Masters of Today

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'Masters of today': military intelligence and counterinsurgency in
Colombia, 1990-2009
Douglas Porch
a
; Jorge Delgado
b
a
Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA
b
Fundacin Ideas para la Paz, Bogot, Colombia
Online publication date: 21 June 2010
To cite this Article Porch, Douglas and Delgado, Jorge(2010) ''Masters of today': military intelligence and
counterinsurgency in Colombia, 1990-2009', Small Wars & Insurgencies, 21: 2, 277 302
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2010.481421
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2010.481421
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Masters of today: military intelligence and counterinsurgency
in Colombia, 19902009
Douglas Porch
a
* and Jorge Delgado
b
a
Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA,
USA;
b
Fundacion Ideas para la Paz, Bogota, Colombia
Military intelligence forms a vital element of counter-insurgency operations.
When the Colombian military suffered setbacks at the hands of the FARC
in the 1990s, military intelligence received much of the blame. It was also
accused of human rights violations. With the help of US. nanced Plan
Colombia, military intelligence has been reorganized, expanded, strengthened
with upgraded technical capabilities, constrained to operate within dened
legal boundaries, and refocused to match the governments strategic priorities.
Human intelligence has laid the groundwork for impressive tactical and
operational results since 2006. Nevertheless, like all intelligence services, that
of the Colombian military continues to experience problems of structure and
political outlook.
Keywords: Colombia; military intelligence; counter-intelligence; counter-
insurgency
Recent spectacular successes of Colombian military intelligence in operations
against the Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias colombianas ejercito del pueblo
(FARC-EP), have shaken the decades old insurgency to its foundations.
Operation Jaque (Check, as in checkmate), the 2 July 2008 liberation through a
complex campaign of SIGINT manipulation and deception of 15 high prole
FARC hostages, including former Presidential contender Ingrid Betancourt, from
the hands of the FARC, is simply the most dazzling in an operational hit list that
bagged FARC front commanders Mart n Caballero (37
th
Front) and Negro
Acacio (16
th
Front) in 2007, and forced Karina, bloody leader of the FARCs
47
th
Front, to capitulate in May 2008. In fact, 2008 saw the deaths of two
members of the 12-man FARC secretariat as the result of intelligence-directed
operations: Raul Reyes, the FARCs second-in- command, perished in a 1 March
bomb strike on his camp in Ecuador codenamed Operation Fenix. Barely a
week later, Secretariat honcho Ivan R os was assassinated by his bodyguard who
subsequently appeared in a Colombian military camp with his ex-bosss severed
hand and computer to claim the substantial reward.
1
These operations have produced a signicant knock-on effect. Justiably
paranoid that they are thoroughly inltrated by Colombian intelligence agents
ISSN 0959-2318 print/ISSN 1743-9558 online
q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2010.481421
http://www.informaworld.com
*Corresponding author. Email: dporch@nps.edu
Small Wars & Insurgencies
Vol. 21, No. 2, June 2010, 277302
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who pinpoint FARC camps for special forces raids or Colombian Air Force
(FAC) bombing runs, mutual mistrust in FARC ranks has skyrocketed while
morale has cratered, translating into a tsunami of desertions: over 2,500 guerrillas
ed FARC ranks in 2008 alone, according to government statistics.
2
A collateral
benet of these strikes is that they often net guerrilla computers containing a
mother lode of particulars on FARC contacts, logistical networks, and nancing.
3
These recent successes are all the more remarkable as they come on the heels
of a run of combat humiliations inicted on the Colombian military and its
intelligence services by the FARC between 1996 and 1998: Las Delicias,
Pastascoy Hill, Miraores, and Mitu, all garrisons in southern Colombia, as well
as countless police stations, fell to the guerrillas who, for an encore, virtually
annihilated the elite counter-guerrilla battalion of Brigada Mov l 3 in jungle
combat at El Billar in the Caguan in March 1998, killing 62 soldiers and
capturing 43.
4
Not only did Colombian military intelligence come in for a
signicant share of the blame for these setbacks,
5
but worse, to the charge of
incompetence was added that of a serial violator of human rights.
6
By 1999, the
government had conceded an extensive chunk of jungle in the south to the FARC,
while guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups ran amok in much of the
country, extorting, kidnapping, displacing, and generally terrorizing the
population. The diminutive, ineffective security services for the most part either
went limp or hooked up with paramilitary forces. Colombia appeared on the
verge of implosion.
The remarkable rebound of the Colombian military which transitioned from
the army that couldnt shoot straight of the 1990s to scourge of the FARC in the
opening decade of this century, and arguably the most procient military in Latin
America, has many fathers. Plan Colombia-supplied resources, especially
helicopters, have allowed the Colombian army to amalgamate three mobile
brigades and a special forces brigade into a rapid deployment force Fuerza de
Despliegue Rapido (FUDRA) with the air mobility to pounce on the FARCs
most inaccessible lairs. A more dynamic military leadership beginning in 1999
with Armed Forces commander General Fernando Tapias and Army commander
Jorge Enrique Mora, the expansion and professionalization of Colombian forces,
and better inter-service cooperation, especially air support, has boosted success.
These operational and tactical enhancements were strategically focused by
President A
lvaro Uribe, a dynamic, dedicated opponent of the FARC, who

assumed ofce in August 2002. The change of attitude was especially apparent to
US MILGRP ofcers advising Colombian forces: Uribe was the only president
who realized that the FARC isnt that competent, and he has to attack them,
noted a USMC advisor.
7
Uribe lit a re (under the brigade commanders),
another insists. Lots of commanders dreaded Uribe, because they wanted to stay
in their ofces and didnt want to open the roads.
8
Uribe kicked the military in
the ass, noted a third. Its as if he said: Youve got popular backing, political
support, equipment what are you waiting for?
9
278 D. Porch and J. Delgado
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The central nervous system of the military
However, Colombias resurgence would have been impossible without a strong
assist by military intelligence: Intelligence is a big part of Colmil success, a
US intelligence advisor argues.
10
A civilian analyst situates the role of
Colombian military intelligence more succinctly: Intelligence is the central
nervous system of the military.
11
And while US assistance, as in other aspects of
the Colombian military upgrade, has been vital, especially in technical
intelligence capabilities, the foundations for Colombian intelligence success
pre-date Plan Colombia. Paradoxically, in the 1990s as the FARC pummeled the
military, Colombia began to lay a foundation for intelligence success in the new
century by reorganizing military intelligence and bringing it under closer civilian
oversight. However, beyond any gringo assist to Colombian intelligence success,
Colombian military intelligence has contributed a profound understanding of its
combat environment acquired over a half-century of counterinsurgency to wring
maximum advantage from US assistance.
This article will rst examine the intelligence reforms of the 1990s, before
analyzing the changes since 2002 that have allowed the Colmil to grab the
initiative from their FARC adversaries. As in all intelligence services, problems
persist in those of the Colombian military, which the authors will address in the
conclusion.
Reforms of the 1990s
Colombian military intelligence faced a number of problems in the 1990s, the
principal one being its lash-up to an organization totally overmatched by the twin
explosions in the 1980s of drug maas and guerrilla organizations, in particular
the FARC. Our intelligence production surpassed the armys operational
capacity to act on it, remembered Colonel Manuel Gavilan of this period.
Look at this intelligence! Id tell a commander. But he didnt have the troops
to take advantage of it.
12
The (Colombian) army was too small, had no mobility,
and it lacked will, an American who served with Seventh Special Forces Group
in 1998 stated. They had a very garrison mentality. Apart from (General Mario)
Montoya in Medell n and (General Mart n Orlando) Carreno (both future army
commanders) in Barrancabermeja, the brigade commanders were sitting on their
ass. They would give you a million excuses about why they couldnt do an
operation. When the Colmil did move, it was a Cecil B. DeMille production with
a very large footprint.
13
The army didnt patrol much, noted a US veteran of
the 1990s. If a commander was aggressive and lost ve people, he was relieved.
It was career enhancing to sit on base, even if he had success outside the wire.
14
We called them Commander 00 because they had a non-aggression pact with
the enemy, General Carlos Frasica remembered.
15
A USMC major suggests that there might be extenuating circumstances:
The ght here is mano-a-mano because there are no support arms. Death rates
from wounds are 50%. Theres no motivation for a conscript to ght, especially
Small Wars & Insurgencies 279
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when youre ghting your own countrymen. For the Colmil, this war has become a
way of life.
16
Lowmorale translated into diminished professionalism; the defeats
of the 1990s owed as much, if not more, to the suicidally casual attitudes of
Colombian conscripts toward security than to intelligence failures per se.
17
A second problem was that military intelligence operated free from civilian
oversight and largely outside a legal framework. The government wanted results,
Colonel Humberto Castillo remembered of the 1980s. They gave us carte
blanche. Intelligence worked in the street and outside the law. We carried out
illegal arrests. There was no internal or external controls, so we had a large freedom
of action that led to many abuses.
18
Raids sanctioned by no judge were common,
while suspected terrorists could expect to be tortured, possibly sexually assaulted,
or to disappear.
19
This began to be rectied in 1991, the year that saw the promulgation of a new
constitution that replaced that of 1886, which broadened participation in the
political process and placed a strong emphasis on human rights. Constitutional
reform combined with military pressure and demoralization to cause the M-19,
the Ejercito Popular de Liberacion (EPL), and several smaller insurgencies,
which for almost two decades had absorbed much of the attention and resources
of military intelligence, to demobilize. But more important, it also brought a
measure of intelligence oversight with the creation of government ofces capable
of corralling the actions of military intelligence within the bounds of the law.
While some ofcers continue to complain that this has hurt operational security,
made results more difcult to obtain, and generally limited their independence,
the inclusion of members of the DAS and/or Cuerpo Tecnico de Investigaciones
(CTI) of the Fiscal a (Prosecutor General) in military bloques de busqueda
(Search Blocks) carefully selected teams of soldiers assigned a specic target
has allowed them legally to intercept communications and arrest miscreants as
soon as trial-worthy evidence has been accumulated.
20
The Fiscal a gives legal
cover to intelligence ofcers who recruit agents within a targeted organization:
It avoids problems, so that this person wont kill someone and say Mauricio
[the pseudonym of the intelligence ofcer] ordered me to do it. Its similar to the
American plea bargaining system.
21
The ability to work closely with judicial
organizations has been especially benecial in the war against the drug cartels.
22
The Armed Forces also issued its rst human rights manual in 1993.
23
The professionalization of military intelligence was also given a boost in
1992 when the government of Cesar Gaviria created a separate arm for Army
Intelligence, which permitted an expansion and specialization of personnel.
24
Before 1992, Colombian military intelligence was a poorly resourced pick-up
team of ofcers and NCOs of any arm temporarily assigned indiscriminately,
without knowing if he had the prole, whether he liked intelligence or not, to an
intelligence slot. Frasica actually requested an intelligence assignment in the
1980s only to discover that his new command consisted of only three NCOs to
handle intelligence, counter-intelligence, and administration.
25
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President Gaviria saw intelligence as one of our Achilles heels, Frasica, who
commanded the Intelligence School in 1992, recounts. In the short term, it was a
asco, Colonel Fredy Torres, who jumped from the infantry to intelligence in
1992, believes. It looked like a job creation scheme.
26
The Intelligence School
was hard placed to digest the sudden ofcer bulge, especially in the new
subdivision of Technical Intelligence: Without a doubt, this desire for rapid
growth caused us to incorporate many soldiers without the prole, conditions or
preparation to be in intelligence, Frasica lamented. And there were too many
students to prepare properly.
27
Finally, the 1998 dissolution of the armys central intelligence organization,
the Brigada 20 (BR20) in the wake of accusations of human rights violations
[see note 6] paved the pathway to reform: the emergence of the Central de
Intel gencia Militar del Ejercito (CIME) modeled on the US Army Intelligence
and Security Command (INSCOM), that capped Regionales de Intel gencia
Militar del Ejercito (RIMES), although in the short run simply a rebranding of
existing structures, erected a more modern intelligence framework. It was also
Washingtons pre-condition at the August 1998 outset of Andres Pastranas
presidency for future assistance.
The demise of Brigada 20 in a puff of scandal came as a wake-up call for
many intelligence veterans who realized that, by behaving like the intelligence
services of Chile and Argentina during the worst of their dirty wars, and Peru
during its ght against Sendero Luminoso, they were in danger of losing the
institution.
28
Before the Constitution of 1991, we committed excesses, one
intelligence ofcial confessed. You were at liberty to do what you liked. There
were human rights violations, especially when the intelligence was unspecic.
Precise intelligence reduces violations. There is also much more respect for the
law, a recognition that there are legal restrictions on what we can do.
29
There is
no point in defeating the FARC, only to end up in jail, concludes Mauricio, a
mid-level intelligence ofcer. Its better to respect rights.
The stone in the shoe of the insurgency: intelligence reform since 2002
Seguridad Democratica, President Uribes strategic plan to ght the insurgency,
has prioritized intelligence agency cooperation with the creation of Junta de
Inteligencia Conjunta (JIC).
30
Also, with US assistance, Colombian military
intelligence has acquired impressive Humint, SIGINT, and deception
capabilities, and a structure able to supply actionable and timely intelligence to
commanders with the inter-service and special operations capacity to act on it.
This success has been fostered in large part by the US backed Plan Colombia and
by the technical assistance and cooperation supplied by the USMILGP-
Colombia, the CIA, and the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the US Embassy.
More abundant US resources required Army command to establish a
Direccion de Inteligencia (DINTE) to coordinate intelligence administration and
budget, and to set out intelligence policy for the three centrales. The CIME and
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RIMES focus 95% on Humint,
31
much of it provided by FARC deserters
enticed from the jungle by an expanded demobilization program that attracts,
rewards and retrains disillusioned guerrillas. Fifty per cent of military and police
operations are based on deserter Intel, a NAS ofcial insists. They also use them
as scouts.
32
But the CIME is also the place where the Intel packets are assembled
and passed on to the eight RIMES one for each of the seven divisions and a
strategic RIME that focuses on High Value Targets (HVTs)
33
which run
networks of informers and pass information to the CIME. In 2001, Colombian
intelligence reported that the FARC sought to target the CIME because it had
become the stone in the shoe of the insurgency.
34
Improvements in technical intelligence have been the most important
development in the last ten years, former Vice-MOD Juan Carlos Pinzon
believes.
35
Sigint only gradually emerged in the 1980s as a means to monitor
radio communications in insurgent-dominated areas where Humint was scarce.
A cell had been created in Cali to monitor and decipher radio communications of
the M-19, an insurgent group active in the 1970s and 1980s before it demobilized
in 1991, based on codes supplied by inltrados. In the closing years of the 1980s,
a Compan a de investigaciones especiales was created which, in 1993, became
the Compan a de Inteligencia Tecnica (CITEC), with experts in photo analysis
and cryptology. US help brought portable AOR monitoring equipment with
recorders able to listen to VHF and HF radios, and Sectel 9600 voice security
machines. This new equipment, combined with the ability of a sergeant major to
break their codes, allowed intelligence to operate with success against the EPL,
whose transitions had become an open book, and thanks to Ministry of
Communications assistance, also allowed the CITEC to contribute to the 1993
demise of Medell n drug lord Pablo Escobar.
In November 1992, CITEC became the Batallon de Inteligencia Tecnica
(BITEC) with an Electronic Intelligence (radiogoniometry) company and a
Technical Intelligence (listening and analysis) company that eventually settled
into the grounds of the War College in North Bogota, with outstations all over the
country to monitor signals and carry out direction nding. Technical intelligence
was recognized as a specialty and given space within the headquarters of the
Comando Operativo de Inteligencia y Contrainteligencia, founded in 1985. The
ofcial history is virtually silent on BITECs inability to warn of the disasters of
the late 1990s, beyond the self-exoneration that all the actions of the enemy were
so unpredictable, and on several occasions because of deception practiced by
them, we could not determine with precision important information such as the
number of bandits available for a specic action nor the quality of their
armament.
36
In 2000, BITEC reverted to its old acronym CITEC Centro de
Inteligencia tecnica and in 2003, a Unidad de Inteligencia de Senales (UIS)
was created with considerably enhanced monitoring, direction-nding, and
jamming capabilities. An airborne Unidad de Inteligencia de Alta Movilidad
(UIAM) reinforces these capabilities with rapid deployment.
37
The challenge has
been to keep up with changes in FARC codes, one mitigated somewhat by poor
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FARC communication security, especially on the company level, and their
inability because of unit dispersion, to change codes frequently and
simultaneously. The NCOs listen to the same FARC guys for years, Pinzon
points out. They can break their codes. Strengthened coordination between
Sigint and Humint has also helped.
38
This Sigint upgrade and US cooperation
actually produced strategic value because it gave Bogota incontrovertible
evidence to convince Washington that the FARC is indeed a narco-terrorist
organization.
39
Finally, counter-intelligence ceased to be an under-funded low priority
battalion in the Brigada 20, and became the Central de Contrainteligencia
(CECIM) in 1998.
40
This separation has augmented the capabilities of Humint,
allows for a specialization of intelligence personnel, and has expanded and
institutionalized the role of intelligence in operational planning. Resources and
success have reduced initial resistance to change among old intelligence hands.
41
In the view of one US intelligence specialist who works closely with
Colombian military intelligence, Colombian Humint, although under-resourced,
is excellent. Sigint is good on collection and now even on deception, as Jaque
demonstrated, and Imint is procient given the lack of resources. Analysis is
probably pretty good, given their lack of integrated data bases what we call a
shoe box data base. Collection management is marginal every service
focuses on the same targets.
42
And, despite Herculean efforts by the MOD,
Army and Police intelligence continue to compete rather than cooperate.
43
Inltrating the FARC
Two interconnected innovations jumpstarted Colombian intelligence success
since 2002: rst, has been an augmented Humint capability supplied by agent
inltration and penetration of FARC ranks. Historically, agents often proved
unproductive in non-urban settings because an inltrado had few ways to deliver
timely intelligence from remote locations. But technology a second
development has changed that. The combination of the Global Positioning
System (GPS) available since 1995 and the cell phone has allowed intelligence
agents to situate FARC camps and phone in the coordinates. I inltrated a gal
with a GPS that big (pointing to a computer mouse) in her vagina, recounted a
Naval Intelligence ofcer.
44
They can also plant a beacon that emits a signal
that guides a helicopter-borne special forces unit or air-launched bombs, or a
combination of both, to the target. This has become the Colombian militarys
modus operandi against HVTs.
Although this technique has worked brilliantly, its adoption required an
intellectual and psychological adjustment for both Colombian and US
intelligence. In 1999, the CIA thought that the FARC would be impossible to
inltrate, remembered a retired USMILGRP colonel.
45
An absence of
enthusiasm for Humint, in part a legacy of laissez-faire human rights standards
under the ancien regime of the Brigada 20, caused people to emphasize
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technical intelligence. Humint atrophied until 2005. Now we have a better
balance. Humint gives the lead to direct the other platforms. You build
from the Humint to the technical.
46
Human intelligence also requires time,
cash, and psychological and analytical skills to acquire and evaluate.
Technical intelligence is easier to do.
47
Inltrados are usually carefully selected NCOs inserted as a miliciano into the
FARCs urban social/logistical networks. Theres no point in sending him
directly into the organization as a basic guerrilla. They are isolated and dont
know much. If he proves useful in propaganda or logistics (in an urban network),
the FARC will incorporate him at a higher level.
48
In fact, as an organization that
recruits its ghters among barely educated peasant youths and the bottom feeders
of the drug trade, FARC units are short on technical skills. Therefore, the
guerrillas come to rely on an inltrated NCO with logistical or technical skills:
We had an operation here in Cundinamarca to inltrate a sergeant into the
logistical section of the cuadrilla of a famous guerrilla who had done much
damage, recounted Colonel Castillo. The sergeant gradually won the leaders
condence buying food and munitions. We even arrested him and put him in jail,
so when he got out he had even more credibility. So the sergeant set up a meeting
supposedly to deliver grenades and we killed (the leader). Weve had many
successes inltrating the FARC and the ELN. We inltrated someone in the M-19
(in the 1980s) who allowed us to wrap up a network in the Valle de Cauca. But
its a process that lasts years, maybe two or three before you get a result. And its
cost us lives.
49
A captured FARC document from the Ninth Conference noted
that, when the 40
th
Front sent one of their members to Bogota to purchase seven
modems, it turned out he was working for intelligence and connected the radios
and other elements that transmit through modems to a satellite.
50
A great advantage of inltrado generated intelligence is that it is high
quality, rst hand.
51
But perhaps the principal benet of inltration or
penetration is that it stokes the FARCs foundational paranoia and deep fear of
betrayal. Even a committed communist like Esteban, quickly discovered that he
had enlisted in a totalitarian organization lacking any sense of humor. A casual
joke, a grouse that the commander doesnt do anything, or a disrespectful
comment about the Secretariat marks one as a potential inltrado who must be
kept under close surveillance.
52
In this way, the FARC eliminates its own
guerrillas for the crime of inltration at a far greater rate than the army could
ever recruit, train, and inltrate its own agents.
53
For instance, between 1997 and
2001, the FARCs Columna Movil Estrategica Juan Jose Rondon executed
seven guerrillas for inltracion, reads a captured FARC document, and this is
probably an underestimate.
54
It also inuences FARC behavior toward the
population, who they punish for harboring snitches for military intelligence; for
instance, in November 2000, the Secretariat warned that the army was using
women and children to kill commanders and steal weapons,
55
a mentality that has
led to hostility, retaliation, and even massacres.
56
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The risks of inltrating an insurgency are considerable, nonetheless: I know
we lost agents in Cucuta, (on the Venezuelan border) confessed Alexander
Quintero former CIME analyst. They were reported as FARC deaths.
57
One
Colombian ofcer noted that caution is a requirement when working undercover
in coca growing areas: Everyone sets up roadblocks the police, the army, the
paramilitaries, the guerrillas. They call them lters. Each demands money to
let you through. The paras are real bastards. If you dont have money, theyll
shoot you.
58
Not only might this person be assassinated, recounted Mauricio, but also
I run the risk that he needs to extort, assassinate, kidnap to maintain his cover.
Also, when you inltrate a person, you have to invent a whole background for
him. You have to hide his papers, archives, data bases as a member of the Army.
For this reason, intelligence ofcers prefer what they call penetration, which is
basically turning someone already in the targeted group. Its easier. The person
already has his personal history.
Agent management, which includes courses on a topology of agents and
methods to recruit, supervise, and discard them, is taught in the Intelligence
School.
59
First, a handler must study his target, to gure who he is close to, and
then, You have to gure out what it takes to get a potential agent to cooperate,
insists a Naval Intelligence ofcer. Some do it for money, others out of
conviction, hatred or revenge.
60
And the intelligence ofcer or NCO must
remain alert to any indication of betrayal for example, if he appears wearing a
Rolex that he cannot possibly afford, starts drinking, quarrels with his family,
takes on a mistress or frequents prostitutes. Theres an Israeli thesis that
informers are like paper, you use them and throw them away, Mauricio explains.
I dont believe in that. You have to have a personal relationship with your agent
to generate loyalty. He cant just see you as someone who pays him money, but
the guy who helped me out when I was in a jam.
61
A captured FARC document of March 2004 credited the success of the
Armys Operacion Libertad I, launched in May 2003 to break the FARCs
stranglehold on Bogota, on an integrated counterinsurgency plan. The
intelligence components of Libertad I particularly destructive to the FARC
included the creation of networks of snitches to identify and arrest guerrilla
supporters, dressing soldiers in civilian clothes to keep watch on the population,
prohibiting civilians from wearing dark clothes or the Ecuadorian boot used by
the FARC so that trackers could better follow guerrilla bands, offering rewards
for information, ubiquitous air surveillance, and deception, whereby soldiers
pretend to leave a village but instead lay ambushes for guerrillas who move in to
take over. The FARC admitted that military pressure, especially air operations
which created great psychological impact especially on the Cundinamarca (the
home state of Bogota) guerrillas, had produced panic, surrenders and desertion,
even among the company and front commanders. To add insult to injury, the
deserters of the 42
nd
Front absconded with 90,000,000 pesos.
62
General Frasica,
whose FUDRA made its debut in this operation, remembered this period with
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great satisfaction and not a little pride: We worked to open the roads, especially
that which goes to the Llanos because that was where they were kidnapping lots
of people. We killed 42 bandits and captured around 22.
63
Nor did the news get better for the FARC the following year. In his report to
the Central General Staff of the FARC on Plan Patriota, the Colombian
military counterpart to Plan Colombia, FARC supreme leader Manuel Marulanda
confessed that the High Mountain Battalions and urban counter-guerrillas had
kept the FARC off balance by operating in hitherto state-free areas, especially in
Cundinamarca: 45 per cent of organizations and the clandestine party (PCCC)
has been destroyed due to actions by the paramilitaries, army, police and state
secret services. Elsewhere, he noted that the armys tentative tactics of the 1990s
were history. Now the Colombian military saturated FARC sanctuaries with
mutually supporting helicopter-borne patrols and light artillery backed by air
support, took up blocking positions along strategic corridors, took a census of the
inhabitants and their livestock, and launched civic action programs that brought
them closer to the population. When they discover guerrilla camps and trenches,
they set up ambushes that they maintain for days. Technical intelligence, better
combat intelligence, special forces patrols deep in the jungle guerrillas
afrm that they have found soldier footprints around our advanced camps
deception operations like using helicopter feints, bombing, or machine-gunning
to mask the real objective, and operational coordination out of the JTF Omega in
Tres Esquinas (Putumayo) had constricted the FARCs ability to counter-attack.
FARC fratricide was increased by a lack of operational coordination and
indiscriminate use of mines. Perhaps because FARC losses required them to call
up urban milicianos, and because training was disrupted by operations,
Marulanda complained that security consciousness had declined, with guerrillas
failing to maintain radio security, lighting bonres, and posting too few sentries
at night, which had allowed soldiers to penetrate their camps.
64
Military pressure forced the FARCs Ninth Guerrilla Conference for the
New Colombia, for the Great Fatherland and Socialism! into the electronic age
from late 2006 to May 2007 the FARC held a virtual meeting because, unlike in
the past, a leadership conclave might attract a military assault. The nal
document signed by Marulanda claimed that the large footprint, destruction of
property, detention of civilians, and indiscipline of the soldiers had taken the edge
off the Mobile Brigades. However, small commando units, although operating
only sporadically, have caused more damage. Increased counter-intelligence
made it more difcult that in the past to inltrate Young Communists (JUCO)
and other friends among the conscripts because there are so many (ofcial)
inquiries that nally reveal the social and political origin, and deny them entry
(into the service) and subsequently follow them and put them under surveillance.
Finally, he urged guerrilla fronts to increase operational security while
acknowledging the success of Plan Patriotas strategy of concentrating
25 thousand troops on two (FARC) Fronts, with blocking positions that deny
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drugs, food or reinforcements to the guerrillas. Our margin of maneuver is
gradually reduced until they can nish us off as they wish.
65
It was almost as if Marulanda anticipated Operation Alcatraz, which
eventually nailed 37
th
Front commander Mart n Caballero on 25 October 2007.
Caballero was difcult to corner because he fought with mines, noted General
Beltran, who as a colonel led a marine brigade in the Montes de Maria, which
with three army brigades patiently tracked the guerrilla band and reduced their
territory. We had to identify and arrest the milicianos in the towns who were
buying the material to make mines. Then we used a strategy of la masa dispersa
to occupy the farms so he couldnt eat. Caballeros diary testies to the
pressure placed by the Colombian military intelligence on the guerrillas as their
logistical networks were identied and arrested, his obsession with inltrados
that led him to accuse and execute several of his own guerrillas, the effectiveness
of government psyops program inviting guerrillas to desert, and the fact that the
slightest skirmish brought down a swarm of helicopter gunships and bombers.
When one of his squads was captured, he noted: the enemy had general
information about the unit, how many men, arms, where they operated . . . With
the army everywhere, the farmers either left or turned collaborators and
snitches giving false information to the guerrillas that on at least one occasion
directed them into an ambush.
66
So, relentless pressure, intelligence operations that cut off the guerrillas from
weapons, logistics, and reinforcements, pushed Caballero into a corner where the
military could deliver the coup de grace. We had two inltrators (in Caballeros
camp), admitted Beltran. The inltrado has a GPS and a cell phone the FARC
can monitor radios, but not cell phones.
67
On 25 October, the agent phoned the
camps coordinates to the FAC who put a bomb right on it. The blast travelled
along the ground, severing one of Caballeros legs and killing 22 other guerrillas.
The subsequent helicopter assault captured three wounded guerrillas while three
surrendered.
68
Inltration and penetration have proven especially effective in targeting
HVTs: Now we can inltrate people with beacons, a former US ofcer who
advises police special forces called Junglas, points out. It was just such a beacon
that guided the bomb that killed Thomas Medina Caracas, alias Negro Acacio,
commander of the FARCs 16
th
Front in Guaviare, on 2 September 2007. We put
one in a book that was given to Negro Acacio which he put under his bed.
69
Most
counter-narcotics informants are workers in drug labs who identify the site for
$5,000 reward, more if we catch them cooking. They come to the embassy
because they dont trust the police. We take them with us to make sure its not an
ambush, dress them in a police uniform and a rubber gun. Many are repeats who
employ their friends and set up their own networks of informers.
70
A similar method with an identical result was used to eliminate Raul Reyes,
the FARCs foreign minister on 1 March 2008. A defector took the GPS
coordinates sitting on Reyes bed, the former US ofcer notes.
71
Unlike the
death of Caballero, however, that of Reyes raised an international storm because
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his camp was inside Ecuador. The recovery of two of Reyes computers also
provided a bonanza of information, especially on the FARCs foreign contacts.
But at the same time, it also showed Colombian intelligence how much they did
not know about the FARC.
Operacion Jaque, a brilliantly conceived, awlessly executed snatch of 15
hostages from the hands of the FARC without a shot being red, proved how far
Colombias investment in Sigint has paid off. The Central de inteligencia tecnica
del Ejercito (CITEC) devised a deception plan by substituting a false radio
operator who mimicked the voice of Andrea, the radista of Mono Jojoy, a
member of the Secretariat in charge of the hostages. The false Andrea ordered
India, the radista of Cesar (Gerardo Aguilar Ram rez), called the Jailer of the
FARC, to bring the hostages to a point near San Jose de Guaviare where a
humanitarian mission composed in fact of Colombian intelligence operatives
collected them in a helicopter on 2 July 2008.
72
The 300 meter target
No intelligence organization is defect free, and, despite important successes, that
of Colombia is no exception. In the rst place, Colombian intelligence services
have a very difcult mission: Colombian is like an onion, says current
USMILGP commander Colonel Mike Brown. There are lots of layers. It is
difcult to dene solutions sets when the problems are so complex.
73
Guerrillas,
drug cartels, criminal maas, porous frontiers all interconnect. Which of these
many threats should military intelligence concentrate on?
While the 1991 Constitution extended oversight and attempts to maintain
intelligence operations within legal boundaries, civilian institutions continue
to lack the capacity or the resources to exert control. We built a team
(in Villavicencio) to identify FARC milicianos, a US major reported in 2008.
We found that the FARC was getting supplies through a local grocery store.
We captured 43 tons of dry provisions. We have 150 denuncias in Villavicencio,
but the Fiscalia is too afraid to investigate. So we have to prosecute in Bogota.
74
The fact that the military operates in remote areas of the country makes
judicial oversight of operations difcult. It was difcult to catch the bandits
operating on the Pacic coast, because they had 100 hp engines, related one
Marine special forces ofcer. So we waited by the house of the guys girlfriend,
and captured two of them. In this period we applied pressure and people told us
many things. The scal was far away. So we separated the two guys and I told the
sergeant: in ve minutes, re into the air. When the shot rang out, I said:
Damn, the sergeant shot another one! The guy got scared and spilled
everything. We recovered the pistol of a policeman they had killed. When the guy
realized he had been fooled, he was really pissed off.
75
And how should intelligence organize to address the threats? Although
the intelligence structure appears rational on paper, its weaknesses start at
the top. The Junta de Inteligencia Conjunta (JIC) provides a space for the
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intelligence agencies Military, Police, and the DAS to identify a target and
then assign it to the agency best placed to handle it. In this way, the JIC serves as
more of a clearing house than an organization that integrates intelligence, looks
for patterns and trends, and ts intelligence into a strategic context.
76
Like the JIC,
the CIMEs focus on operational targets often devalues the big picture.
The CIME is divided into bubbles, usually composed of ve NCOs who focus on
an HVT, a criminal band, or a FARC front. While Colombia has more
intelligence ofcers than any service in Latin America at least, NCOs run (army)
intelligence, notes an ofcial. The ofcers are always rotating while the NCOs
stay. If you want to know how a BACRIM (criminal band) works, ask an NCO.
They run the networks, work in the analysis section, talk to people who explain
things, like nances. While these NCOs certainly have street smarts, most have
little formal education beyond a high school diploma and basic service schools.
The result is that the approach to collection and analysis is very intuitive,
information is not well synthesized or placed in context. Intelligence protocols are
weak, and information is often sent to the RIMES in the form of an imprecise
power point.
77
Colombian intelligence operatives are masters of today, a US ofcer who
works closely with them believes. A few, maybe 10 per cent, can piece together
patterns, remember what happened last May or September. But 90 per cent are
focused on today.
78
They havent perfected the scalpel, a US colonel says
about military intelligence. They dont analyze where the FARC camp might be,
near a stream, foot of a hill, wherever, and then go over the possibilities.
79
Concept plans, codied documents, CT plans are alien to them, insists another.
They get intelligence and spin up. They dont have a strategic concept.
The generals meet and decide. But they dont look at things in concept packages.
They dont have the 300 meter target. Do they need it? I dont know. But it
could contribute to small failures.
80
Confusion over the respective roles of the CIME and RIME is also a source of
tension: while the RIMES are attached to the division, they are not organic to it.
They are not considered an autonomous organization, but one whose task in
theory is to pass information to the CIME so that it can build the big picture,
verify Humint with technical intelligence, and prepare intelligence packets for
the operational commands. Because RIMES collect through agent networks,
unlike the CIME they are unable to verify Humint with technical intelligence, and
so should not prepare intelligence packets.
Until 2002, the RIMES reinforced the effort to regain territorial control, and
map out insurgent structures in their areas.
81
Since 2002, the strategic focus has
shifted to High Value Targets (HVTs), on the rationale that taking down the
leadership will create a knowledge gap and crumble the organization, be it narco,
paramilitary, or guerrilla.
82
On occasion, President Uribe has personally
intervened to focus intelligence efforts on a particular FARC leader.
83
So,
confusion ensues because division commanders expect RIMES to prepare
combat intelligence, while the CIME or the president is telling them to focus
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on HVTs. This puts the colonel in charge of a RIME in a delicate position, caught
between the demands of the CIME and those of the division commander: Either
he creates Humint heavy intelligence packets that reect the priorities of the
division commander who can certainly, if displeased, veto his promotion. Or he
can simply hand off combat intelligence to the divisions, brigades and battalions
(G2/B2/S2) and plan for his retirement.
84
Despite the creation of joint commands in the south (JTF Omega) and on the
Caribbean coast (FUCAD), inter-service cooperation is not what it should be:
Army intelligence refuses to cooperate with the FAC because they say all they
do is bomb. Basically the intelligence capabilities of each service are
duplicative, rather than complementary.
85
Inghting is perhaps too strong a
word. But they have difculty sharing Intel, insists a MILGP colonel.
Sometimes they wont share with us. We request some information only to
receive a cryptic reply. Then they share things over open sources. Their briengs
are secure but their products are not.
86
Getting inteligencia actionable to the operating units is also a problem, in part
because the military structure, some complain, is designed for conventional war,
not a counterinsurgency strategy focused on itinerant HVTs. A cumbersome
command structure, fear of inltration, inter-service rivalry, and a lack of secure
communications, means that CIME intelligence packets, slow to assemble, must
be put on CDs and own to their intended command, which can take 23 days.
87
For this reason, intelligence feels that their efforts are often squandered by an
unresponsive hierarchy: There is a disconnect between intelligence, and our
capacity to act on it, recounts a CIME ofcial. For example, we get information
that Mono Jojoy is somewhere, but the military cant act on it in time and the
opportunity is lost. So the Intel packets are wasted.
88
The melding of intelligence and special forces to target HVTs was rened and
strengthened between November 2003 and August 2006 by the then Jefe de
Estado Mayor Conjunto (Chief of the Joint Staff), former commander of the
Brigada 20, and current general commander of the armed forces, Freddy Padilla
de Leon. Padilla built special forces units composed exclusively of professional
soldiers with the capability to react quickly to intelligence tips in both rural and
urban environments. HVT intelligence packets created by the CIME, with inputs
from the US Embassy or eld ofcers, are funneled directly to Joint Operations
Intelligence Center (JOIC), which forwards them to Colombian Joint Special
Operations Command (CCOPE). CCOPE, commanded by a colonel, has a variety
of special forces units that can move quickly on intelligence.
89
Counter-intelligence, never a Colombian strong suit, also has structural
problems. Although the 1998 creation of the Central de Contrainteligencia
(CECIM) gives counter-intelligence a status that it previously lacked, its
effectiveness is limited. For starters, the CECIM is under the command of a
colonel, who lacks the authority, longevity, and most probably the resources,
90
to
launch an investigation of a senior headquarters, or keep track on security leaks at
a lower level: There are leaks. Soldiers give information to the FARC, recounts
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one US ofcer who works closely with Colombian Special Forces. Their system
for tracking it down is hit or miss. I dont know the scope of the problem, but we
have found corruption that is, giving information to the FARC up to the O5
(lieutenant-colonel) level.
91
When we did Plan Patriota in Meta, we found CDs
fromthe Comando general, noted one Colombian intelligence ofcial. I suppose
a colonel gave them away.
92
Leaks jeopardize USColombian cooperation:
US ofcials ask if we can share information with Colombians, a senior US
intelligence ofcial complained in 2007. The most sensitive information is being
discovered JTF Omega operations, Presidential briefs. It is possible that they
are inltrated. But their information systems are their Achilles heel.
93
The authors were told one story about a colonel who learned that he was to be
assigned to an intelligence job in Cali when someone from one of the drug cartels
phoned to offer him money. Navy counter-intelligence failed to detect three
Marines who collaborated with FARC Front 29 to attack a Marine base in Narino
in March 2005, killing 16 and wounding 25.
94
The great fear of leaks impacts operational efciency. The Escuela de
Lanceros wouldnt give out the operation plan until everyone was on the trucks,
remembered a US graduate of the Colombian Ranger School.
95
We get good
Intel, especially on the west coast, a USMC advisor noted. The Colombians
have pretty good plans. But when we jump into the boats, they dont work.
Commanders are afraid to give out plans because units are penetrated. So small
things are not done for security reasons, like failure to prepare ltered water, or to
ll the gas tanks. Counter-intelligence operates in the units and in the boot camp
(since 2004). Special units are polygraphed. But you can turn an ofcer in a
second with $10,000. Units are scattered and hard to watch.
96
ORA (CIA) got great Intel that a big FARC guy would be moving to a small
town near Larandia in two days, recounted one NAS ofcial. They had his
itinerary. The police needed one more Blackhawk to carry out the op, which they
got from the FAC the day before. To get permission to land on the JTF South
base, they had to tell the base commander about the operation. So, the army
commander moved a company to the town the day before the guy was to show
up. So, the FARC HVT changed his plans. Was the army commander paid off?
Was it jealousy? The army refuses to talk to the police, so months of planning and
intelligence go down the drain.
97
Penetration is not the only problem: Comsec (communications security) is
terrible, complains a PATT team colonel. All soldiers talk on the cell phones
because they dont take them away before an operation. We bring along towers
on an operation for secure communications, but ofcers prefer to use their cell
phones to coordinate operations and because they are afraid that a superior ofcer
(or the President) will phone them. Weve encouraged them to text-message,
because its more secure, but they dont use code words.
98
A Colmarine major
spoke of the complications of working with the police in the Pacic port of
Buenaventura: The police monitored our cell phones and tipped off the people
we were working against. So we set themup: I phoned someone to say that we had
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information there was a blue truck with weapons at such-and-such a location. It
was a lie, but in ve minutes the police arrived. I dont like to work with the
police. You put your folks at risk.
99
Although military intelligence has made great strides, a former US ofcer
argues that police Humint is superior: The police are good at intelligence
collection because he is a policeman rst. The police culture is to show initiative,
talk to people, nd out whats going on. The army is locked down in their bases.
If they get an informer, they cant tell if hes talking BS, whereas police can look
the guy in the eye and know if hes lying. This is the strength of the police they
know the people, know the narcos, they know how business is done. An army
lieutenant has no contact with the population. He just sits in his base and waits for
the Intel package to arrive.
100
Army intelligence debrieng techniques for
demobilized guerrillas are primitive. Local knowledge is wasted also because of
frequent rotation of personnel and units, who do not adequately brief their relief.
Colonel Castillo insists that attitudes in the forces are changing and
intelligence gets more respect than it used to, an evolution for which he credits
Vice-MOD Sergio Jaramillo, who has promoted the value of intelligence in
counterinsurgency operations. A civilian intelligence ofcial believes that, while
intelligence has become the central nervous system of the army, it remains the
armys step child. The separation between intelligence and operations is almost
cultural. Intel has a bad image with the other combat arms. These ofcers are in
the units in civilian clothes. They dont salute.
101
They are given a pseudonym,
and addressed as Senor rather than by their rank. For this reason, an intelligence
ofcer is regarded as a separate cast, a spy or a guard dog, unlikely to make
many friends.
102
This prejudice is accentuated by an all too common Colombian
view that intelligence is by its very nature a sordid business. Intelligence ofcers
always have non sanctas contacts, comments a former national security advisor.
They carry the scent of sleaze. Some end up under investigation, and, as a
consequence, line ofcers often prefer to take their distance from intelligence,
with debilitating consequences for operational efciency.
103
Some believe that military intelligence is not above using dirty tricks in the
competition among service roscas (cliques) for promotion or assignments:
Fernando Ram rez (Defense Minister 19992002) passed Decree 114 (allowing
administrative dismissal) to clean up corruption in the police, a former ofcer
complained. But they use it to get rid of people they dont like. Intelligence will
set up someone, or send letters to the US embassy accusing ofcers of contacts
with narcos and get their visas cancelled. Probably 1520 percent of those
accused are innocent. You are marked for life and you cant ght it. There are no
Congressional controls. So military intelligence can do what they want.
104
Given these prejudices, the pre-1992 system of alternating between an
intelligence billet and troop command had its advantages: Intelligence is a
trampoline for promotion, the head of the Intelligence School argues, citing
some of Colombias best operational commanders Generals Padilla, Frasica,
Castellanos, and Montoya who leveraged intelligence experience to hone their
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operational skills.
105
Frasica insisted that time in intelligence made him a better
operational commander. I always liked operations, Frasica recounted of his
decision to seek out an intelligence assignment in the 1970s, and I felt that we
didnt do operations well, and that I could acquire no better preparation than
intelligence precisely to use intelligence in operations.
106
But as things now stand, remaining in intelligence beyond the rank of major is
a career-capping decision: In intelligence, no one knows what you do, insists
General Javier Beltran who jumped from intelligence back into a troop
assignment once he became a major. You carry out a good operation, and all you
get is a pat on the back.
107
Those who remain in intelligence with its limited
career horizons often nd more lucrative opportunities outside the service.
The ofcers who have the most outside opportunities are without a doubt those
in intelligence, insists Colonel Castillo, because they have a better knowledge
of security matters or others things than do most ofcers.
108
Remaining in
intelligence can also be dangerous: In general, when you are good at your job,
you receive threats, Mauricio insists. We captured the leader of the Frente
Urbano Jacobo Arenas in Medell n. This guy had planted bombs all over town.
When we took him to the brigade, he told the scal a and me: You dont know
the shit youre in now! This guy was head of an urban front, he had many
resources, was a trained terrorist. I started to get phone calls in my ofce: Watch
out, you son-of-a-bitch, because of what youve done were going to do this to
you. They had identied me, theyre good at that. I couldnt afford to change my
apartment. So, I lived in the barracks and restricted my movements.
109
It is perhaps true, as one US army intelligence ofcer admitted, that
intelligence operatives are conspiracy theorists by vocation.
110
But Colombias
long war against internal subversion, and the legacy of the National Security
Strategy may have forged an unhealthy mentality in that corps. Latin America
is sometimes called a museum of ideas, and nowhere is this more true than in
the Escuela de Inteligencia where the theories of the Nazi Carl Haushofer,
the Father of Geopolitics according to professors there, serve as a framework
to explain the inter-and intra-state dynamics of twenty-rst century Latin
America.
111
Such a viewpoint rooted in paranoia, hostility to democratic
civilian institutions, a rejection of pluralist democracy, and the assumption that
war, especially with Venezuela, is inevitable distorts the framework into which
intelligence is inserted.
112
It is also extremely isolating in the context of an internal conict where military
intelligence needs to build relationships in the community: Army intelligence
sees Colombia as a chaotic country, insists an ofcer who requested anonymity.
They create a criminal view of the population we are all bad. They use this
criminal view to attack the State. Army intelligence has group think. They are
politicized, ideological. They look for connections to the FARC everywhere,
in NGOs, left-wing political parties, trades unions. When I was in Cali, we
were working with an NGO that dealt with kidnap victims of the FARC. Army
intelligence warned us not to work with them, that anything we said would be
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reported to the FARC. But these people had suffered at the hands of the FARC as
well.
113
In this respect, military intelligence stakes out a position on the causes of
conict in Colombia and builds its strategy around it: a combination of targeted
HVT intelligence, special operations to eliminate them, and an aggressive
guerrilla demobilization program should solve Colombias delinquency
problem.
114
Unfortunately, the Colombian government has been whacking bad
guys since the 1950s, and others simply step in to take their place, and the
beat goes on. So, one may ask if Colombia can solve an endemic strategic
problem with a combination of intelligence and special operations? Or if they
merely continue to rene an operational solution to a strategic problem because
they have become rather good at it?
This hostility to civilians, even those who work in military intelligence
especially those who work in military intelligence who feel that they are regarded
as spies is a stumbling block to evolving a multi-disciplinary capability able to
deliver strategic intelligence. Colombian intelligence needs a complement of
analysts, historians, economists, political scientists drawn fromcivilian institutions.
Even though Colombia lives in a tough neighborhood, Colombian intelligence
agencies in general remain operationally focused on the internal enemy, hardly a
surprise given that this simply reects the priorities of Colombian political leaders.
But it also reveals, according on one civilian analyst, a quasi-monastic lack of
professionalism and of a system that puts intelligence in context.
115
Until this is accomplished, Colombian military intelligence will most likely
remain Masters of Today.
Notes
1. For Raul Reyes: Golpe Mortal. For Ivan R os: Traicionado por sus propios
hombres murio Ivan R os, miembro del Secretariado de las Farc; Al guerrillero
Ivan R os lo mataron sus companeros.
2. Mass Desertions from FARC as the Colombian Government Seeks to End the
Conict; Council on Hemispheric Affairs, FARC A Perilous Future; A Grim
Recent Past. Another member of the FARC Secretariat, Mono Jojoy, allegedly
killed three of his own bodyguards following the death of Ivan R os: Mono Jojoy
descubre plan de seis guerrilleros de las Farc para asesinarlo, segun desertor. The
most egregious case of self-destruction occurred in 1985when Jaime Delgado, leader
of the Ricardo Franco Front of the FARC murdered 164 of his own guerrillas whom
he accused of working for military intelligence in what was called la massacre de
Tacueyo, see Colemnares, Macabro: la justicia revolucionaria. Video fuerte.
3. El computador de Reyes; Interpol: Colombia Has Real Rebel Data; El otro PC:
El computador de Ivan R os.
4. Fuerzas militares de Colombia Ejercito Nacional, Caso Tactico El Billar,
Batallon de Contraguerrillas No. 52 (27 March 1998), Aspectos negativos.
5. The rst criticism of military analysts concerns the great ease with which the
guerrillas acted during the preparation for the attack (on Las Delicias), while the
army intelligence services in the zone detected nothing, reported the Colombian
weekly Semana: Golpes de pecho.
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6. Conservative Party leader and ex-candidate for the presidency A
lvaro Gomez
Hurtado was assassinated in Bogota in November 1995. Initial investigations
pointed the nger of guilt at Colonel Bernardo Ruiz Silva, commander of the
Vigesima Brigada, more usually called Brigada 20 (BR20). One alleged motive that
received wide speculation was that high ranking military ofcers had tried to
involve Gomez in a coup against President Ernesto Samper, whose 1994 election
with money from the Cali Cartel had caused Washington to withdraw military aide.
But Gomez refused and threatened to reveal the plot. The accusation was based on
the presence of an unmarked car subsequently traced to Brigada 20 in the parking
lot where Gomez was killed. Silva was freed on insufcient evidence, and the true
murderer has never been found. See Tellez and Sanchez, Ruidos de sables, 25663.
The murder of Gomez forced the disbandment in September 1998, at US insistence
and as a pre-condition for aide under Plan Colombia, of Brigada 20.
7. Interview 1, USMC Ofcer, Bogota, 3 February 2006.
8. Interview 2, Embassy intelligence ofcer, Bogota, 15 May 2008.
9. Interview 3, PATT Chief, Bogota, 12 June 2008.
10. Interview, Embassy intelligence ofcer, 15 May 2008.
11. Alexander Quintero Interview, former civilian CIME analyst. Bogota, 29 October
2008.
12. Colonel Manuel Gavilan Interview, 27 May 2008. The creation in the 1980s of
counterinsurgency units commandos operativos rich in ofcers and NCOs, to
act on intelligence, was bought at the expense of regular units whose leaderless
conscripts became operational dead weight. However, it was necessary to separate
out the best elements for special operations because the cultural level of Colombian
conscripts was so low that they could not be trained in specialized tasks like
intelligence collection and tracking. If the soldiers lacked training and discipline,
the map and compass were mysteries to many ofcers and NCOs. Mistreated radios
often failed to work, making operational coordination difcult. Commanders were
infected by a risk-adverse culture, which discouraged initiative and pursuit.
13. Interview 2, Embassy intelligence ofcer, 15 May 2008.
14. Interview, Carabineros Advisor, Bogota, 20 May 2008.
15. General Carlos Alberto Frasica interview, 1 August 2008.
16. Interview 1, USMC Ofcer, Bogota, 3 February 2006. A Colombian colonel told
the authors that in the 1990s mothers told their conscript sons to surrender if they
were attacked. He also suggested that lack of munitions meant that a Colombian
soldier might be allocated three bullets a month to practice re his weapon.
17. For instance, the camp at Patascoy Hill had known since July 1997 that a large
company of insurgents were operating in their area and had been on high security
alert since 3 December. The day before the attack, the local priest actually drove up
to their mountain top to tell them that they were to be attacked, and still they only
deployed four sentries who went to bed at 2 a.m., as they did every night, allowing
30 guerrillas to walk into the camp unchallenged at 2.10 to kill an ofcer, an NCO
and 8 soldiers, wound 4 others, take 16 prisoners, and help themselves to weapons,
munitions, and communications equipment. Fuerzas militares de Colombia Ejercito
Nacional, Caso Tactico Cerro de Patascoy, Batallon de Infanter a No. 9, Batalla
de Boyaca (Bogota: 8 January 1998). Document supplied by Colombian ofcials.
Similar inattention contributed to the defeat at Las Delicias. See Luis Alberto
Villamar n Pulido, Drama, pesadilla y . . . espectaculo (Bogota: Ediciones
Luis Alberto Villamar n Pulido, 1997), 5867. See also Fuerzas militares de
Colombia Ejercito Nacional, Las Delicias. Bat. de Infanter a 49, Juan Bautista
Solarte Obando, Caso Tactico no. 007/1996. Document supplied by govern-
ment ofcials; Jose Fernando Hoyos Estrada et al., De las Delicias al inerno.
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288 d as en el poder de las FARC, (Bogota: Intermedio, 1997). Once the attack
came, the soldiers complained that many of the weapons failed to work and they
had insufcient ammunition for those that did: Golpes de pecho.
18. Humberto Castillo interview, Bogota, 23 June 2008.
19. In late 1981, Dona Margarita declared that a sentence to the Bogota prison of Buen
Pastor was like going to paradise after 12 days of torture at the hands of the police
and the army who stripped and beat her, and forced her to watch others being
tortured. In 1984, Liliana Lopez, alias Olga Luc a Mar n, the companera
sentimental of Raul Reyes, a member of the FARC secretariat, was pulled off a bus
after she was identied together with another guerrillera at a military roadblock by
a captured guerrilla. Unlike other military prisoners, especially members of M-19,
the abuse inicted on her was limited to tying her to a pole and aggressive
questioning. She was released after three months when she agreed to sign a paper
saying that the army had treated her well, although she remained fearful that they
would kill me and blame it on the FARC, see Lara, Las mujeres de la Guerra,
569, 11921. Vera Grabe was stripped and tortured in the Cavalry School in
1979: Grabe, Razones de Vida, 94, 98102. An EPL activist, Carlos Franco, lost his
wife to torture in the Cavalry School: interview with Carlos Franco, Bogota, 23
June 2005. Others were disappeared or assassinated. See also Amnesty
International, Colombia: Human Rights and USA Military aird to Colombia III;
Human Rights Watch, World Report 1999: Colombia: Human Rights Develop-
ments; National Security Archive, The Truth About Triple-A; Villamar n, Condor
en el Aire, 143; Bahamon, Mi guerra en Medell n, 31, 37.
20. Colonel Manuel Gavilan Interview, 27 May 2008. The Fiscal a prosecutes while
the Procurador makes recommendations to the Supreme Court that are not limited
to the penal sphere. The Fiscal a, created in 1992, does not have the right to
investigate infractions committed by military personnel during active service:
http://www.scalia.gov.co/pag/entidad/entidad.html.
21. Mauricio interview, Bogota, 30 May 2008.
22. Gavilan interview. Colonel Gavilan commanded a Bloque de busqueda working
against the Cali Cartel in 1998.
23. Republica de Colombia, Comando General Fuerzas Militares, Plan de instruccion
general sobre derechos humanos, Primera edicion 1993.
24. The idea was that of the Army commander at the time, General Roca Machel.
Interview Roca Machal, Bogota, 16 June 2008.
25. General Carlos Alberto Frasica interview, Bogota, 1 August 2008.
26. The Escuela de inteligenc a went from two to six student throughputs a year in the
1990s, whose students studied economic and political as well as military analysis.
Many operational units ofoaded underperforming lieutenants and captains on the
new arm. In the early years, also, freshly minted second lieutenants from
the Escuela Militar were allowed to select military intelligence. This meant that the
intelligence ofcer was too young or inexperienced in operational matters to make
his opinions respected. To ll vacancies, ofcers were brought out of retirement.
Many left or resigned after spending a few weeks in a God-forsaken garrison deep
in the jungles of Putumayo or on the Pacic coast. Colonel Fredy Torres Interview,
12 August 2008.
27. Frasica interview. New recruits, among whom former artillery ofcers seemed
disproportionately represented, were given a crash course in basic intelligence,
psyops, image interpretation, and technical intelligence. Mauricio rememberedthat
his Intelligence School course included Human Rights training; combat intelligence;
how an S-2 operates; establishing the enemy order of battle and knowledge of the
battleeld; clandestine operations; and interrogation, surveillance, and tracking.
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Mauricio insists that army intelligence looks to recruit people with good academic
background, who like to read, and who are stable personalities. These classes were
reinforced with ideology, remembered Mauricio. It was called la guerra pol tica,
the idea that the soldiers must save the country from the Red Peril. Mauricio
interview, Bogota, 9 February 2008. Colonel Humberto Castillo credited US help
with tightening up the selection criterion.
28. Castillo interview.
29. Alexander Quintero, Bogota, 29 October 2008. See also: Del Batallon Charry
Solano a la Brigada 20. Una continuidad paramilitar.
30. Presidencia de la Republica/Ministerio de Defensa nacional, Pol tica de defensa y
seguridad democratica, 35, 401.
31. Interview 2, USMC Ofcer, 15 May 2008; also the former retired MILGP colonel
illustrates with the example of the Colombian Navy that sometimes works only with
Inmint. We wanted to run a counter-drug operation near Tumaco (on the Pacic
coast). Navy Intel came in with a list of 30 targets based on air surveillance. We
only took ve, because the drug labs couldnt possibly be in the places they said
they were mainly near towns. They create target folders but have no ground
awareness. The police have informers who know where the camps and labs are, then
the military executes a yover. Former MILGP Commander interview.
32. Interview 4, US Ofcer, Bogota, 19 February 2008.
33. Before 2002, the RIMES were expected to focus on area intelligence. However,
they now also focus on HVTs within their divisions. The Navy has a similar
structure with the Jefatura de inteligencia naval (JINA), under which there is a
Direccion de inteligencia interna (DINTI), Direcion de contrainteligencia
(DICOI), Direcion de inteligencia maritime y externa (DIMEX), and a Naval
Intelligence School. SUDIT does Sigint, and SUIGE (geospatial). The Navy also
has N2s for the Caribbean and the Pacic, and Regionales de Inteligencia Naval,
one for the Caribbean (RINCA) and the other for the Pacic (RINPA).
34. Intelligence summary of FARC activity, no date (probably 2001). Document
supplied by Colombian authorities.
35. Interview, Juan Carlos Pinzon, Bogota, 15 August 2008.
36. It may also be that BITEC did not have monitoring stations in the area as one in San
Juanito (Meta) and Tres Esquinas (Caqueta) were created in 1998. La historia de la
inteligencia tecnica del Ejercito Colombiano, unpublished document (Bogota:
Central de Inteligencia tecnina, no date), 14, 16. Furnished courtesy Colombian
authorities.
37. La historia de la inteligencia tecnica del Ejercito Colombiano, 5; Resena Historica
UIS, documents provided courtesy Colombian authorities.
38. CITEC: Caso Tactico No. 008/2000, p. 5, Document furnished by Colombian
authorities.
39. US help allowed Colombian intelligence to intercept satellite calls among FARC
leaders who used Venezuelan and Brazilian telecom, to track weapons and supplies
smuggled in from Venezuela. This when combined with inltration allowed the
Colmil to execute Operation Gato Negro, the April 2001 operation that captured
Brazilian drug lord Luis Fernando da Costa, alias Fernandinho, who fenced
cocaine collected by the FARCs 16
th
Front. In this operation, captured documents
rmly linked FARC to the drug trade, with allowed extraditions of select captured
FARC leaders to the United States. Interview with General Jorge Enrique Mora,
Bogota, 21 February 2008.
40. Between 1996 and 1998, no budget existed for counter-intelligence, so it had
virtually ceased to function. Only in 2000 were CI sections established on the unit
level, and by 2003 La Regional de Seguridad Militar (RESEM), complemented
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by three Regionales de Contrainteligencia (REC) in 2006. Nine Compan as de
busqueda (Search Companies) went after targets and objectives. Historia de la
contrainteligencia del Ejercito, 2008, 35 plus annex. DINTE document supplied
to the authors by Colombian ofcials.
42. Henry Florez, Bogota, 22 May 2008.
43. Pinzon interview.
44. Naval Intelligence ofcer, RINCA Cartagena, 20 November 2008.
45. Interview with retired MILGP Colonel, Bogota, 14 May 2008.
46. Interview 2, Embassy intelligence ofcer. 15 May 2008.
47. Alexander Quintero interview.
48. Mauricio interview.
50. Manuel Marulanda Velez, Noventa Conferencia Nacional Guerrillera Por La
Nueva Colombia, La Patria Grande y el Socialismo! Document supplied by
Colombian authorities. Some FARC fronts have logistics chiefs who are cops,
a US ofcer insists: Interview 4, US Ofcer, Bogota, 20 May 2008.
52. Armando and Sarrias, Los parias de la guerra. Analisis del proceso de
desmovilizacion individual, 188. Fernando Araujo, former Minister of Develop-
ment under President Andres Pastrana, who was subsequently kidnapped and spent
seven years with the FARC in the Montes de Maria, noted that a failed operation set
the FARC in search of who had tipped off the military. In one case he witnessed
the execution of an urbana named Diotima who was accused of having microchips
embedded into her body by military intelligence which guided them to the FARC
camp: Araujo, El trapecista, 375.
53. Guerrilla leader Mono Jojoy allegedly killed six of his own bodyguards whom he
suspected of being inltrados: Mono Jojoy descubre plan de seis guerrilleros de
las Farc para asesinarlo, segun desertor.
54. Untitled, undated intelligence summary (probably late 2001) provided by
Colombian authorities. Araujo speculates that many guerrillas are executed on
any pretext in one case for sleeping with the commanders woman and simply
listed as combat losses. El trapecista, 9293. This might be because the
commander does not want to go through the formality of a trial when the verdict
delivered by a jury of 25 guerrillas may go against him, or that a death sentence may
be rejected by higher authority.
55. Untitled, undated intelligence summary (probably late 2001).
56. In February 2009, FARC guerrillas reportedly massacred 27 indigenous Awa in
southern Narino, including women and children as young as three, bringing the total
number of murdered Native people to 50 since autumn 2008: http://poorbuthappy.
com/colombia/post/farc-massacre-of-indigenous-in-columbia-more-deaths-and-
displacement/. For a more complete list of FARC crimes between 2003 and 2007,
see 557 Reasons why the FARC is on the International Lists of Terrorist Groups,
http://www.colombiaemb.org/docs/557%20Reasons%20Why%20the%20FARC%
20is%20on%20the%20International%20Lists%20of%20Terrorist%20Groups.pdf.
57. Alexander Quintero interview, 29 October 2008. Agents also have simply been left
hanging when their handlers are transferred and the relief failed to maintain contact.
Interview Escuela de inteligencia y contrainteligencia GB. Ricardo Charry Solano
(ESICI), 8 October 2008
58. Interview with Major Jairo Salazar, Escuela de inteligencia y contrainteligencia
BG. Ricardo Charry Solano (ESICI), 5 October 2008.
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59. Informantes organizacion y manejo de redes, Escuela de inteligencia y
contrainteligencia BG. Ricardo Charry Solano (ESICI).
60. Naval Intelligence ofcer, RINCA Cartagena, 20 November 2008.
62. Other military innovations included the creation of municipal militias (soldatos
campesinos), whose purpose was not simply to maintain village security, but also to
fence off young men who might otherwise enlist in the FARC. Massive arrests of
civilians; coordinated and mutually supporting commando patrols with air support;
active psyops campaign with loud speakers in helicopters; cooperation of army,
police, GAULA (anti-kidnap special forces police) and paramilitaries with air
support; joint army-paramilitary patrols; target guerrilla logistics. The document
points out the effectiveness, and brutality, of the paramilitaries who torture, use
explosives, and steal everything from cattle and vehicles to entire farms, legalized
by forcing the peasants to sign sale documents. Losses: 42
nd
Front: 10 killed, 2
disappeared, 2 shot for desertion, and 30 deserted, leaving an active strength of 40
guerrillas; in the Policarpa Salavarrieta only 10 of 61 guerrillas survived; in the 22
nd
Front, only 5 of 60 guerrillas. The FARC ordered the milicianos mobilized to
replace these losses. Informe para Balance de los Frentes Policarpa Salavarrienta
y 42 del Bloque Oriental de las FARC-EP (5 March 2004). Document supplied by
Colombian authorities.
63. Frasica interview. Semana complained that the armys alliance with the
paramilitaries had led to human rights abuses during the campaign; Meras
Coincidencias?
64. Manuel M. Velez, Informe al Estado Mayor Central de las FARC-EP para el studio
y analisis del Plan Patriota. No date (2005), Document supplied by Colombian
authorities.
65. Manuel Marulanda Velez, Novena Conferencia Nacional Guerrillera Por La
Nueva Colombia, La Patria Grande y el Socialismo! Document supplied by
Colombian authorities.
66. Diario de Mart n Caballero. This is not a diary in the strict sense, but a logbook
that contains coded radio messages sent to and received from the Secretariat
probably dictated to his radio operator, as well as notes about casualties, desertions,
executions, supplies and nances. Document consulted courtesy of the Regional
Inteligencia Naval del Caribe (RINCA) Cartagena.
67. Beltran interview, 22 June 2009.
68. Information supplied by RINCA.
69. Interview with former MILGP Commander, Bogota, 14 May 2008. There are
several methods used to bomb FARC camps. Beacons that can be disguised as
cigarette packets or canned food can send out a signal to guide a plane and/or
special forces unit toward the target. Or, FAC Fantasma gunships can lock on to a
target with an infrared device which can be seen by a pilot with night vision
goggles, or an inltrado can simply phone in the camp coordinates on this cell
phone.
70. Retired MILGP colonel, Bogota, 14 May 2008.
71. Ibid.
72. The most complete description of the operation can be found in Torres, Operacion
Jaque. La Verdadera Historia.
73. Interview with Colonel Mike Brown, Monterey, 22 February 2007.
74. Senior PATT conference, 22 February 2008, US Embassy, Bogota.
75. Interview Major Harold Calderon, Cartagena, 19 November 2008.
76. Alexander Quintero, Bogota, 31 July 2008.
77. Ibid.
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78. Henry Florez, Bogota, 22 May 2008.
79. Interview 3, PATT Chief.
80. Jairo Carrasco, CCOPE, US Embassy, Bogota, 24 June 2009.
82. The FARC has a maa culture. They dont care about people. The top guys have all
the whiskey, women, whatever they want. The subordinates move the drugs. So,
everyone stays at each level. In any case, we discovered that the FARCs
hierarchical structure doesnt have the capacity to regenerate once they lose
members. The Secretariat has kept a large space between themselves and their
subordinates. In the military, we train the XO to be the commander, and I have to
sign off that he is competent to command the ship. The Secretariat keeps
information to themselves. Negro Acacio (the guerrilla alias of Tomas Medina
Caracas, commander of the Eastern Blocs 16
th
Front, killed by the Colombian
military on 1 September 2007) kept all the arms, drugs, and the accounts to himself.
When he died, the information died with him. The seconds-in-command dont have
the capacity or knowledge to take up where leaders left off. In this way we have
been able to disrupt the 16
th
, 35
th
, and 37
th
fronts, as well as the FARC on the Pacic
coast. We also caught Martin Sombra, one of the founders of the FARC. These
people rule through intimidation. Interview with Admiral Vincente Echandia, head
of military intelligence, Bogota, 28 February 2008.
85. Henrique Gonzales, former departamento nacional de planeacion (DNP) ofcial,
interview, 13 August 2008.
86. Jairo Carrasco interview.
87. Henry Florez, 22 May 2008.
89. CCOPEturns to the Colombian Special Forces Operations Command (COESE) which
can either use a BACOA or reconnaissance unit to further study the target or an
AGLAN, similar to a Ranger army special operations team with direct action
capability. The BFEIMis the Marine equivalent that depends directly on the CCOPE.
90. The rst seven directors of the CECIM between September 1998 and December
2007 averaged 9.7 months in the job. Historia de la contrainteligencia del Ejercito,
calculated from annex.
91. Jairo Carrasco.
92. Alexander Quintero, Bogota, 29 October 2008.
93. Interview 5, US Embassy Ofcial, Bogota, 20 August 2007.
94. Historia de una traicion.
95. Interview 6, US Ofcer.
96. Interview 1, USMC Ofcer.
97. Interview 4, NAS ofcial, Bogota, 20 May 2008.
98. Interview 6, US Ofcer.
99. Major Elias Patino, Cartagena, 18 November 2008.
100. Former MILGP Commander Interview, US Embassy, Bogota, 14 May 2008.
102. Frasica interview.
103. Interview with Armando Borrero, National Security Advisor to President Ernesto
Samper, 14 August 2008.
104. The Colombian military, especially the smaller services, are very patriarchal. So,
when a senior ofcer falls from favor, his network of proteges may also fear for
their careers. One particularly controversial case in 2007 was that of Admiral
Gabriel Arango Bacci, arrested and expelled from the service for allegedly
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facilitating shipments of narcotics on the Caribbean coast after receipts of money
paid to him were discovered: Semana (2 November 2007). Some saw this as part of
the competition between Opus Dei and the Freemasons for inuence in the Navy.
105. Interview Lt. Col. Fernando Gomez, Bogota, 5 October 2008.
106. Frasica interview.
107. But his knowledge of intelligence capabilities literally saved his life, when CIA
communications monitoring that he requested revealed that a paramilitary group
had inltrated a Marine in his company and imported two sicarios from Medell n to
assassinate him. Interview with General Javier Beltran, Bogota 25 June 2009.
110. Interview with Major Jairo Carrasco, CCOPE, US Embassy, Bogota, 24 June 2009.
111. Haushofer, a friend of Rudolf Hess, argued that states go through four phases of
development, the last being a war for territorial expansion. This was used as the
theoretical justication for Hitlers Lebensraum. These views were popular in
Francos Spain and promoted by the Argentine Junta and General Pinochet in the
1970s. In Colombia, Haushofers prediction of the inevitability of conict is used to
berate feckless civilian governments for not defending Colombian territory against
its neighbors, especially Venezuela and Brazil, who have consolidated and
expanded at Colombian expense. This is based on presentations by three professors
from the Intelligence School, during a June 2009 seminar in Bogota. A fairly
extensive literature exists on the inuence of a zero-sum geopolitical view of
Latin American governments. See Kelly and Child, Geopolitics of the Southern
Cone and Antarctica.
112. In 1944, a group of ofcers carried out a brief coup against Liberal President
Alfonso Lopez Pumarejo. Among their complaints was that politicians had allowed
other countries to seize 800,000 kilometers of Colombian territory, that they had
squandered Colombias natural riches, were corrupt, etc. The ringleader of the
coup, Captain Jose Gregorio Quintero, expressed a deep admiration for Mussolini
and called Hitler the greatest leader since Napoleon: Quintero, El Golpe militar
contra Lopez, 17, 245, 59.
113. Senior ofcer interview.
114. The answer to the question of why insurgency appears endemic in Colombia while it
has dropped from fashion in other Latin American countries divides critics roughly
into variants of two schools: the Left attributes insurgency to social and economic
inequality, corruption, and repressive policies of an oligarchic state that quashes
political expression and leaves critics no option but rebellion. For an example of this
view, see Hristov, Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia.
Moderates respond that other states have poverty without insurgency, that the 1991
constitution was the nail in the cofn of the old two-party system and guaranteed
representation to indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. By Latin American
standards, Colombian registers more favorably on the anti-corruption transparency
index than do its Bolivarian neighbors (Transparency International, Global
Corruption Barometer Report 2009, 29). For their part, insurgents traditionally focus
on areas where there are resources, not where there is poverty.
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Al guerrillero Ivan R os lo mataron sus companeros. Semana (3 July 2008).
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Meras Coincidencias? Semana Magazine, no. 1106 (13 July 2003), http://www.semana.
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dgar, and A
lvaro Sanchez. Ruidos de sables. Bogota: Planeta, 2003.

Torres, Juan Carlos. Operacion Jaque. La Verdadera Historia. Bogota: Planeta, 2008.
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Farc, El Tiempo (8 March 2008).
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