Cano's Back in Bogotá!

A woman walks past the forensics lab. in Third Millenium
Park, where Alfonso Cano's remains are being held. Note
the police barricades. 

Alfonso Cano, the leader of the FARC guerrillas who was killed by Colombia's military a few days ago, must often have fantasized about invading Bogotá, toppling Colombia's government and installing a Marxist state.

His ideas, thankfully, never came close to reality as the military battered the FARC, culminating with last week's killing of the guerrillas' top leader.

Last week, Cano finally made it back to Bogota, the same city where he became radicalized while a student at the National University. But he didn't arrive the way he wanted to. Instead, his corpse is in the forensics laboratory in Third Milenio Park, just west of La Candelaria. Doctors who autopsied the 63-year-old Cano said he was quite healthy and could have lived another 10 to 15 years.

Anti-terrorist police on the lookout near the forensics lab.

Cano's family will now likely start a legal battle to recover his remains, as happened with the FARC's military commander Mono Jojoy, who also passed thru the forensics laboratory before being interred in Bogotá's Cementerio del Sur, where closed circuit cameras are supposedly monitoring his tomb to see who leaves flowers there. Officials say they want to prevent the tombs from becoming either guerrilla pilgrimage site and from endangering those nearby if one of the guerrilla's many enemies attacks the tomb.

Among Cano's relatives is Roberto Saenz, a leftist Bogotá City Councilman, which underlines the connections between the legal and illegal here in Colombia. Saenz the councilman is a member of the same political party as newly-elected Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro, who himself was once a leader of the M-19 guerrilla group. All of which suggests that Cano, if he'd wanted to, could have made the shift from outlaw to a participant in Colombia's democracy. That would have meant a better outcome for Cano, and hopefully for Colombia as well.

In front of the lab is 'The monument to life and
disarmament' - created out of melted-down weapons.

An acquaintance of mine who taught languages at the public National University had Cano as a student, back when his name was Guillermo Leon Saenz, recalls him as a pleasant young guy. Cano was also clearly very intelligent. Cano became radicalized at the still-very-radically-leftist university, which also produced people like guerrilla priest Camilo Torres, who in 1966 joined the smaller ELN guerrilla group and became a martyr by getting killed in his first battle. Most likely, Cano will be memorialized at the university, just as Mono Jojoy and Torres have been.

Cano joined the FARC, first as an ideologue and eventually its top commander after the group's founder, Manuel 'Sure-shot' Marulanda died of old age in 2008.

TV reporters wait outside of the forensics lab for something to report.

With Cano gone, Colombians are waiting to see whom the FARC will choose to replace him: someone interested in negotiations or a more militaristic leader, who will order the weakened guerrillas to carry out more terror attacks, which primarily hurt civilians.

Some analysts say the FARC could fragment into many smaller bands, which would likely discard their veneer of ideology and become straight-out narcotraffickers. That might actually be the most damaging outcome for Colombia, since it would make negotiations impossible and could lead to waves of senseless violence similar to Mexico, as the regional bands battle over drug trafficking routes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cano's Killing and the FARC's Future

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! A newspaper vendor displays today's headlines trumpeting Can0's death.  

The Colombian military's killing of FARC leader Alfonso Cano is the heaviest blow ever against Latin America's longest-surviving guerrilla organization.

Cano: 1948-2011

Cano is the fifth important leader the beleagured guerrillas have lost over the last few years, including the death from old age of FARC founder Manuel 'Sure-shot' Marulanda in 2008. The guerrillas have also lost thousands of fighters to defection and military attacks, been driven into more remote areas and lost refuges and support from neighboring countries. Cano's killing is certain to demoralize the guerrillas even further.

Any reasonable observer can see that the guerrillas' backs are against the wall, they're no longer a threat to the Colombian state, their political relevance is gone and all they can  possibly accomplish from Colombia's jungles and mountains is causing more suffering for Colombia's people and compel the government to take money from schools and hospitals and spend it on weapons.

But the FARC's internal decisions are another matter. Many of the group's leaders appear to be still driven by a fossilized ideology about armed struggle and class warfare. With the exception of one recent statement by Cano, the FARC have shown little interest in engaging in Colombian politics - even tho last week's election of one-time M-19 guerrilla Gustavo Petro as Bogotá's mayor showed once again that today the country's democracy system has room for the left.

But maybe not the way he intended:
'Your death contributes to a New Colombia'
says graffiti on the National University campus. 

Most likely, the immediate result of Cano's death will be a burst of FARC terrorism, as the guerrillas try to demonstrate that they are still out there, and still somehow matter. Then, there'll be an internal power struggle between the guerrillas' more militaristic elements and their more politically-inclined ones, which might possibly open the door to some sort of negotiations with the government.

On the National University campus in Bogota, a Portrait of Camilo Torres, a Catholic priest who in 1966 joined the ELN guerrillas and was killed in his first battle. Cano studied and became radicalized at the National University.

Cano's death could also fragment the FARC if regional leaders decide that millions of dollars from cocaine trafficking and extortion is much more attractive than a futile struggle for a lost cause. Military officials reported finding about $100,000 in pesos, U.S. dollars and euros in Cano's jungle camp - a nice trove for any ambitious guerrillas. The military also found lots of computers, hard drives and flash drives, which will provide a trove of intelligence about the guerrillas' internal operations, debilitating them further.

Today, Pres. Juan Manuel Santos congratulated the military for having killed Cano. Santos also predicted that the FARC's leadership would collapse "like a house of cards." He also said that Cano "could have made peace" with the government. Yet, neither Santos nor Canos showed much disposition towards dialogue. And, just a few years, ago Colombia's military killed the FARC's 'foreign minister' Raul Reyes in another bombing in Ecuador, eliminating a possibility for dialogue. Despite the FARC's many setbacks, defeating amy guerrilla force is very difficult, particularly in a mountainous country where the insurgents have a huge income from drug trafficking. For his part, Santos has earned lots of political support by killing FARC leaders, suggesting that he might see more personal benefits in fighting than talking.

Cano is remembered for the bombing of Los Nogales, a luxury club in Bogotá, and the kidnapping and killing of Cali's city councilmen. But the guerrillas' greatest victims are undoubtedly the innumerable anonymous peasants who have been robbed, driven from their homes and murdered.

If the FARC's next leader turns out to be even more intransient than Cano, Colombia could be in for more decades of senseless violence, that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

An Unseen Drama

The remote Cañon de las Hermosas, a FARC hideout.

In high, remote mountains in southeast Colombia, a drama is unfolding which could sway the future of Colombia - perhaps.

Cano with Marulanda, who died in 2008.

Colombia's military says that 1,000 soldiers have surrounded FARC leader Alfonso Cano in the Central Range of the Andes Mountains, along the border between Huila and Cauca departments. The mountains are steep and the weather often freezing cold, as this El Tiempo story grippingly reports. Army mules, used to carry supplies, have tumbled off of trails. Soldiers suffer from hypothermia. The guerrillas have also sowed the area with land mines, which have decapitated the legs of 41 soldiers. 18 soldiers have died and 49 been injured in the past year, according to El Tiempo.

At the same time, the armed forces have bombed FARC forces and managed to occupy one of Cano's camps only one day after he'd fled it, according to the paper.

The military may very well kill or capture Cano, just as they did FARC 'foreign minister' Raul Reyes in Ecuador in 2008 and FARC military commander Mono Jojoy in September 2010. During the same period, other guerrilla leaders, including FARC founder Manuel Marulanda also died.

Nevertheless, the guerrillas, altho weakened, have appointed new leaders and carried on. Certainly, their income from the cocaine economy has helped, and will continue to do so as long as drugs are prohibited.

In what probably is the government's best case scenario, Cano's death would cause the FARC to fragment into scattered, uncoordinated bands without any ideology - except greed. But that is the situation in Mexico, which is no model to aspire. toward.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Terrorist Talks - and Acts

In FARC leader Alfonso Cano's new year communique, the guerrilla sounded more like a politician than a terrorist, talking about military budgets, compensation for victims and land redistribution. Sr. Cano, you're right that all those are serious problems for Colombia - however, your terrorist organization has caused many of those problems!

Talk about land redistribution, from the leader of a terrorist organization which has driven untold numbers of peasants from their homes?

How about criticism of defense spending coming from the leader of a military organization, whose violence has forced the government to deprive schools, parks and hospitals of billions of dollars to throw at weapons (as has FARC benefactor Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez's weapons buying spree.)

Or, criticism of capitalism and environmental destruction from an organization which traffics cocaine, a major cause of deforestation and pollution.

In his message, Cano both vowed to redouble the guerrillas' attacks during 2011 and to 'work for peace.'

Yet, the same day, the FARC attacked the small town of San Vicente del Cagúan in southern Colombia, leaving dead three soldiers, five guerrillas and an 11-year-old girl who was walking nearby.

So much for the FARC's peace.

Contrast that with the Basque independence group ETA's promise to cease violence.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours