day, in open air. I’m sure it takes several days if you’re doing it through the mountains under cover of darkness. The notion that the FARC could bring from Gutierrez a sizable fighting force to Bogota without the army noticing is just laughable.

   If you want to claim that the sky was falling in the mid 90s in Colombia, you’re better off picking the cases of Patascoy, Las Delicias and El Billar where the FARC actually destroyed elite units of the Army, as opposed to their typical attacks on lightly manned police outposts. Those were serious victories for the FARC. But, here’s the kicker, they were all several hundreds of miles away from Bogota.

   Was Gutierrez a spike in FARC’s activity? You bet. Was it something to prompt the Colombian army into serious push-ups? Yeah. Was it an ominous sign that Bogota was about to fall? Not a chance.

10. jcg Says:
    February 20th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    LFM: Agreed.

    While FARC did score a series of tactical victories and had the strategical initiative for some time, the overall situation was still quite complex and they were still quite far from taking over Bogotá or anything remotely like it…they couldn’t even set up a permanent position in such remote cities as Mitú, for example. If they couldn’t handle that, seizing Bogotá would be a thousand times more difficult.

    By 1998, even before Plan Colombia actually began, the armed forces were already adapting and reacting to the previous tactical defeats.

11. Chris Says:
    February 20th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    Good response LFM…

    However, I would like to say that while Pastrana’s ideas are ideal and thought-provoking…they are difficult to implement in real life, which in my mind makes them useless.

12. Randy Paul Says:
    February 20th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    I hear that Rocio Arias has been singing like the proverbial bird. Anyone heard anything similar?

13. Plan Colombia and Beyond » "Para-Politicians" I have known Says:
    February 26th, 2008 at 11:47 am

    [...] go beyond the more marginal regions. As the map in last week’s “para-politics” post indicated, the bulk of the “para-politicians” implicated so far have come from [...]

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