NARINO--PROGRESS ON SECURITY AND ALTERNATIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 004231

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/17/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PTER PHUM CO SNAR
SUBJECT: NARINO--PROGRESS ON SECURITY AND ALTERNATIVE
DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE ECUADOR BORDER

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

SUMMARY
--------------

1. (C) The poor, coca-growing department of Narino--which
borders Ecuador along the Pacific coast--has seen significant
security gains against the FARC, ELN, and new illegal armed
groups since 2006. Governor Navarro Wolff and local security
officials told us the illegal armed groups have been pushed
from their traditional strongholds in coca growing areas to
more remote jungle areas near the coast. The New Generation
Organization (ONG),a group of 150 fighters which operated
much like the former paramilitaries, is being dismantled.
Narino's government is exploiting the security gains to
launch a pilot alternative development project (with 4.5
million in EU funding) that will impact 4,000 families.
Still, GOC presence in many areas remains spotty, and
achieving sustainable development will not be easy. End
summary.


NARINO: DRUGS, POVERTY, VIOLENCE--AND OPTIMISM
-------------- -

2. (U) The Department of Narino is the main transit corridor
from Colombia into Ecuador and one of the most important coca
growing areas in Colombia. Twenty-seven percent of Narino's
population of 1.5 million (11% indigenous and 19%
Afro-Colombian) live in extreme poverty. NAS sprayed
approximately 37,000 hectares of coca in Narino in 2007, and
the GOC--with U.S. support--maintains a base at Tumaco along
the Pacific coast for at least six months per year to carry
out coca eradication missions. Violence in the department
fell over the past five years, but murder rates remain high.
There were 364 killings in the first half of 2008, mostly
involving members of illegal armed groups.


3. (U) Governor Antonio Navarro Wolff, Pasto Mayor Eduardo
Alvarado, and local security officials told us that illegal
armed groups in the region had been weakened by security
services; the local economy is improving, and the government
is set to launch an ambitious alternative development pilot
program to eliminate coca production in two key
municipalities. Navarro, a member of the leftist Polo Party
(also an ex-leader of the M-19 rebel group, ex-senator,
ex-minister, and a former Mayor of Pasto) is widely
considered an innovator. Conservative Party Department
Assemblywoman Liliana Burbano and Alvarado told us Navarro is
a consensus building pragmatist, focused on results and
anti-corruption. They said the political opposition
supported Navarro's policies, and marveled at his energy in
searching for creative solutions to local problems.

SECURITY: THE FOUNDATION
--------------

4. (C) Narino's topography (rugged mountainous terrain in
the east, jungle and mangrove estuaries in the west along the
Pacific coast),combined with its poverty and poorly
developed infrastructure, made the department a haven for
terrorist groups and drug traffickers. Still, a beefed up
security presence has allowed the GOC to reestablish state
presence and authority in large parts of the department over
the past two years. Three major FARC Units (the 29th Front,
the Daniel Aldana Column, and the Mariscal Sucre Front)
operate in the department, along with the Comuneros del Sur
Front of the ELN. Two significant new criminal groups also
operate in Narino: the Rastrojos, and the New Generation
Organization (ONG). Officials from the OAS Mission to
Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP/OAS) told us that
the ONG, in particular, represented a major threat and most
resembled the former structures of the AUC paramilitaries due
to its military tactics and attempts to interfere in
politics.

5. (C) Navarro Wolff, Boyaca Battalion Commander Colonel
Fernando Guzman, and Narino Police Commander (CNP) Colonel
Fernando Jimenez told us that the FARC, ELN, and new groups
were on the defensive and isolated in Narino's western
coastal area--away from large population centers. Guzman
said the FARC 29th Front was down to less than 150 poorly
equipped fighters. The FARC had not staged any attacks in
urban areas of Narino in 2008. Small numbers of urban

militia previously in Pasto and the port city of Tumaco had
been called back to the mountains to replenish decimated FARC
ranks. The military deployment of a mobile brigade in the
Leiva and Rosario municipalities and an ongoing major
offensive against the FARC and ONG that started in May, 2007
continues to push those groups out of their traditional coca
growing strongholds.


6. (C) Jimenez told us the once-feared ONG was being steadily
dismantled, but completely eliminating the group would be
difficult since many members were locals with family support
in the area. Jimenez and Guzman confirmed that the ONG had
been reduced from 400-500 fighters in 2006 to less than 180
"hungry and rag-tag" fighters in 2008. Most ONG members--and
its entire leadership-- were now former members of the 29th
FARC Front who had deserted to seek drug proceeds for
themselves. Jimenez said the deployment of 150 "Carabineros"
(rural Police),the doubling of police presence in Narino
since 2006, and the opening of two new stations had led to
the capture of 80% of the ONG's leadership, with the
remaining leaders--including ONG leader John Jairo Garcia
Ordonez--on the run. Three new police stations are planned
for the coming year with up to 250 new police.


7. (C) The military and CNP successes have led the FARC and
ONG to fight each other for control over remaining, less
productive, coca fields and drug routes in the coastal
region. Guzman said that the FARC 29th Front believes it has
been infiltrated by the Colombian military, and have murdered
more than 100 men this year as a result of paranoia. Jimenez
said both FARC and ONG members had become so desperate for
income by September 2008, that some had resorted to extorting
truck drivers for as little as $2 to $5 in rural areas. The
biggest remaining security challenge is mines laid by illegal
armed groups. Guzman confirmed seven soldiers killed and 14
wounded from mines in Narino in 2008.

POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS (RELATIVELY) TRANQUIL
-------------- --

8. (U) Pasto's Uribista Mayor Eduardo Alvarado and
Conservative Party Department Assemblywoman Liliana Burbano
told us that ideological differences in Narino had been
mostly set aside to focus on security, infrastructure, and
economic development. Burbano said Navarro's efforts to
attract international assistance and investment had generated
results--with new programs in place to export broccoli and
premium coffee (to Starbucks) in the agriculturally
productive area along Narino's eastern mountain slopes--an
area previously dominated by opium poppy cultivation.


9. (C) Navarro told us that the military and CNP had received
few human rights complaints in Narino, and that
civilian-military relations were improving. Army Colonel
Guzman told us his Battalion had received U.S. military
training in human rights, and regularly consulted with
MAPP/OAS, the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC),and the UN. Guzman said The Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) training in
refugee/displacement issues had been valuable, but he noted
that many displaced in the department were newly unemployed
coca workers.

ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT: A BIG TEST
--------------

10. (U) Navarro Wolff recently launched a pilot alternative
development project in the historic coca-growing areas of
Rosario and Leiva, taking advantage of security gains. The
project will involve nearly 4,000 families, and provide them
with a continued heavy police and military presence, 33
full-time on-the ground experts in agriculture and crop
substitution (including 11 police specially trained in
agriculture),and direct access to markets in Cali through
the NGO Valle de Paz. The EU provided $4.5 million in
funding for the project. Navarro hopes to expand into
neighboring Policarpa and Cumbitara municipalities in 2010,
and has sought USAID funding for the expansion.


11. (C) Guzman and Jimenez were optimistic that development
projects in Rosario and Leiva would succeed due to their
market-oriented, self-sustaining design. They claimed locals
were tired of the insecurity of growing coca for

ever-changing groups of criminals, and eager to move to licit
crops. Families that did not voluntarily participate
(expected to be 20%) would see their coca crops manually
eradicated. Rosario and Leiva Mayors Jose Espana and Ciceron
Bolanos told us the program's short and medium-term
subsistence packages combined with expert advice,
pre-arranged market access (a component missing from other
plans),and realistic income planning for small farmers made
the plan viable in the long-term. Both said they had
received telephone threats from the FARC and ONG for helping
organize the program, but voiced confidence in GOC security
due to "overwhelming popular support" for the program in
their regions.

ECUADOR BORDER CHALLENGES
--------------

12. (C) Assemblywoman Burbano, who is from the key border
town of Ipiales, told us the most unstable parts of Narino
were the 14 municipalities along the Ecuadorian border. Out
of 63 border crossings, 27 were uncontrolled and in remote
areas with no roads. Recent Ecuadorian trade restrictions
and criminal sanctions on formerly legal imports (rice and
potatoes) and contraband (propane and gasoline) had severely
damaged the local economy. Sixty percent of the border
economy had historically depended on cross-border trade (much
of it through "informal" crossings) and at least 600 families
had been affected by Ecuador's cutoff of the propane trade
alone. Previously, eighty trucks per day had crossed into
Colombia carrying grain and other commodities; a number that
had fallen to zero.


13. (C) Jimenez said that arms trafficking and trafficking
in persons (many Chinese) had increased as former
propane/gasoline traders searched for alternatives. Burbano
and Navarro said they maintained good relations with their
counterparts in Ecuador, but that "protectionist" policies
from Quito had increased instability. There is only one road
in the remote southwest region, from Pasto to Tumaco's port,
which lies 20 to 30 miles north of border. Navarro said the
absence of infrastructure reflected a lack of state presence
that allowed the FARC and other illegal groups to operate.
He is pushing the GOC for a new road project on the border.
Guzman said that while official relations between the COLMIL
and Ecuadorian counterparts are largely shut down, there are
still unofficial communications between commanders in the
border area.
BROWNFIELD