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by Juliana Rincón Parra, Global Voices
Colombian bloggers are closely following the events unleashed by the Colombian army's incursion into Ecuadorian territory. Fear of war is palpable throughout the discussions on the legitimacy of the attack and its repercussions, the unveiling of computer files establishing nexus between the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan governments and the FARC and the knowledge of 50 KGs of Uranium that the FARC allegedly has.
equinoXio, a longstanding " independent, non partisan Online Digital Magazine" whose English version was recently launched February 3rd, has done a thorough job following the unfolding events in their Spanish version, with a few articles already being translated into English.
In their article "FARC number 2 has been killed in combat near Colombia-Ecuador border" they write:
Luis Édgar Devia Silva, aka Raúl Reyes, the number 2 commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has been killed by security forces, Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Saturday morning.According to Mr Santos, "human sources and information verified by the State's intelligence" told Colombian authorities that guerrilla fighters from FARC's 48th front would meet with Reyes in Granada, a place near Colombia's border with Ecuador on Friday night. An joint operation of
Colombian Air Force bombed a guerrilla camp, located 1.8 km from the border inside
In equinoXio's other article, "Colombia will not send troops to borders to Ecuador and Venezuela" they inform about one of the important issues that has bloggers commenting on possible justifications for the incursion into Ecuador; the belief that they may be helping the FARC terrorists:
Around one hour later, Colombian National Police Director, general Óscar Naranjo, saidReyes, whose content, according to a preliminary report, shows ties between Quito and FARC, through Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador's Internal and External Security minister. The documents (PDF), letters written by Reyes and addressed to the FARC Secretariat, involve some alleged commitments by Ecuador with FARC, which had promised to deliver Correa Army corporal Pablo Emilio Moncayo, kidnapped in 1997, for Mr Correa to become another mediator between the terrorist group and the Colombian government. Ecuadorian officials have denied the claims.
For the moment, all of it is rhetoric and show. Yell at the empire, dress in red, call everyone a lackey, buy weaponry from
Now this has stepped out of Risk strategy plays to real actions.
Pala Labra [es] reflects an opinion echoed by other Colombian bloggers who believe that the political misunderstandings with
Truth of the matter is that I don't care much for socialism, I'm not pro Uribe, or anything. I'm of the school of thought that believes that everybody in the world could be right, as Fito says, "I don't belong to any -ism". But there are some things that certainly make me mad... yesterday I was listening to that guy [Chavez], only because my dad had the tv on, and I was imagining my neighbor Myriam completely shredding my family during assemby simply because she doesn´t agree that we should be eating cereal at breakfast, articulating a war while the other neighbors clap vigorously. As a matter of fact, Myriam doesn´t know what we eat at breakfast and it isn´t any of her business, at least not enough to make such a racket. I also know my example is extremely simple, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Just because in general, it really annoys me when people get into other people´s affairs with no invitation.
Mauricio Duque Arrubla [es] reads around the blogosphere to see what others have been saying about this conflict and wishes to clear things up a bit:
But it seems that for many foreigners, the problem in
With all due respect to the hostages and their families, that is not the problem. There are many problems coming before the liberation of the hostages (the farc, the paramilitary groups, hunger, inequality, corruption). That doesn´t meen that we have to solve them in that order and that if we manage to get the hostages freed that would be even better news than this man´s death. [Raul Reyes, 2nd in command for the FARC]
But with concern I read that what many Europeans think is that with the dissappearance of this murderer, the agreement dissappears as well. ¿What about the rest? It doesn´t exist for them. And the bad guy always turns out to be the government, never the delinquents on the other end.
Sense of proportion has been completely lost.
PS. Even though the colombian government had reason enough to do what it did, it was wrongly done. The end doesn´t justify the means. But what happened was very good news, that I can´t deny. What seems to be coming can´t be too good, but we´ll have to see.
Víctor Solano [es] has taken to the task and built a timeline of the events that led to this conflict which has Colombians biting their nails. However, even more eye opening than the post itself, are the comments, where people are heatedly debating the timeline as well as the allegations of the 50 KG of Uranium that the FARC received aided by
Camilo Andrés, copies political blogger Atrabilioso's 3 part report on the events on his blog [es] on his belief that the Uranium came from medical equipment theft:
Basically, the Uranium in the FARC´s hands came from radioactive materials used in medical equipment which during a misterious tide of thefts these power sources for clinical diagnoses were stolen a few years ago. The authorities, at the time, only managed to warn the general population regarding the health risks that being in contact with this element bring.
Carla Mariela [es] from
The note that most called my attention yesterday was that of the Uranium. I didn´t know about the medical equipment theft, but I did hear that for a few years now there have been land movements in the Venezuelan south in the area near Cerro Impacto. This mount has great concentrations of the mineral form of Uranium.
On another comment, blogger Leonardo Benavides Gómez for Villa Noticias [es] tells that at the border with
In the political analysis blog Colombia Hoy [es], they have come to a conclusion: what originally seemed a plan to simply kill a terrorist leader became a means to unveil the political support the FARC has been receiving from other countries.
At a second glance, it becomes evident that the military operation had an ampler horizon. In fact, the destruction of the Reyes camp in Ecuadorian land sought to bring out into the light before the international community, first, the presence of the FARC in that country and second, to unveil the relations between the FARC and other governments in the region.
That was the strategic objective of the operation: to politically affect Chávez and Correa, and denounce their relation with the FARC.
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