By Jorge Castañeda
June 29, 2008

The FARC are finished, no matter how many men and weapons they may still have.” Former Salvadoran guerrilla leader Joaquin Villalobos' lapidary conclusion about the Colombian narco-guerrilla movement is worthy of consideration, given his unmatched insight into Latin America's armed, revolutionary left. So is the almost tearful acknowledgment by Venezuelan President Hugo ChÁvez's ideological guru, Heinz Dieterich, that “ChÁvez's speech on the FARC (calling on it to abandon armed struggle and free its hostages) is the equivalent of unconditional surrender to Washington's hemispheric ambition.”

However hasty these judgments may end up being, it certainly seems that the region's oldest and last political-military organization is, at long last, on the brink of defeat. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's strategy of “democratic security” appears to have paid off, supported by the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia, as well as by much plain good luck, such as finding thousands of incriminating computer files three months ago in an attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador.

If events in the next few months confirm the FARC's demise, Latin America would finally be rid of one of its main scourges over the past half-century. At least since December 1956, when Fidel and RaÚl Castro, together with a young Argentine doctor, later known as Che Guevara, sailed from Mexico's port of Tuxpan to Cuba and into history, the region has seen innumerable attempts by small left-wing revolutionary groups to take power through armed uprisings. They have all invoked heroic precedents from the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the impossibility of proceeding otherwise under brutal right-wing dictatorships, such as Fulgencio Batista's in Cuba, Anastasio Somoza's in Nicaragua, and military-oligarchic complexes in Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and elsewhere – including Colombia.

In many of these cases, they were right: without recourse to guns and bullets, nothing in their countries would ever have changed. They achieved only three successes: Cuba, in 1959; Nicaragua, in 1979; and El Salvador, where, by 1992, they fought the United States and the local army to a stalemate, bringing peace and growing prosperity to their country. Everywhere else, for whatever reason – misguided strategies, tactical mistakes, erroneous theories, U.S. intervention, etc. – they faced only defeat, repression and futility.

By the early 1990s, it became increasingly evident that the armed struggle for power in Latin American was winding down. Only a few groups remained: the Shining Path in Peru, the Manuel Rodriguez Patríotic Front in Chile, for a brief time the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and the FARC in Colombia. Democratic transitions throughout the hemisphere had made guerrilla warfare unjustifiable: as Che foretold in his La Guerra de Guerrillas in 1962, wherever the trappings (or, one might add, the realities) of democratic rule prevailed, taking up arms was pointless. In country after country, the guerrillas were defeated, pacified, brought into the democratic process or rendered irrelevant. By the end of the 20th century, only the FARC endured, together with a smattering of splinter groups in Mexico.

So if Villalobos and Dieterich are right about the FARC's imminent collapse, it would be a veritable milestone for the region, and a vindication of a strategy – Uribe's – of which many of us were wary. That strategy has rightly been criticized for human rights violations, but it seems to have proved successful. This is no minor matter for the hemisphere, for Colombia, and for Uribe.

Nonetheless, three major problems remain. First, despite high desertion rates, the death of three of its seven leaders, and ChÁvez's apparent decision to forsake them (at least for now), the FARC proved remarkably resilient over the past 40 years. Yes, it is divided, unpopular and devoid of international representation, but the ups and downs of guerrilla warfare are well known; the only truly dead guerrilla fighter is one who is buried.

Second, it would seem highly risky to conclude that one speech by ChÁvez is tantamount to a fundamental affirmation of principle. To be sure, ChÁvez is absolutely crucial to FARC's survival, given its current, undoubtedly weakened condition. But, having met ChÁvez a dozen times, it appears naive, at least to me, to attribute great significance or conviction to anything he says – moderate, hard left, or in between. He may well have opted for a minor tactical “correction,” only to wait to fight another day.

Finally, supposing Uribe is on the verge of victory, what should he do with it? Many have advocated negotiating pacification with the late FARC leader Manuel Marulanda's successors. But without any notion of power-sharing, this is easier said than done.

After all, the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Agreements, which ended the Salvadoran civil war, were signed more than two years after it became obvious that neither side could win. And this occurred thanks to skillful United Nations involvement, led by Alvaro de Soto; the talent of sophisticated FMLN leaders such as Villalobos and chief negotiator Salvador Samayoa; strong pressure from the United States and its point-man, Bernard Aronson; and Salvadoran President Alfredo Christiani's undeniable courage and vision.

Few of these ingredients exist in today's Colombia. So perhaps Villalobos should be a bit more cautious, and Dieterich a bit less forlorn.

 Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico (2000-2003), is a Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.

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