[R-G] Chavez's Call for FARC Disarmament Takes Washington By Surprise

[Anthony Fenton]

Chavez's Call for FARC Disarmament Takes Washington By Surprise
By Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. Posted June 11, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/87821/

Political chasm between Washington and Latin America continues to  
deepen, as Chavez rejects FARC's armed campaign.


Washington's foreign policy establishment -- and much of the U.S.  
media -- was taken by surprise this week when President Hugo Chavez of  
Venezuela, said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)  
should lay down their arms and unconditionally release all of their  
hostages. The FARC is a guerilla group that has been fighting to  
overthrow the Colombian government for more than four decades.

Chavez's announcement should not have come as a surprise, because he  
had already said the same things several months ago.

On January 13, for example, Chavez said: "I do not agree with the  
armed struggle, and that is one of the things that I want to talk to  
Marulanda (the head of the FARC who died last March) about." Chavez  
also stated his opposition to kidnapping, and has made numerous public  
appeals for the FARC to release their hostages.

Chavez had also explained previously that the armed struggle was not  
necessary because left movements could now come to power through  
elections, something that was often difficult or impossible in the  
past because of political repression.

The surprise in U.S. policy and media circles is a result of a  
misconception of Chavez's recent role in Colombia's conflict. A  
comparison: former President Jimmy Carter has recently called upon the  
United States to negotiate with Hamas -- dismissed as a terrorist  
organization by the U.S. and its allies in Israel and Europe. Carter  
is not an advocate of Hamas nor of armed struggle. He has met with  
Hamas and called for negotiations because he is trying to promote a  
peace settlement.

The same has been true for Hugo Chavez in the Colombian conflict. This  
is how Chavez's role has been seen by the families of the FARC's  
hostages (including U.S. military contractors), Colombian anti- 
violence activists, the governments of Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador,  
Bolivia and almost every other state in the region, and also in  
Europe. None of these people (including FARC kidnapping victims) or  
governments are admirers of the FARC. They have strongly supported  
Chavez's efforts, including but not limited to his success this year  
in gaining freedom for six hostages that were held by the FARC.

But for Washington and its right-wing allies in Colombia, Chavez and  
the FARC have become comrades in arms. The media has honed in on about  
two or three positive statements uttered by Chavez about the FARC (out  
of thousands of hours of his speeches) to describe Chavez as a  
"staunch FARC supporter" (Time Magazine June 9). On June 10, the  
Associated Press reported, falsely, that Chavez had five months ago  
been "urging world leaders to back their [the FARC's] armed struggle."

The U.S. State Department has even said it would consider placing  
Venezuela on its short list of "state sponsors of terrorism." This is  
unlikely in an election year, since Venezuela is our fifth largest oil  
supplier and the Republicans are already getting enough political  
headaches from gasoline at $4.00 a gallon.

For at least six years the Bush Administration has tried to make it  
look like Chavez and his government have been arming, funding, and  
otherwise supporting the FARC.

Until March of this year, Washington had supplied no evidence,  
documentary or otherwise, of such support. News articles containing  
such allegations were for years based on anonymous sources. But on  
March 1 the Colombian military bombed and invaded a FARC camp in  
Ecuador, killing more than two dozen people. These included FARC  
commander Raul Reyes, who was also the chief negotiator for the  
release of high-profile hostages held by the FARC, and some non- 
combatants. The incursion was condemned by governments throughout the  
hemisphere, except for the United States and Colombia.

The Colombian military claims to have captured eight computer  
exhibits, including laptops and flash drives, during the attack. Since  
March, the Colombian government has been releasing various files that  
allegedly come from this equipment, claiming that these files and  
communications indicate that Venezuela's government has been  
supporting the FARC. The government also alleged, on the basis of  
these files, that the FARC had helped finance the 2006 electoral  
campaign of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa. Both Venezuela and  
Ecuador have contemptuously dismissed the charges, with President  
Correa arguing that the computers and equipment did not even originate  
in the FARC camp.

On May 15, the international law enforcement organization INTERPOL  
released a report that was widely described as having "authenticated"  
the computer files. But the report is ambiguous. In one part it says,  
"INTERPOL found no evidence that user files were created, modified or  
deleted on any of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits following  
their seizure on 1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities."

This doesn't say that files weren't altered or added, only that  
INTERPOL found "no evidence that they were." But according to computer  
security experts it is not so difficult to alter or add files without  
leaving fingerprints. The experts I talked to want to know: how did  
INTERPOL decide that they could tell whether files had been tampered  
with? INTERPOL does not answer this crucial question in its 102-page  
report.

Here in Washington the tendency is to take Colombia's word for it.  
However, this is a military that, according to the Washington Post,  
kills teen-agers in the countryside and dresses the corpses as  
guerrillas. Not to mention that 30 legislators aligned with President  
Uribe have been arrested and 32 more are under investigation for  
various crimes, including links to paramilitary death squads.

INTERPOL should be a more reliable source for the limited task it was  
given. But the statements of its chief, Ronald K. Noble - a former  
U.S. Treasury official -- have raised questions about its impartiality  
in this investigation.. On May 15 Mr. Noble told the press, "We are  
absolutely certain that the computer exhibits that our experts  
examined came from a FARC terrorist camp. ... No one can ever question  
whether or not the Colombian government tampered with the seized FARC  
computers."

The first sentence is especially inappropriate, since INTERPOL did not  
investigate, nor did its report provide any information, on the origin  
of the computer exhibits. The second sentence seems exaggerated, since  
even INTERPOL's own report acknowledges that the Colombian authorities  
did not follow established procedures for handling electronic evidence  
for the first couple of days.

Of course, even if the files that have been selectively released by  
the Colombian government were authentic -- and we really have no idea  
how many of them might be -- they still provide only the FARC  
guerillas' account of events. As Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the  
Organization of American States, told the U.S. Congress on April 10:  
"There is no evidence, and no member country, including this one  
(United States) has offered the OAS such proof " that Venezuela  
"supports terrorist groups."

The files themselves do not show that Venezuela actually provided any  
material aid to the FARC, although some describe alleged meetings with  
and promises from various Venezuelan officials.

On June 1, President Correa asked the OAS to investigate Colombia's  
allegations regarding Ecuador, and the OAS agreed. Most likely the  
OAS, which is no longer controlled by Washington, will find in favor  
of Ecuador. Colombia really doesn't have anything on either Ecuador or  
Venezuela that would hold up in a court or a legitimate legal  
proceeding.

The whole controversy is an illustration of the vast gulf between most  
of Latin America, which now has left-of-center governments, and the  
United States foreign policy establishment. For Latin America, Chavez  
is a friend and important ally who has promoted regional economic  
integration and growth - even helping to create new institutions for  
this purpose such as the Bank of the South and UNASUR. He has shared a  
good part of Venezuela's oil wealth with his neighbors, even helping  
some to deliver on their electoral promises, thereby contributing to  
democratization in the region. He has tried to promote a peaceful  
settlement to the conflict in Colombia. He has been democratically  
elected repeatedly, and to the region his government is as legitimate  
as any in the world. For Latin America's leaders, these considerations  
far outweigh any differences they may have with his rhetoric or  
confrontational style vis-à-vis the United States -- which after all,  
did support a military attempt to overthrow his democratically elected  
government in 2002.

For Washington, Chavez is a dangerous demagogue, an "authoritarian"  
troublemaker who threatens democracy (often confused with U.S.  
influence) and stability in the region. He must be isolated and his  
government de-legitimized, perhaps by linking him to "terrorism" or  
presenting him as a "dictator." But it is Washington that faces  
growing isolation in the hemisphere.