"This year, the army took the secure center of the country, consisting of the big cities, and pushed out the internal limits of what they control, closer to Colombia's true geographic frontiers," said an American government official at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. He spoke anonymously because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record.
'Presence' is down
In an interview late last month at a police graduation ceremony in the Tolima town of El Espinal, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the FARC "has a presence" in 188 of the 1,099 counties, down from 514 a couple of years ago. "That to me was the most important of all our accomplishments," he said.
Colombian and U.S. military experts say the strategy is producing a cycle of dividends: Desertions such as Ernesto's lead to better intelligence, which leads to more battlefield success and a weaker enemy.
Locally, the climax of the strategy came last month when the Colombian army cornered and killed Ernesto's former commander, 25th Front leader Englio Gaona Ospina, alias Bertil, as he hid on a jungle cliffside a few miles north of here.
Although the members of his eight-man security detail had already given up or been captured, Bertil was defiant to the end: When soldiers demanded that he surrender, he threw a hand grenade at them.
In the end, Bertil was undone by his own men. Intelligence provided by demobilized FARC members was crucial in bringing down the rebel leader, Colombian army officials said.
"The front is done. It's dismantled. Bertil was with the FARC for 22 years. It's a big loss," Ernesto said at a safe house in the state capital, Ibague, that he shares with four other recently demobilized rebels from his unit. The slight but powerfully built former squad leader spoke with a calm demeanor and fiercely flashing eyes. "It's gone from 300 fighters when I joined to less than 50."
In Villarrica, the tide turned with the arrival in May of the additional soldiers from the Ibague-based 6th Army Brigade, including a 120-member mobile brigade unit modeled after U.S. Special Forces teams. The army launched the offensive with one objective: to wipe out the 25th Front and Bertil.
The army built a base in a pasture just north of this town's central plaza, bringing security and generating goodwill among residents long accustomed to violence.
