Mexicans in the Midst of the Colombia-Ecuador Conflict

By Barnard R. Thompson

The recent confrontations in South America, which were outwardly set in motion with the March 1 extraterritorial wee hours bombardment of a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, hideout in Ecuador by the Colombian Air Force – and a follow-up ground intrusion by Colombia’s Special Forces, were reported around the world. A war of words that threatened broader hostility, yet by week’s end calmer heads seemed to prevail.

Making the transborder incursion by Colombia’s armed forces yet more international was the mustering of troops and tank battalions on the Venezuelan side of the border with Colombia by President Hugo Chávez, as he pointed the finger of blame north. A show of force and bravado by today’s Latin American poster child for “blame America first,” even though the interloper is no democrat or Democrat.

As well, the international intrigue was – is – heightened by the presence of Mexicans in the FARC refuge, and the questionable connections with and in Mexico.

The FARC is a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist organization, revolutionary guerrillas designated as terrorists by the Colombian government. In addition to insurgent and paramilitary actions, FARC guerrillas are also involved in illegal narcotics, kidnapping and other criminal activities, plus they too are extraterritorial. Founded in 1964 by the Colombian Communist Party, today the FARC is estimated to have between 6,000 and 18,000 members.

A primary target of the March 1 raid was “Raúl Reyes,” the nom de guerre of Luis Edgar Devia Silva, reportedly the number two man in FARC. Reyes was killed along with maybe 25 other guerrillas or sympathizers (to date the tallies differ), possibly including two Mexicans. On March 2, when Ecuadorian officials arrived at the scene, they found three wounded female survivors – one identified as a Mexican citizen.

Lucía Andrea (“Alicia”) Morett Alvarez [26], the wounded Mexican who is in a military hospital in Quito, Ecuador, while claiming to be a university student actually graduated in 2005, according to officials at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Spokespersons at the nearly 300,000 student UNAM also deny that she is now a graduate student.

Morett’s father and mother, in a letter sent to the media on March 3, refer to their daughter as a student and insist she is not a FARC guerrilla. “We know that our daughter has social restiveness like any university youth. She is an outstanding student at the School of Philosophy and Letters at UNAM, where she is working on her thesis; and she also works with a professor, on various Latin American research studies, who sent her to Ecuador last February to participate in an academic event and, taking advantage of the opportunity, to engage in tourism activities.”

However Colombian and Mexican media and intelligence sources paint a different picture of Morett.

Three laptop computers were found at the FARC site that apparently hold a treasure-trove of information, including a notation that among others and other things Morett was being trained in the use of explosives. In Mexico, the daily El Universal said in a follow-up that intelligence sources have identified Morett as the main contact between FARC and its supporters in Mexico, where she heads a cell of 38 pro-FARC activists working out of UNAM.

The FARC used to have a liaison office in Mexico City, that was closed in 2002, although its Mexican fellow travelers not only stayed in place but spread to a number of states as they continue their work on behalf of FARC. Morett is said to also be one of the coordinators between cells, and she is allegedly the channel to send Mexican recruits to South America FARC hiding places for indoctrination and training.

Reports are that FARC leaders are also close to radical movements in Mexico, such as the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) and the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) guerrilla (terrorist?) groups, as well as Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) revolutionaries.

What is more, according to the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security, Colombian authorities have told them that one of the computers found, that belonged to Reyes, has information regarding a February 18 shipment of drugs to a cartel in Mexico. Said information, regarding the shipment and FARC links to organized crime, is being forwarded to Mexican officials.

Sidebar to the above, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada concluded a piece saying: “... government officials will give Colombia information not only on the Sinaloa Cartel, (an) organization that the South American country has identified as a cocaine ‘client,’ but too on various groups with supposed ties to the FARC.”

And the different groups might include the EPR, the radical band claiming responsibility for last year’s pipeline bombings in Mexico – with EPR communiqués denying links with narcotrafficking. Yet if links do exist Morett and her network could be the connection, considering her ties with FARC and to the EPR.

Along with other extreme left activists, Morett participated in demonstrations to free three Cerezo Contreras brothers following their arrests and detention in 2001, a movement that grew into the Cerezo Mexico Committee. Identified as subversives and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People (FARP), an EPR splinter group, Alejandro, Antonio and Héctor Cerezo were arrested as terrorists following bombings at three Banamex bank branches in Mexico City.

Pleading innocent, the brothers and their supporters claimed persecution by the Vicente Fox government that alleged their father, Francisco Cerezo Quiroz, was an EPR leader. In 2005 Alejandro was released from prison when charges were dropped, whereas Antonio and Héctor have yet to complete their 7½ year sentences.

As an explanation for Morett’s presence in Ecuador, reportedly she headed a Mexican delegation of 55 people who participated in the Second Congress of the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana, in Quito, from February 24 to 27. A Congress where participants resolved to transform the Continental Coordination into a “Bolivarian Continental Movement, social policy in nature, in order to confront and defeat imperialist strategy and to emancipate America,” a Coordination bulletin states.

Following the Congress, officials now report that at least five of the Mexicans traveled to the FARC hideout where Morett was wounded, with two probable deaths and the other two having since disappeared. In Mexico five families are said to be looking for children or siblings who were part of the entourage that went to Ecuador.

——————————

Barnard Thompson, editor of MexiData.info, has spent 50 years in Mexico and Latin America, providing multinational clients with actionable intelligence; country and political risk reporting and analysis; and business, lobbying, and problem resolution services.