Colombian Military Thinking and the Fight against the FARC-EP Insurgency, 2002–2014

Abstract

This article attempts to place in historical perspective the latest effort by Colombia’s military (Colmil) to defeat the now half century old insurgency of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP). It argues that the ‘surge’ initiated under President Álvaro Uribe in 2002 with the assistance of the United States can only be fully analyzed in the context of the Colmil’s intellectual framework for counter-insurgency. Specifically, this article will explain how the protracted engagement with counter-insurgency has shaped the Colmil’s understanding of the nature of the conflict, as well as its attitudes towards its adversary, civil authority and the instrumentality of force. An understanding of the Colmil’s strategic tradition can also help to explain their apprehensions about the ongoing peace negotiations with the FARC-EP.

Key Words:

• Colombia
• FARC-EP
• Counter-insurgency
• Strategy Formulation
• Civil-Military Relations

Notes

¹ ‘General Navas dice que la paz se obtiene ganando la guerra’, El Tiempo, 22 Aug. 2012.

² Douglas Porch, ‘The Hunt for Martín Caballero’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/2 (April 2012), 243.

³ Álvaro Uribe Vélez, No Hay Causa Perdida (London: Penguin 2012), 101.

⁴ Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Anuario estadístico del sector seguridad: 2003–2009 (Bogotá: Imprenta nacional 2009), 145.

⁵ ‘“Hace rato hay conflicto armado” dice JM. Santos’, El Tiempo, 4 May 2011.

⁶ ‘Colombia no está en guerra, el Gobierno trata de justificar asesinato de soldados: Uribe’, Caracol Radio, 28 July 2013, <www.caracol.com.co/noticias/actualidad/colombia-no-esta-en-guerra-el-gobierno-trata-de-justificar-asesinato-de-soldados-uribe/20130728/nota/1940649.aspx>.

⁷ ‘Uribe’s wrath’, The Economist, 31 May 2014.

⁸ Joel Gillin, ‘UN urges Colombia not to further amplify military justice’, Colombia Reports, 30 Sept. 2014, <http://colombiareports.co/un-urges-colombia-not-to-further-amplify-military-justice/>.

⁹ See Stephen Dudley, Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia (New York: Routledge 2004).

¹⁰ ‘Uribe’s wrath’, The Economist, 31 May 2014.

¹¹ Douglas Porch, ‘Expendable Soldiers’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 25/3 (2014), 708.

¹² Pierre Gilhodés, ‘El Ejército Colombiano analiza la violencia’, in Gonzalo Sánchez and Ricardo Peñaranda (eds), Pasado y Presente de la Violencia en Colombia (Bogotá: Fondo Editorial CEREC 1986), 332.

¹³ Ibid., 332.

¹⁴ Porch, Counter-insurgency, 224–5.

¹⁵ See, for example, Francisco Leal, El Oficio de la Guerra (Bogotá: TM Editores/IEPRI 1994); César Torres del Río, Fuerzas Armadas y Seguridad Nacional (Bogotá: Planeta 2000).

¹⁶ M.L.R Smith, ‘COIN and the Chameleon: The Category Errors of Trying to Divide the Indivisible’, in Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith (eds), The New Counterinsurgency Era in Critical Perspective, (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2014), 37.

¹⁷ Álvaro Valencia Tovar, ‘Defensa nacional y guerra revolucionaria’, Revista de las Fuerzas Armadas 8/24 (1962), 397.

¹⁸ Leal, El Oficio de la Guerra, 205; For more on the soldier-scholar reputation of Alvaro Valencia Tover, see Russell W. Ramsey, ‘Insecurity and Violence in Colombia’, Military Review 79/4 (July/Aug 1999), 84–86.

¹⁹ The War Ministry changed its name to Ministry of National Defense in 1966.

²⁰ Alberto Ruiz Novoa, El gran desafío (Bogotá: Editorial Tercer Mundo 1965), 82.

²¹ ‘La Acción Cívica: Cómo cumplirla’, Revista del Ejercito 2/9 (Aug. 1962), 501–3.

²² General Ruiz Novoa was removed from the War Ministry in 1965 after growing opposition from subordinate Traditionalists about his views on the role MCA should play. Senior officers convinced President Guillermo Valencia that Ruiz was a political threat. For his part, Valencia Tovar was forced to resign as Army Chief of Staff after a similar row with President Alfonso Lopez in 1974. See Leal, El Oficio de la Guerra, 205.

²³ Olga Behar, Las guerras de la paz (Bogotá: Planeta 1985), 134.

²⁴ Since Operación Soberania in 1964 with the occupation of ‘Marquetalia’, the base area of the guerrillas that would form the FARC two years later, the Colmil has designed various operations aimed at destroying the FARC’s forces. The most significant have been Operación Casa Verde in 1990, Operación Destructor II in 1997, Operación JM in 2005 and since 2012 Operación Espada de Honor. For more details on the decisive battle mentality in the Colmil, see Roman Ortiz and Nicolás Urrutia, ‘A Long Road to Victory: Developing Counter-insurgency Strategy in Colombia’, in James J. Forester (ed.), Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, Vol.3 (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International 2007), 317–20.

²⁵ Behar, Las guerras de la paz, 308.

²⁶ See Hugo Tovar, ‘Operación Final contra el EPL’, in Glenda Martínez, Hablan los generales (Bogotá: Norma 2006), 191–203.

²⁷ ‘Estamos Ganando’, Semana, 24 Sept. 2001, <www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/estamos-ganando/47396-3>.

²⁸ A case in point was the firing in of the Chief of the Armed Forces, General Harold Bedoya who publicly criticized President Ernesto Samper’s decision to demilitarize a county for the FARC-EP to release a group of POWs as a prelude to initiate peace talks. General Bedoya was accused of insubordination after calling Samper ‘unreliable’ for putting ‘national security at risk’. Bedoya’s removal sparked an unprecedented public protest of over 200 field grade officers who demanded that he disobey the president’s decision. See Porch, ‘Preserving Autonomy in Conflict: Civil-Military Relations in Colombia’, in Thomas Bruneau and Harold Trinkunas, Global Politics of Defense Reform (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2008).

²⁹ Ministerio del Interior de la Republica de Colombia, ‘Decreto 2002 de Septiembre 9 de 2002 Por el cual se adoptan medidas para el control del orden público y se definen las zonas de rehabilitación y consolidación’, <www.secretariasenado.gov.co/senado/basedoc/decreto/2002/decreto_2002_2002.html>.

³⁰ ‘Corte limita Zonas de Rehabilitación de Uribe’, El Tiempo, 27 Nov. 2002, <www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-1322246>.

³¹ Ambassador William Wood to Department of State, ‘Colombia’s Debate over Mass Detentions’, Confidential, Cable, 004214, 26 April 2004, Accessed via: Digital National Security Archive, 7 July 2013.

³² Uribe, No hay causa, 188.

³³ Porch, ‘Preserving Autonomy’, 145.

³⁴ Uribe, No hay causa, 188.

³⁵ ‘Derrota total de las FARC es el objetivo’, El Tiempo, 10 Dec. 2006.

³⁶ Porch, ‘Preserving Autonomy’, 145.

³⁷ See ‘Colombia military murdered 3900 civilians to inflate effectiveness: Prosecution’, Colombia Reports, 29 July 2013, <www.colombiareports.co/colombia-military-murdered-3900-civilians-to-inflate-success-public-prosecutors/?fb_ref=recommendations-bar>.

³⁸ Quoted in FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights, Colombia: The War is Measured in Litres of Blood (June 2012), 9, <www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/rapp_colombie__juin_2012_anglais_def.pdf>.

^{39 ‘}Ambassador discusses wealth tax, human rights with Defense Minister Santos’, Confidential Cable, 22 Dec. 2006, accessed via Wikileaks on 4 April 2013, <www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06BOGOTA11428_a.html>.

⁴⁰ Uribe, No hay causa, 243.

⁴¹ Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Anuario estadístico del sector seguridad: 2003 –2009 (Bogotá: Imprenta nacional 2009), 145.

⁴² Peter Neumann, Britain’s Long War: British Strategy in the Northern Ireland Conflict 1969–98 (London: Palgrave 2003).

⁴³ Smith, ‘COIN and the Chameleon’, 36; Porch, Counter-insurgency: Exposing the Myths, 318.

⁴⁴ Fernando Landazábal, El Desafío: Colombia: Sus problemas y Soluciones (Bogotá: Editorial Planeta 1988), 45.

⁴⁵ ‘DMAIII–Pastrana Breakfast and Colombia Bilateral’, Confidential Cable, 22 Dec. 1998, accessed via Digital National Security Archive, 7 July 2013.

⁴⁶ Álvaro Valencia Tovar, ‘A View from Bogotá’, in Gabriel Marcella (ed.), PLAN COLOMBIA: Some Differing Perspectives (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College June 2001), 23–4, <www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub23.pdf>.

⁴⁷ See Government Accountability Office, PLAN COLOMBIA: Drug Reduction Goals Were Not Fully Met, but Security Has Improved, GAO-09-71 (Oct. 2008).

⁴⁸ Porch, ‘Preserving Autonomy’, 133.

⁴⁹ Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Política de Defensa y Seguridad Democrática (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional 2003), 17.

⁵⁰ Tony Pfanner et al., ‘Interview with Sergio Jaramillo Caro’, International Review of the Red Cross 90/872 (Dec. 2008), 825.

⁵¹ Sergio Jaramillo, ‘No va haber otra oportunidad para la paz’, El Tiempo, 6 April 2014, <www.eltiempo.com/politica/ARTICULO-WEB-NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-13791996.html>.

⁵² ‘First Joint Report of the Dialogue Table between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army, FARC-EP’ (21 June 2013), <www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co/comunicados/primer-informe-conjunto-de-la-mesa-de-conversaciones-la-habana-21-de-junio-de-2013>.

⁵³ Landazábal, El Desafío, 45.

⁵⁴ Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (London: Everyman’s Library 2003), 700.

⁵⁵ Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 2008), 33.

⁵⁶ Alfredo Molano, ‘Las Farc dicen que no fueron a La Habana a entregar las armas’, El Espectador, 5 Dec. 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jorge E. Delgado

Jorge E. Delgado is currently a PhD candidate in War Studies at King’s College London. Jorge’s research focuses on the evolution of Colombian military thought. He was a researcher at the Division of Post-Conflict and Peacebuilding of the Fundación Ideas Para la Paz (FIP), a think-tank based out of Bogotá, where he worked on various consultancy projects advising the Colombian security and defense sector. Jorge holds an MA degree in War Studies from King’s College London.