Costa Ricans’ Ties to FARC Probed
by Rod Hughes
The discovery of a safe containing $480,000 of funds in a Heredia home, left there by officials of the murderous Colombian guerrilla group FARC, (see newsblog 1635) has not only raised a firestorm in the press but resulted in Colombian and Costa Rican police cooperating in trying to track down how far FARC has penetrated this country.
The English-language weekly The Tico Times will report on the probe in depth this Friday, including allegations that some local politicians are involved with the rebel group that has been trying to topple the Colombian government for four decades. Some clues may be found in the computer of FARC number two leader Raul Reyes, who was killed recently in the Colombian army raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador. So far Colombian officials have released no information about what data the captured computer contained.
The couple residing in the Heredia house in which the funds were found admitted that they met two top FARC officials but denied knowing their real identity. But chief of Colombia’s National Police Oscar Naranjo is not buying that story at all. Naranjo, 51, an experienced cop named to his high post 10 months ago, scoffed that “no one gives half a million dollars and power of attorney to someone… if there were not previously constituted and enduring trust built over time.”
Indeed, it stretches the imagination of an objective observer that a guerrilla group, evolved from rebellion into drug trafficking, kidnapping and terrorizing whole provinces, got that way by being ingenuously trusting. Asked by the newspaper Al Dia if Reye’s computer might reveal even more Costa Rican ties to FARC, Naranjo would not discount it. “We’re interested that Costa Rica isn’t going to become a victim, like happened in Colombia, to FARC terrorist activity.”
Naranjo, who holds probably the toughest and most dangerous law enforcement post outside of Iraq, formed a special team of investigators to work with Costa Rican officials on the FARC case. But cops from both countries may find that rumors of sinister connections between FARC and Costa Rican politicos may stem from a misreading of recent history.
Talks between FARC and high government officials were authorized by President Jose Maria Figueres (1994-98) in the vain hope of arranging peace talks between guerrillas, the U.S. and Colombian officials, perhaps aiming to join President Oscar Arias on the world stage as master peace negotiator. Former Vice Minister of the Presidency Alicia Fournier received a sub rosa visit from two guerrillas at Figueres’s urging, even though she thought the Foreign Ministry a more appropriate venue. Fournier’s post was the equivalent of depty chief of staff of the White House so, not surprisingly, the talks were held in the Presidential Office Building in Zapote.
Indeed, FARC officials did meet with then-Foreign Minister Fernando Naranjo who openly talked about it with the newspaper La Nacion on Dec. 22, 2000, noting that the talks were authorized by Figueres. As late as 2001, FARC’s own “foreign minister,” Rodrigo Granda, talked with Rogelio Ramos, minister of public security under President Miguel Angel Rodriguez (1998-2002) about possibly moving FARC’s political office from Mexico to San Jose. The Rodriguez government turned down Granda’s proposal.
Those meetings were not the only ones held here in the forlorn hope of negotiating peace for Colombia. That country’s Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos met, under the auspicies of Costa Rica’s Forign Ministry, with two FARC spokespersons, including Reyes. Nothing came of that peace try.