Plan Colombian is showing cracks as FARC hits governor

There has been a major set back in the US financed “Plan Colombian.” This week, a provincial governor was kidnapped and killed, in one of the boldest moves this year for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARK).
The US has spent more than a $billion in military aid to try and eradicate the FARK. Even with all there arms, training and the use of advisors, the FARK is making a comeback.

According to The Christian Science Monitor:
By Sibylla Brodzinsky Correspondent / December 23, 2009
Bogotá, Colombia
The kidnapping and brutal murder of a provincial governor has shocked many Colombians who had put the dark days of political kidnappings behind them, and renewed debate over whether Colombia needs to change the direction of its security policies.
Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped Luis Francisco Cuéllar, the governor of Caquetá province, late Monday night, according to Colombian officials. On Tuesday, troops who were on the trail of the kidnappers found the governor’s body and it was surrounded by explosives in a rural area of the troubled southern province……..

As the article continues, FARK is making a comeback. It is not likely that the US will finish off the FARK. The rural Colombians are fighting for their lives and no amount of money can stop them. The US has tried to pacify the country side and tried to claim the FARK is on the verge of collapse. Now we see that it is not:

……A rejuvenated FARC
But Ariel Ávila, an expert on the FARC with the Coprporación Nuevo Arco Iris think tank, says he believes the operation was not meant as a return to those old practices but rather to hold Cuéllar accountable for his alleged ties with right-wing paramilitary groups and rival drug trafficking organizations.
“They had been threatening Cuéllar for a while,” Mr. Ávila says. “They were probably going to hold a revolutionary trial and there was no chance he was going to leave there alive.”
But Ávila notes that the FARC were able to carry out such a bold operation because they have been strengthening their numbers and capacity in Caquetá, long a FARC stronghold, through heavy recruitment of new fighters. Cuéllar had recently warned the national government of this and had asked Uribe for more troops…..


…..Cracks in Uribe's hard-line approach?
But some analysts have warned that the policy is showing some cracks.
In its year-end report on the state of Colombia's four-decade-old conflict, the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris says that for the first time since Uribe took power in 2002, there are signs of an uptick in homicides, rebel attacks, and paramilitary activity. Nuevo Arco Iris researchers logged 1,429 FARC offensive actions through the end of October, a 30-percent increase from 2008. Those statistics mirror studies by other groups. A separate year-end study from the Foundation for Security and Democracy registered a 108-percent increase in FARC attacks on government troops.
Markus Schultze-Kraft, Americas director of the International Crisis Group, warns that the national debate over whether Uribe will – or should – try to run for a third term in next year’s May presidential vote has overshadowed any real discussion of how the security policies should move forward. “The current security policy needs to be reviewed and adjusted by whoever is president for the next four years,'' he says…..