EDITORIAL: A triumph over terror

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The stunning rescue last week of 15 hostages taken by the Colombian Marxist organization FARC struck a powerful blow against terrorism. It is a vindication of President Alvaro Uribe's bold leadership in standing up to the FARC and its allied narcotics traffickers and it is also a vindication of the Bush administration's steadfast support for an embattled ally - including billions of dollars in economic and military assistance. Since taking office six years ago at a time when the FARC, (whose cadres are armed and financed by by Cuba's Castro dictatorship and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez) virtually surrounded Bogota, Mr. Uribe has demonstrated that democracies with the right kind of leadership can triumph over terrorists. The hostage rescue, which took years to develop, came about because the government infiltrated FARC, and its spies worked their way up the terrorist organization's ranks. It tricked the FARC into turning the 15 hostages (among them former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans) over to “guerrillas” who were really members of the security forces.

Mr. Uribe's August 7, 2002, inauguration served to illustrate the death grip that the FARC held over Colombia a short time ago, as rebel shelling killed 19 people while the new president took the oath of office. Today, however, FARC no longer controls any major Colombian towns. It is plagued by defections, and midlevel commanders live in fear of being betrayed by their subordinates in return for substantial monetary awards from the government.

In addition, the Uribe government's aggressive crackdown on money laundering has made it extremely difficult for the groups to spend the money it makes from cocaine trafficking. Many of its mid-level and senior commanders have deserted and former FARC members say the organization is running short of food and uniforms. Aside from the FARC, perhaps the biggest losers in the hostage rescue were Mr. Chavez of Venezuela and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who had been hoping to use the hostage crisis to demonstrate their own power and obtain diplomatic recognition for the FARC.

But it would be a mistake to count out the FARC: For one thing, it is believed to hold several hundred additional hostages, and for all his problems, Mr. Chavez remains awash in oil money which he can use to subvert Colombia. Germany's decades-long struggle against the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist group during the 1970s may provide some clues about the future path of Colombia's war against the FARC. On Oct. 17, 1977 in Mogadishu, Somalia, German commandos stormed a Lufthansa jet that had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in an effort to free RAF members imprisoned in West Germany. The commandos rescued all 86 hostages, killing three of the four hijackers. Within a day, three leading RAF terrorists committed suicide in prison. But the RAF, though badly weakened, continued to carry out attacks into the early 1990s - when it eventually faded into non-existence after the communists lost the Cold War.