Here’s Your FARCing Hat, What’s Your FARCing Hurry …
The FARCing Party Just Keeps Getting Bigger …
FARC’s ‘Human Rights’ Friends
By MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY (WSJ)
As we learn more about the Colombian military’s daring hostage rescue last week, one detail stands out: In tricking FARC rebels into putting the hostages aboard a helicopter, undercover special forces simply told the comandantes that the aircraft was being loaned to them by a fictitious nongovernmental organization sympathetic to their cause called the International Humanitarian Mission.
It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.
I am reminded of President Álvaro Uribe’s 2003 statement that some “human rights” organizations in his country were fronts for terrorists. Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd got his back up over Mr. Uribe’s statement, and piously lectured the Colombian president about “the importance of democratic values.”
But as the helicopter story suggests, Mr. Uribe seems to have been right. How else to explain the fact that the FARC swallowed the line without batting an eye?
This warrants attention because it adds to the already robust evidence that left-wing NGOs and other so-called human rights defenders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba, are nothing more than propagandists for terrorists.
When passions over kidnap victim Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages were running high, these actors pressed Mr. Uribe to grant FARC demands. Now it is clear that the pressure was geared more toward strengthening the rebels’ hand than freeing the captives.
Left-wing NGOs have made undermining the Colombian government’s credibility a priority for many years. A 2003 internal report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá titled “A Closer Look at Human Rights Statistics” confirmed as much. It found that NGO analyses – for example by the Jesuit-founded Center for Popular Research and Education known as Cinep – of the human-rights environment contained a heavy bias against the government while granting a wide berth to guerrillas.
Since the late 1990s, the NGO practice of dragging the military into court on allegations of human rights violations has destroyed the careers of some of the country’s finest officers, even though most of these men were found innocent after years of proceedings. “Judicial warfare” turned out to be especially effective because under legislation pushed by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, “credible” charges against officers put at risk U.S. military aid unless the accused was removed. The NGOs knew that they only had to point fingers to get rid of an effective leader and demoralize the ranks. Given this history, it’s not surprising that the FARC thought a helicopter from an NGO was perfectly natural.
As to Mr. Chávez, documents captured during a Colombian raid of a guerrilla camp in Ecuador show that, in his role as “mediator” in hostage negotiations since last year, he was advising the rebels as to how to best use their hostages as leverage to advance their revolution.
Last fall, Mr. Chávez and the FARC hatched an audacious plan whereby the Venezuelan would take “proof of life” of Ms. Betancourt to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, where the plight of Ms. Betancourt was a cause célèbre. The rebels wrote that Mr. Chávez was sure French pressure for negotiations would cause President Bush to “order Uribe to allow the meeting” between Mr. Chávez and the rebels on Colombian soil, something Mr. Uribe had refused to do. The rebels reported that Mr. Chávez was “super-motivated,” because he viewed the rendezvous as a public-relations coup that would give him and the FARC “continental and world renown.”
That plan flopped, but Mr. Chavez had other cards up his sleeve. One involved Ms. Cordoba, who is currently under investigation by the Colombian attorney general for ties to the FARC. She figures prominently in the captured rebel documents, and is notoriously close to Mr. Chávez.
She met at the Venezuelan presidential palace with FARC leaders last fall. From that meeting the rebels reported that “Piedad says that Chávez has Uribe going crazy. He doesn’t know what to do. That Nancy Pelosi helps and is ready to help in the swap [hostages in exchange for captured guerrillas]. That she has designated [U.S. Congressman Jim] McGovern for this.”
If the speaker of the House was working with Ms. Cordoba in this scheme, her judgment was more than a little misguided. The rebels write that on a trip to Argentina Ms. Cordoba told them, “It doesn’t matter to me the proposal that Sarkozy has made to free Ingrid. Above all, do not liberate Ingrid.” In short, why give up such a useful pawn?
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Like a bunch of 4 year olds playing a game with people’s lives.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:30 pmThe democrat party has been overrun with marxists, it is in your face now. They are a treasonous cancer that needs to be removed.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:33 pmSome would defend the UN, and say they do much good. They would point to the NGOs. I would point to this article. The do-gooders are easily duped or committed Leftists.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:45 pmexcuse me, but is pelosi going to be arrested for colluding with a terrorist organization?
July 7th, 2008 at 7:51 pmThe Logan act makes it a crime for anyone but the president to make foreign policy. Pelosi should have been a defendant to a complaint when she made the trip to Syria last year without presidential approval when she met with Bashir Assad.
If these allegations about Farc and Columbia are true, this is espionage.
Can private citizens make a case against her if the democratic house or senate will not?
July 7th, 2008 at 8:27 pmI’ve got nothing to add.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:00 pmIf Ingrid wanted to she could walk up to Ms Codoba at any public event and bitch-slap the dogshit out of her and probably win the next Columbian election for President.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:45 pm_____________________
July 7th, 2008 at 10:02 pmWell, in this operation, Sarkozy wasn’t well adviced and or clever to listen to his jet-set diplomatic relations, he chose the wrong horse Chavez that pretended to head the discussions with the Farc.
Now, apart that Ingrid Betancourt is a human being that was mistreated, we don’t understand here why it was so important for France, as a nation, to get her free, so much time, energy and money have been spent on the case.
Now, I see more a cast empathy that induced a cooperation among our “on whatever side diplomats are situated” ; yet, if it has been me, that was locked in such a situation, I don’t think they would have rise their little finger. Our embassies like the notables.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:18 amIngrid Betancourt is a useful tool for FARC and the treason of the Global Left. Should have put her in prison.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:03 am