Scythed down in a volley of bullets, the death of the supreme leader of the Colombian FARC rebel group Alfonso Cano was hailed by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as the government’s “most resounding blow” to the nation’s most destructive guerrilla group.
And so in early November 2011, Cano, whose real name is Guillermo León Sáenz, met his end in the jungles of the department of Cauca in the southwest of the country far from the leafy confines of his upbringing in middle-class Bogota. Everything came to an end for Cano when his makeshift camp consisting of a couple of cabins near to the municipality of Suarez, was surrounded by no less than 890 members of the Colombian armed forces and razed to the ground.
Government forces recovered dozens of hard drives and USBs which will no doubt lead to further advances for the Colombian Government in their long fight against the guerrilla group.
Where does the Colombian conflict go from here now that the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has lost two leaders in relatively quick succession, the former being Manuel “Tirofijo” Marulando who passed away of a heart attack in 2008. The FARC has been knocked back with the deaths of other members of the Secretariat such as Mono Jojoy and Raul Reyes in addition to the rescue of high profile FARC hostages such as Ingrid Betancourt, but has still shown its ability to cause havoc by killing policemen and soldiers in frontier states, almost at will.
Can there be a Peace Accord?
With his trademark heavy set glasses Cano was always considered to be an academic leader of the FARC given his background as a student of Anthropology giving rise to hopes of long overdue peace negotiations. But, reports in El Tiempo (the Colombian national daily newspaper) have cited references to the pretentious nature of Alfonso Cano during peace talks in the 1990s and this apparently put paid to any possible deal brokering.
Certainly the FARC once again find themselves at a very significant political moment in their 60-odd year history. It would be remiss to completely write the guerrilla group off as a spent force and estimates put their actual numbers from anywhere between 8000 and 18,000 members. Reeling they may well be, but the leadership structure of the rebel group ensures that just as if it were a multinational enterprise, there will be a new figure in charge, possibly Iván Márquez, or Timochenko.
However, Colombians are tired, voting in the recent local elections proved this point only further with the election of a former guerrilla to the top political office in Bogota. Gustavo Petro was a former M19 combatant and is now a zero corruption candidate and the capital's Mayor. The FARC is seen as a threat, but one that is evocative of a time past when the Cuban Revolution was in full swing. It is now more of a cartel control cocaine production with political ideologies far past their sell by date.
The war is far from over and many are speculating that this could lead to renewed efforts to reach some sort of peace agreement at the negotiating table while other commentators suggest that there will be a spate of FARC related reprisals to avenge Cano’s death. Meanwhile, President Santos is presiding over a famous victory that has surely seen his approval ratings soar since so many Colombians were beginning to fear once again about security levels in their country.
Richard McColl - I am a freelance writer from deepest darkest London but for the past 10 years or so I have been maintaining my extended "writing break" in ...
