by Rod Hughes

The tentacles of the leftist Colombian guerrilla force, FARC, appears to have reached out into this country even as FARC continues to cause friction between Colombia and Ecuador. The Organization of American States this week issued a condemnation of Colombia’s incursion into their neighbor to attack a FARC encapment.

FARC has been at war to topple the Colombian government for four decades. Like many movements, what began as a grassroots force has degenerated into what a reporter in a British magazine described as more of a business, as if drug running and kidnapping can be called a business. Colombia defends its latest armed raid, as well as a previous airstrike into Ecuador that killed 20 FARC fighters including its number two commander Raul Reyes, as justified since Ecuador’s government appears unable or unwilling to prevent FARC from using Ecuador as a base and refuge.

The United States, a firm ally of Colombia in its anti-narcotics struggle, voted for the OAS condemnation only reluctantly in solidarity with its hemisphere neighbors. The foreign ministries of both Colombia and Ecuador abstained from the 14 hours of OAS diplomatic debates. Colombia’s diplomats attempted to avoid the word “reject” in the resolution but unsuccessfully.

Meanwhile, Costa Rica’s equivalent of Scotland Yard, OIJ, raided the Heredia home of Cruz Mary Prado and confiscated $480,000 of FARC funds plus a document giving Prado power of attorney to handle FARC money. The document, signed by the “foreign minister” of the guerrilla group, Rodrigo Granda Escobar, gives Prado, 52, legal permission to manage unlimited funds. In it, Granda is identified as a “Colombian businessman.”

Agents of the police intelligence agency DIS and OIJ said they found the money in a musty safe in a storage area. The power of attorney did not specify what the activities were that was to generate the funds Prado was to handle. The Bareal de Heredia lawyer who notarized the 1997 document, Rafael Salazar, told the newspaper La Nacion that he remembers neither it nor Prado or Rojas and assumes they used his services only that one occasion.

Attorney General Francisco Dall’Anese said that no criminal complaint was pending against Prado or her husband, Francisco E. Gutierrez, a former dean of the National University at Heredia. Of the computer OIJ also confiscated from the home, Gutierrez said tartly that it contained his doctural thesis.

The newspaper Al Dia this morning reported that the couple had hosted FARC commander Raul Reyes several times in the late 1990s without knowing who he was. But, added the paper, they also hosted Granda Escobar. The paper said that they knew Granda as “Rodrigo” and Reyes as “Dario” and entertained them at the behest of lawyer and unionist
alvaro Montero.

The morning after the raid, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said the computer data had revealed ties between Costa Rican politicians and FARC. “This country must know,” he said, “why there are people in political sectors who have lost their reason. From what the computer says, many things come out …some political sectors of this country have lost their sense of reality.”

But Berrocal did not reveal any details. Attorney General Dall’Anese publicly urged Berrocal to reveal names so that OIJ could investigate. “We stand ready,” the chief prosecutor said.

On the diplomatic front, Costa Rica’s “peace offensive” in the crisis involving Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela is partly founded in its opposition to FARC and the terrorism into which it has fallen and partly on its sympathy for the awkward position of Ecuador. Costa Rica has twice been in the position of harboring guerrillas on its territory while they attacked another nation.

In 1979, the Sandinistas used this country’s northern sector as a base from which to attack Nicaragua before finally ousting the dictator Anastasio Somoza. Then, a few years later, the so-called Contras used that same area as a supply base to mount military operations against the Sandinista government. But at least Costa Rica had the excuse that, being without military forces, they were powerless to stop paramilitary incursions into the adjoining nation. Ecuador has no such explanation, in fact having thousands of troops that were sent to the border immediately following the first Colombian attack. The Ecuadoran army appears unable to stop Colombian incursions, let alone prevent FARC from crossing the border.