FARC UNIVERSITY RECRUITMENT EFFORTS UNDER

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 003584

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/24/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PTER PHUM CO
SUBJECT: FARC UNIVERSITY RECRUITMENT EFFORTS UNDER
INVESTIGATION

Classified By: Political Counselor John Creamer
Reasons 1.4 (b and d)


1. (C) Summary: Colombian officials are investigating
reports that the FARC is stepping up recruitment efforts at
Colombian universities. The controversy was sparked by
leftist Senator Piedad Cordoba's address to Bogota university
students on September 4, in which she urged them to rise up
against the Uribe administration in "subversion" and
"rebellion." The following week, pro-Uribe Senator Gina
Parody presented video footage and other evidence of the
FARC's efforts to recruit students in Colombian universities.
In the past, the FARC has used universities for recruitment,
propaganda and operational cover. The latest infiltration
attempts may signal a shift in strategy aimed at increasing
the FARC's urban footprint as its operations in the
countryside are further degraded. End Summary.

CORDOBA SETS OFF A FIRESTORM
--------------


2. (U) In a fiery address at Bogota's National University on
September 4, Liberal Party Senator Piedad Cordoba called on
students to foment "subversion" and "rebellion" against the
Uribe administration. Cordoba charged that Uribe was
"exactly the same" as Chile's Pinochet regime and was
responsible for "militarizing" the country. Cordoba lamented
that "the common people of this country have swallowed the
story that in Colombia the only public enemy is the FARC,"
and denied that the August 31 bombing of the Cali courthouse
was carried out by the group.

GOVERNMENT REACTS, ARRESTS CALI SUSPECTS
--------------


3. (C) Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Cordoba's
statements were unacceptable and a sign that she had become
an "official sponsor" of the FARC. He said Cordoba would
"eat her words" about the Cali bombing, and the police
arrested six suspects on September 9, including FARC
operatives Elkin Arturo Rendon (alias "Gordo," allegedly a
FARC financial coordinator) and Mariluz Garces Figueroa.
Police also seized several vehicles, explosives and
detonators. "Gordo" was reportedly involved in recruiting
students in Cali, and police confiscated FARC propaganda,
weapons and Bolivarian Movement posters from his residence.


4. (C) Colombian National Police (CNP) Commander General
Oscar Naranjo publicly referred to intelligence reports
indicating that the FARC's instructions were to be "very
active" and to place another car bomb in Cali - which he
claimed had been thwarted. Police sources indicated that
nascent urban cell members from the FARC 30th Front and the
Manuel Cepeda Vargas (FUMCV) Front were behind these attacks
-- the same FARC Fronts responsible for the bombing of Cali
police headquarters in April 2008. Cali-based Third Army
Brigade Commander General Jaime Esguerra told us on September
19 that the FUMVC is targeting students as well as engaging
in urban terrorism. He noted that the CNP recently arrested
a FARC operative at a local university who had been studying
sociology for 14 years.


5. (C) Former Bogota Mayor Luis Eduardo ("Lucho") Garzon told
us on September 12 that he feared the FARC and the far-left
would seek to capitalize on escalating regional tensions and
the bitter political battle between President Uribe and the
Supreme Court as an excuse to (again) justify armed struggle
in Colombia. Garzon pointed to Cordoba's recent fiery
discourse as an example of this type of endorsement of
violence, and cautioned that heated rhetoric could undo years
of work that had "come close to eliminating" such talk from
the Colombian left's political discourse.

FARC SEEKS NEW BLOOD ON CAMPUS
--------------


6. (U) On the heels of the Cordoba controversy, Senator Gina
Parody (U Party) presented video footage in Congress on
September 10 revealing a plan by the FARC to recruit and
mobilize Bogota students. The footage showed hooded members
of the Bolivarian Youth Movement, an alleged FARC front,

addressing several hundred university students in a courtyard
at Bogota's District University. The black-clad, hooded
speakers chanted "Bolivarian" slogans, denied they were
"terrorists," and lamented "fallen comrades" including FARC
Secretariat members Raul Reyes and Ivan Rios. Parody said
dozens of similar "alarming" videos titled "Welcome 2008
Semester" had been posted on YouTube. Carlos Ossa, the
Rector of Bogota District University, called the events on
campus harmless protests, defended the students' freedom of
expression, and cautioned that not all hooded protesters were
FARC members.


7. (C) Media reported on September 11 that the university
activity was not limited to Bogota. Pro-FARC video footage,
websites and displays had also been found at the University
del Valle in Cali, and the FARC and the Clandestine Communist
Party ("PCC") had conducted an open march at the University
of Antioquia. Forty men wearing FARC and PCC armbands sang
the FARC hymn, read a lecture and pledged allegiance to the
FARC's 36th Front. University officials confirmed the march,
and said that this type of activity had not been seen on the
campus for at least five years.

A SHIFT IN FARC TACTICS?
--------------


8. (C) Garzon told us that the FARC has stepped up its
efforts to recruit in universities and schools after a
five-year year lull. Recent FARC defeats made the group
"safer in universities than in the jungle," and likely caused
FARC leader Alfonso Cano to push for FARC recruitment and
operations in urban areas. He said the FARC has also started
a serious effort to resurrect the National Union of Secondary
Students (UNES) to facilitate recruitment in high schools.
Garzon noted that while he sent police into universities many
times when he was mayor of Bogota, he believed that current
mayor Samuel Moreno Rojas would not follow suit. Moreno
subsequently rejected the possibility of the police entering
onto campuses, and warned against inferring that all students
are "bands of criminals."


9. (U) Colombian Administrative Security Department (DAS)
director Maria del Pilar Hurtado announced on September 17
that information gleaned from Raul Reyes' computers showed
that the FARC has been trying to infiltrate schools and
universities for the past three years. She indicated the
FARC was targeting students "in the 10th and 11th grades."
Hurtado said she passed this information to the Education
ministry and to university deans, and the Prosecutor
General's Office (Fiscalia) would investigate these
allegations.


10. (C) Roman Ortiz, an analyst of the conflict, told us on
September 22 that FARC leader Alfonso Cano is behind the
effort to increase university recruiting and urban attacks.
Ortiz observed that it would "only take a few bombs" in urban
areas to show the FARC's continued relevance -- and the Cali
attack showed that the FARC is "getting smarter." A
Colombian Army intelligence report released on August 20 also
asserted that FARC militias are infiltrating urban areas
under the guise of vendors, construction workers, students,
and merchants, with an aim to conducting intelligence
gathering, kidnappings and terrorist acts.

REACTION TO FARC INFILTRATION
--------------


11. (C) Responding to recent events, CNP Bogota Commander
General Rodolfo Palomino, told us on September 22 that the
FARC is attempting to gain the sympathy of students to
bolster its urban militias, as it has done in the past. He
said that the FARC was also "surely very tempted to target
Bogota," but noted that so far they had been limited to
relatively small extortion bombings within the city.
Palomino showed us a binder summarizing recent arrests of
individuals allegedly planning to detonate bombs in Bogota,
and said that several students were among the suspects. He
asserted that the police were increasing surveillance on
university campuses in an attempt to identify those
responsible for the university infiltration. Despite the
Mayor's statements to the contrary, Palomino said that the

CNP would continue to enter university campuses to effect
arrests where there was a credible threat.
NICHOLS