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NSA, CIA role in murder of FARC leaders exposed

By staff

Washington, DC – The Washington Post, in a major Dec. 21 article entitled “Covert Action in Colombia” confirmed the role of U.S. intelligence agencies in the systematic murder of at least 24 leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as a smaller rebel group. The FARC, Latin America’s largest and oldest insurgent movement, is fighting for social justice and to free the country from foreign domination.

Observers have known for many years that covert ‘signals intelligence’ gleaned by U.S. spy agencies plays an important part in keeping Colombia’s death squad government in power.

The Post article states, “The secret assistance, which also includes substantial eavesdropping help from the National Security Agency, is funded through a multibillion-dollar black budget. It is not a part of the public $9 billion package of mostly U.S. military aid called Plan Colombia, which began in 2000.”

The article says of the targeted killings, “The covert program in Colombia provides two essential services to the nation’s battle against the FARC and a smaller insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN): Real-time intelligence that allows Colombian forces to hunt down individual FARC leaders and, beginning in 2006, one particularly effective tool with which to kill them. That weapon is a $30,000 GPS guidance kit that transforms a less-than-accurate 500-pound gravity bomb into a highly accurate smart bomb.”

The article states that the outstanding Colombia revolutionary, Raul Reyes, was targeted in these attacks.

In the face of harsh repression by U.S. government and its Colombian puppets, the FARC has continued to hold its own, forcing the Colombian government to join a new round of peace talks in Havana.

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