What About Colombia's Terrorists?

By Mary Anastasia O'Grady, editor of the Americas column.

For Colombians, Sept. 11 was much like any other day in recent memory. On that morning they learned that a terrorist attack had claimed the lives of at least 17 compatriots and that those responsible had pledged to keep up the killing.

The irony for Colombians living in New York is that many of them left their homeland to escape terrorism. The Colombian government says that between January and August more than 121,000 Colombians emigrated by air and that 125,000 did the same last year. In the past 10 years over one million Colombians have sought refuge outside the country.

In the wake of the attack on America, Colombia's largest rebel group issued a statement demanding that it not be referred to as a terrorist organization, and no wonder. For years, the ruthless Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces (FARC) and its smaller cousin, the National Liberation Army (ELN), have been blowing up anyone and anything that gets in their way. But they have also labored abroad to shape a sympathetic image as a legitimate political force. The risk for the rebels now is that leaders in developed nations -- and especially Democrats in the U.S. Congress -- will think back on the roaring flames of Sept. 11 and finally understand what it is that guerrillas do for a living.

For three years Colombia has been trying to negotiate a peace agreement with the FARC. Step one was to cede a large part of the country as an act of good faith. The guerrillas responded by using the demilitarized territory to build their army through forced recruitment of boys, to bulk up on arms, to traffic in illegal narcotics, and to launch strikes against civilians in other parts of the country. Recently they invited in bomb-making experts from the Irish Republican Army. They also expelled or killed anyone living within the territory who didn't agree with them. But they never moved a step closer to peace.

The rebels' human-rights violations have gotten almost no ink in the international press and little criticism from the left. Instead, the international community has put almost all its energy into concern over accusations against the military.

The chief accusation against the military is that it has links with right-wing self-defense groups. Being as how the rebel is the enemy of both, this would not be entirely implausible. Even the U.S. admits that it will need the help of bad guys in the Arab world to fight its enemies. But more to the point, it's not clear which, if any, of the accusations are sound. In a country where kingpin rebels live by intimidation and bribery, it would not be surprising to find peasants turning up in Colombian courts to press false charges -- anonymously -- against the most capable military leaders. Indeed, there is proof that is happening. Nor would it be strange to find peasants in guerrilla strongholds making similar allegations to human-rights workers. Nor would it be shocking to learn that drug-trafficking wealth and people sympathetic to the guerrillas had both found their way into the country's judicial system. You get the picture.

Yet despite such nefarious alliances, human-rights groups, ever distrustful of the military, insist that the armed forces are a key source of the evil in country. Those carrying water for the FARC regularly denounce officers who are cleared as having won "impunity."

As a result of this highly effective public-relations campaign, the world focus over the past several years has been on efforts to emasculate the Colombian military instead of working to improve and upgrade its effectiveness. Under pressure from the U.S. State Department during the Clinton administration, Colombian President Andres Pastrana removed some of his best generals from active duty and the U.S. pulled the visas of at least four of Colombia's top military brass. When the U.S. decided to send aid to Colombia in a hare-brained scheme to cut off the supply of drugs, Congress prohibited helping the military in its fight against terrorism.

Leftists in the U.S. Congress no doubt felt good about themselves for doing so, even though this left poor, rural Colombians without sufficient defense. Military weakness invigorated the equally bloodthirsty right-wing paramilitary, turning the countryside into a killing field. Yet despite the best efforts to destroy its reputation, the military remains among the country's most respected institutions, with a Gallup approval rating of well over 70%.

A safe haven for guerrilla activities and a clever judicial and public-relations campaign against the military are not the only reasons that Colombia's rebels are prospering while the civilian population is killed, forced to take sides, or driven from its land. There is also the fact that Mr. Pastrana and the Colombian elite refuse to allow rural residents to arm themselves and organize. Urban dwellers can legally hire private security details, but doing so in rural Colombia makes one an outlaw. It would be far wiser to legalize self-defense groups, which could then be regulated.

This week, the FARC continued with its terror. On Monday, police discovered the body of 62-year-old Maria Araújo Noguera, a former minister of culture and the wife of a top law-enforcement official. According to investigators, her FARC kidnappers shot her twice in the face when she couldn't keep up on a march through the jungle. The guerrillas blamed her death on -- who else? -- the military. If it hadn't been pursuing them, she wouldn't have died, they said. Authorities believe that a rebel known as "Cesar," who had been captured but was let out on furlough -- a bizarre policy -- is responsible.

It's amazing that any leader would continue in negotiations after such a blatant betrayal, but as British historian Paul Johnson has written in the latest issue of Forbes magazine, "One of the chief beneficiaries of 20th century liberalism were terrorist leaders."

Most Colombians appear fed up with the guerrillas and are not in favor of extending the DMZ. But they have yet to indicate a willingness to fight a war that is, for now, confined to the countryside.

One problem may be the fact that they have little international support. They cannot expect help from their neighbors -- the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela have refused to label the rebels as terrorists. But the First World can and should help. The U.S. could start by terminating its campaign against the Colombian military. In his speech to the Labour Party on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said of terror, "There is no compromise possible. Defeat it or be defeated by it." After three years of a "peace process," Colombia faces the same reality.