November 14, 2007: Much of the war is now being fought along the
coasts, where the drug gangs ship their cocaine out. Air shipments are too
dangerous, as the air force shoots down aircraft that are not where they are
supposed to be, and refuse orders to land. These battles for the sea shipping
routes has resulted in large seizures of cocaine, along with the boats and
submarines used to ship the stuff out.
November 13, 2007: The army
revealed that it had arrested a female public relations specialist, who had
worked inside the army, but was also a spy for FARC. Corruption continues to be
a big problem, with the attitude that "everyone has their price" the
prevailing one. For some, the price is ideology, but for most, it is money, or
immunity from assassination.
November 12, 2007: The
government refuses to participate in Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's public
spectacle involving FARC offers to trade fifty prominent kidnapping victims for
imprisoned FARC leaders. Chavez is getting lots of headlines for trying to
arrange meetings between himself and senior FARC leaders. He wants to do this
by getting the FARC brass a safe-passage pledge from Colombia. But the
Colombian government says it will arrest or kill any of those FARC bosses if
they show themselves. The government is beating FARC and sees no reason to show
the rebels any concessions.
November 8, 2007: The U.S.
believes the drug gangs are getting hurt in Colombia. This accounts for the 43
percent increase in the price of cocaine in the U.S. during the first nine
months of this year, accompanied by a 15 percent decline in that cocaine's
purity. There have been a lot of large seizures, as well as attacks on cocaine
production and shipment facilities in Colombia. However, the capture of an
exceptionally large number of drug gang documents in the past year appears to
indicate that the increasing government success against FARC is hurting the
drug gangs badly.
