Colombia's Drug-Funded Rebels Are Back in Action Big-Time

[Bacchus4.0]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/colombias-drug-funded-eln-rebels-and-farc-dissidents-are-back-in-action-big-time

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The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s last active Marxist insurgency, began its “paro armado,” a “strike” enforced with guns and violence, at 6:00 a.m. last Friday. Dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have rejected that group’s 2016 peace deal with the government, also participated in the offensive.

The Colombian military claims there have been at least 117 “terrorist acts” since Friday, crippling roads and infrastructure, and leading one national news outlet to declare a “partial state collapse.”

The paro was supposed to have ended after 72 hours, but at least some guerrilla cells ignored the deadline imposed by ELN leadership. Perhaps the most devastating incident occurred late Monday night, when a car bomb went off near a military checkpoint in the southwestern Cauca region, killing seven civilians and wounding 13. Not until Wednesday could the country begin to feel that some level of calm had returned.
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The ELN appears to have been growing stronger of late, swelling its ranks with former FARC members, Venezuelans fleeing that country’s chaos, and forced recruitment in rural regions.

[COLGATE4]

1. Now who would have ever expected this outcome as

a direct result of the "Peace Treaty" blindly entered into by Santos. Colombia is rapidly sliding back into the type of guerrilla-led, narcotics-fed anarchy of past years before Alvaro Uribe became President.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. I haven't followed too closely lately so sad to hear about the increase in violence

[COLGATE4]

3. This was unfortunately very predictable. Santos (Alvaro Uribe's Minister of Defense)

decided to flip in his beliefs and tried instead for a Nobel Peace Prize by awarding unheard of concessions to the armed insurgent movements who were intimately tied to the narcos. Some took advantage of it (underline "advantage&quot while others merely pretended to be interested in disarming. Now that they have had several years under the 'Peace Plan' they have been able to regroup and rearm and are now beginning the same campaign of violence and murder their predecessors mastered in years past. Colombia seems to be heading right back to the bad old days of insecurity and violence that had the entire country hostage untl Alvaro Uribe became president. Now all the gains he made seem to be in jeopardy. Totally unnecessary.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. Thanks, and the refugee crisis from Venezuela certainly isn't helping stability I imagine

[COLGATE4]

5. No, you're absolutely right. Quite a few of the later emigres

from Venezuela to Colombia have, unfortunately turned to crime to sustain themselves. Petty thievery and prostitution have been in large part taken over by Venezuelans in Colombia. This just adds more fuel to the fire.