by Rod Hughes

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe announced yesterday that a thorough review of a FARC guerrilla leader’s laptop reveals no evidence of direct ties between the narco-trafficking guerrilla group and Costa Rican politicians. The laptop belonging to Raul Reyes was captured in a Colombian army incursion into a FARC camp in Ecuador in a raid that killed 20 guerrillas, including Reyes.

Last Sunday, Costa Rica’s Security Minister Fernando Berrocal resigned over an incautious statement he made that he suspected that the computer would reveal ties to certain “political sectors” in this country. Berrocal is expected to deliver a report on FARC activities to President Oscar Arias in the next few days. Prosecutor General Francisco Dall’Anese immediately demanded a list of Costa Ricans involved, only to be told that such a list did not exist, as far as Berrocal knew.

Obviously Berrocal misspoke but why the remark rated resignation is now unknown. Some political observers suspect some dissatisfaction with Berrocal in the government lurks below the surface. Certainly, it was not because of lack of enforcement. Under Berrocal and with the aid of the U.S., his police bagged record tonnages of illict narcotics being smuggled through the country and through its territorial waters.

This whole furor had its roots in a police raid that netted $480,000 in a safe opened at the Heredia home of noted university professor Francisco Gutierrez and his wife, Cruz Prado. The cash had been in the safe for years and veteran reporter John McPhaul of The Tico Times wrote that the bills were so brittle that they could not be moved by police without shattering.

Cruz Prado says she was told that the safe contained documents and did not know the true identity of the high FARC official who left it. Moreover, she maintains that she was introduced to the two FARC officials by a labor attorney. Court officials discounted prosecution since they were unable to disprove the couple’s story.

Not only is Colombia a longtime diplomatic friend of this country, FARC has been classed by the I.S. government as a “narcoterrorist” organization. Prado herself admits to being on the left politically but told The Tico Times that she has become disenchanted with FARC due to its narcotics traffic and kidnappings in Colombia.

The country’s largest newspaper, La Nacion, today editorially called upon the president and Minister of the Presidency Rodrigo Arias to level with the press about all the reasons Berrocal was dismissed. While admitting that Berrocal’s statement “was not discrete” and turned out to be incorrect, the newspaper cited successes of all the nation’s law enforcement, including Public Security under Berrocal, in combatting narcotics runners and urged that the battle go on against organized crime.

Meanwhile, the Colombian daily El Tiempo, citing intelligence sources, reported that five Costa Ricans, seven persons in the Dominican Republic as well as cells in Honduras had been identified as collaborating with FARC. The paper asserted that these Central American and Caribbean connections represent “a dangerous cocktail of traffic in arms and drugs.”