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 �00A;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