Colombia

US Special Forces in Colombia – Storming a Dunkin’ Donuts in Bogota

It was with great interest that I read Brandon Webb’s piece about his travel to Bogota, Colombia. Having spent time there during the heyday of the Medellin/Cali Cartel, I was really interested in how much the city has changed. Bogota is beautiful and huge. I had heard from other SF guys who were there recently or had families there (quite a few SF guys married Colombian women) that since the peace deal with the FARC, tourism has been back and things are much better in Bogota. Yet, back then, Bogota, and Colombia were much more unsafe places. And even a donut could be dangerous…

Colombia wasn’t considered safe for American military troops assigned to either the American Embassy or the Colombian Military Headquarters (CAN). Nevertheless, Bogota, and Colombia overall, was fantastic places.

If memory serves me right, Chico, where Brandon was staying, is only about five minutes from the Zona Rosa. This is a T-shaped area of luxury shops, cafes, and upscale restaurants. The rich and famous Colombians would hang out there. If you were a single guy, that is what Special Forces guys would call “a target-rich environment.”

7th SFG presents its guidon in Colombia — U.S. Army 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Soldiers present their unit’s guidon December 7, 2016, during an award ceremony in Florencia, Colombia. A Colombian Army Counter-narcotics Brigade, known as BRCNA, honored the U.S. Special Forces unit with the unit’s “Bandera de Guerra” military medal. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Osvaldo Equite/U.S. Army)

The Rich History of US Special Operations Units in Colombia

Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs made multiple deployments to several areas in the country. They trained counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics troops and performed riverine operations. Delta Force troops did specialized training with select Colombian units. Also, they were part of the task force with DEA, CIA, and Colombians in the hunt for Pablo Escobar. Today, Colombia’s Special Forces are some of the best in the world.

During one such deployment, we had an augmented SF team assigned to the Colombian Army HQ. We were helping facilitate the creation of training packages between the American Embassy, Washington, and the Colombians. It was basically an administrative job and pain in your fourth point of contact. But the good part was that we got to live in Bogota.

Every two SF guys got an apartment, which was a nice perk from the embassy. Nevertheless, due to security concerns and threats against Americans, we had to get picked up each morning in an armored Suburban. Four heavily armed Colombians in a jeep would escort us from the front door of our apartment to the vehicle and follow us to the HQs.

Uniforms were low-key. That black windbreaker over the green dress shirt and no Class A jacket allowed, (those were left in the office). No berets or jump boots either… You get the idea. Although the distance was only five-six miles, due to the horrible traffic, it would take an hour to get there. The MILGRP had some great SF guys assigned there and they were always on top of stuff. My good buddy Wade Chapple was the American liaison officer to the Colombian Lancero School and we got to see one another on occasion.

Ambushed by Donuts in Bogota

One particular morning, there was a bad accident on the route to work. So our drivers and security guys told us that we were going to have to take a different route. No problem, just sit back, read the Miami Herald and shoot the breeze. We were in the left lane of traffic zipping along at a pretty good clip. Then, suddenly, one of the guys spotted a piece of Americana across the road… a Dunkin’ Donuts. Although today there are several Dunkin’ Donuts in Bogota, back then there was only one, which we weren’t aware of.

“Turn left quick!” we yelled at the driver motioning him to pull into DD. He cut in front of a small opening of oncoming traffic and we zipped into the parking lot. We quickly went inside and ordered two boxes of Joe and two dozen donuts for the guys in the office.

Don’t make any mistake, Colombian coffee is the bomb and we had developed an affinity for it that still exists today. In fact, some of the big Colombian coffee producers would come by the Embassy every month and you could send home cases of the stuff that would be delivered to the Embassy mail room and shipped right out to addresses in the states. I had enough stockpiled back home in NC that I had a year’s worth upon returning.

https://i0.wp.com/ccmetropolis.com.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Mesa-de-trabajo-3-copia-6.png?resize=968%2C726&ssl=1 — Dunkin’ Donuts in Bogota, Colombia. Just like home. (ccmetropolis)

Dunkin’ was a taste of home. And although they used Colombian coffee, the donuts had been sorely missed. But in our haste (or stupidity) of having the driver veer off the route, we’d neglected our security guys who were delayed in getting across the same oncoming traffic. And they were pissed.

A Very Unique Direct-Action Operation

Believing something was wrong, or just to make a point, the three heavily armed security guys, entered the restaurant with drawn weapons and demanded to know what was wrong. The people in the Dunkin’ Donuts were aghast. They sat stock still and with mouths wide open. When we told them that nothing was wrong and we just wanted to stop at DDs, the commander of the detail fumed. He told us in no uncertain terms to never f***ing do that again.

“We were ready to come in shooting,” he said, which wasn’t true — they were too well-trained for that. Yet, their entrance had a great effect on the people behind the counter who looked like we they were about to empty their bladders.

We apologized to the detail leader. One of our guys turned to the cashier and asked how much we owed… He just pushed the donuts and coffee across the counter and shook his head. “Nothing, just take it and go,” he replied.

We passed the last few minutes, before arriving at our HQs, in silence. After which point, we all burst out laughing. Our escapade ended up reaching the ears of the MILGRP commander. He commenced with chewing our asses a bit, which was pretty common. He was a Marine Corps pilot and hated SF and the SEALs for our closeness and familiarity. All being on a first-name basis, regardless of rank, nearly gave him a stroke every day.

A Compromise Is Reached

Later that afternoon, our security guys and driver offered a compromise. If we wanted, they’d drop us off at work. And every Friday, they’d go back and pick up a box of Joe and donuts for the crew… Perfect!

Our driver later told us that the cashier remembered him when he went back the next time. And he begged him to not bring the gringos back. “I thought we were all going to get shot because of them… my heart can’t take that stuff,” the cashier had told him!

Many years later I had a similar experience in Mexico City while working security for a film company. Hey, like my favorite coffee company says… “Coffee or Die.”

But that is a story for another day.

Delta Force’s Combat Diving Break

Editor’s Note: Geo’s memoir, “Brothers of the Cloth,” a true account of special mission unit soldiers, has sold out in hardcover and will soon be coming out in paperback! You can keep an eye for it here.

During my nine months in-country hunting drug cartel kingpins in Colombia, the country held its presidential elections. My three-Operator team and I were sent back to the U.S. until the elections were over, and the incumbent’s policies supported having gringos back in-country hunting its drug lords. It seemed legit, and I was ready for a break somewhere where yucca root was not the meal staple — a burger was in order!

During the couple of weeks I was back, my Squadron Sergeant Major lamented to me with words to the effect:

“Geo, we need to swap you out with someone else on that mission. You’ve just been gone waaay too long and you’re missing too much training.”

I took a moment to press-check my pulse and count backwards from 10 to assess my cognizant function.

“Training, Sergeant Major? Training? I’m operational in South America hunting drug lords. Training is the thing you do for years to get to where I’m at right now. But, go ahead and replace me. Let’s see… the only other Spanish speaker you have is Wookie, and he is already on my team along with Thor from B squadron — their only Spanish speaker.”

Now, I’m not usually that monumental in my asshole-ery, but the Smadge’s logic seemed to flip-flop like a computer logic gate out of sync with the system clock.

The elections were held. The same president won and his policy regarding the Great White Hunters carried over to his new tenure. Back to the hunt I went — the Wookie, Thor, and me.

When I pulled that mission completely out of South America and returned to my squadron, it was a cinch to fall in-step again with the pace of the brothers, albeit being 20 pounds lighter. It was easy because the squadron’s fast train had continued to speed along without me, and coming home it was just a matter of — alll aboard!

But what happens when the entire squadron is plucked from its training cycle to suddenly go operational together? Coming back, the training calendar is trashed; all the scheduled training plans — the trips away to special skills schools and the like — are all canceled and the squadron operations cell has to gin up some new activities really fast.

Such was the case when A squadron was scrambled same-day of alert to Mogadishu Somalia to shore up the efforts of our C squadron. Upon return to Bragg, we essentially had nothing planned. I mean we could gin up endless training right there on our totally self-sufficient little city of a compound in the pine woods of Bragg, but operations asked us to all come up with hip-pocket training ideas that took us away from Bragg.

“Good-Deal” Samuel Booth Foster immediately piped up with the best good deal trip just off the top of his head —”Let’s go on a scuba diving trip to Key West Florida!” That stuck fast and hard. There were seven of us in the squadron who were Combat Diver qualified from Key West, Sam and I having served there as cadre prior to Delta. We could get support from the dive school and honing our special skills was justification enough to let us go.

Being the wet blanket that I was, I lamented to Sam that it seemed like a boondoggle trip with no real merit, and perhaps just a sukoshi north of being dishonest. Good deal Sam, bad deal scram-Sam — without the slightest hesitation because hesitation was not in Sam’s composition — rationalized his thinking to me thusly:

“Geo… look at what the hell you just did this month. It’s ok to take a break once in a while. I mean… one time them, one time us — go on a combat deployment for the country, go on a scuba junket for yourself. Uncle Sam’s pockets run deep, homes… he’ll recover from this excursion.”

Finally, it all seemed to make sense to me after a quick mental inventory of the two axiomatic truths that defined Samuel Foster:

1. Sam is smarter than all living things

2. Don’t ever (EVER) endeavor to reason or trade wits with Sam.

“Just take a deep breath and relax, Geo; this will all be over soon… very very soon.”

Sam had always been hard to argue with even before Somalia. After Somalia he was impossible to counter, as I had seen him in a pristine psychopathic state, quintessentially devoid of fear while under fire. Where I had flailed incoherently for cover in a mortar attack, Sam walked calmly and deliberately to cover and concealment while wearing the exact same expression that he wore that very morning while sipping coffee in the mess tent.

A mag light shined through the “cover” I had dived behind. It was Sam’s maglight and he was shining it through my “cover” to demonstrate that I had taken cover behind a thin veil.

“You do realize this protective barrier of yours is a mosquito net, don’t you Geo? I mean, do you feel safe back there? Because if you do feel safe I’m totally fine with it — hhhhhah ha ha ha.”

I wanted to punch him in the face as hard as I could.

“Did you see the size of the hole in Matt’s head? He was dead before he hit the ground.”

Now I wanted to punch him in the face even more than just a minute ago; Matt had been a longtime friend of mine; we had both gone to dive school together.

Sam and I were both certified Dive Supervisors, meaning we had the authority to plan and execute dive operations with military divers. Sam was, in fact, a Dive Medical Technician (DMT) being that, by origin, his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was 18D, Special Forces Medical Sergeant. A Dive supervisor and DMT were all we needed to execute our dream Scuba Diving vacation…

We got a tremendous discount from a brother, Jeff B., who both Sam and I knew well from our days together as instructors at the dive school. Jeff had retired from the Army and stayed right there in Key West owning and operating a commercial charter boat for tourist excursions. All of our air tanks and dive equipment were free of charge on loan from the dive school; it was a standard respectful courtesy that the school extended to all of its alumni — fuckin’ SF!

U.S. Army Special Forces Underwater Operations academy in Key West, Florida. (U.S. Army)

By doctrine, Sam couldn’t perform both Dive Supervisor and DMT duties simultaneously, and I wasn’t a DMT, so I was the permanent supervisor for all the dive operations and Sam was the DMT. I can tell you, I didn’t like being the supervisor for this pack of clowns. Everything was a big joke because we were on vacation after all. For me, diving was still serious business and I was responsible for the safe conduct of all the dives no matter how big of a joke they were.

A couple of more spirited warriors had hit the bottle kind of hard the night before and sported a mightily nice hangover that morning. That right there was just the wrong condition to be going under compression and breathing pressed air. I wanted to bail hard on the supervisory role, but we were using military gear so I was trapped — like a rat!

“This will all be over soon, geo… very very soon.”

A typical charter vessel for rent in Key West for scuba diving excursions.

At some point en route back to shore post during the first day’s dives, one of the brothers gestured to Cuz, another brother lying on the deck. He happened to have been one of the Bacchus boys from the night before. Upon hearing the symptoms that our no-feel-good guy was experiencing I felt only compelled to reply:

“Well, shit me! I’ll be rolled in gunpowder and shot from a cannon — so, sounds like symptoms of the Bends (Decompression Sickness), and I thought I heard the distinct sizzling sound of my goose being cooked.”

I sent Good-Deal Sam over to assess Cuz for the Bends. We were going to have to get him to a Hyperbaric Treatment Chamber; luckily (LUCKILY) the dive school operated the only one from Key West to Miami. After a lengthy assessment, Sam returned to me, and he had brought along his usual cavalier smug face.

An aspect of the training at the Special Forces dive school.

“His pussy hurts but he’ll be fine. I suggest we ground him this evening and make him go beddy-by early,” was Sam’s snottily-delivered but wise and spot-on suggestion.

After the last dive, as I was exhaling in relief, Sam reported that brother Cuz was having trouble with equalizing pressure in one of his ears. In fact, the dilemma was not like the painful pressure of ears that will not clear down at depth; his ear had cleared at depth and equalized with his sinuses, but it had failed to equalize again during ascent. He had what Sam described as “reverse diver’s ear squeeze.”

It seemed comical to me at face value, but at another face value — Cuz’s facial expression — it was no triffle: Cuz was in magnificent agony. The prognosis was that Cuz was going to have to remain horizontal for a period of time until the pressure in his middle ear finally equalized with ambient pressure. That meant that there was no way he was going to be able to fly back with us the next day.

We all flew out the next day leaving one man to stay behind with Cuz. But the one man who should have stayed with him — Sam — who was qualified to treat him sure as hell wasn’t going to stay back with him, nosirree-Bob! That just wouldn’t have been a good enough deal. And as the saying went: “Good deal — Sam; bad deal — scram!”

By Almighty God and with honor,
geo sends

After Weekend Violence, Venezuela Opposition Leader Calls for “All Options”

In a move that will surprise no one, the opposition leader in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó has called on the international community to consider “all options” in ousting the regime of Nicholas Maduro.

The tension has been ramping up for a long time and it reached the boiling point over the weekend. Workers trying to cross the border in Venezuela with relief supplies were fired upon with buckshot and tear gas, with two of the trucks catching fire and burning. Two people were killed and over 300 wounded.

With the Venezuelan people in dire need of food and medicine, with millions fleeing to Colombia, the United States had airlifted tons of relief supplies with other countries to ease the suffering of the people. The plan was to conduct a “humanitarian avalanche” that would aid the people starving and further undermine Maduro’s regime.

Maduro, who has grown increasingly authoritarian refused to allow the aid to cross the border. He claims that the allowing of U.S.aid into the country is just a preliminary move to an invasion. His Vice President went on to say that the U.S. was trying to push food with carcinogens to poison the people. But for the starving people of Venezuela, they were encouraging the military to allow the aid to pass.

On Saturday morning, eight trucks carrying food and medical supplies tried to pass thru the border between Colombia and Venezuela. Three made it across before the rest were stopped, with two of the trucks being incinerated. Some of the aid, based on the Brazilian border did make it thru to Venezuela before the military closed the border.

On the Simon Bolivar Bridge that separates Venezuela and Colombia, Venezuelan people attempted to make a human chain to keep the border open and allow the aid to move into the country. They tore down the barricades and threw them into the river. The military responded by firing tear gas into the crowds to disperse them.

About 100 members of the Venezuelan military have defected, crossing across the bridge into Colombian territory. Most were lower-ranking soldiers, the most senior was a major including three men who drove their armored vehicle across the bridge. None of the defecting soldiers, however, were battalion commanders or higher in rank.

Guaidó, who proclaimed himself interim President in January after calling out the sham election of a year ago where Maduro banned most opposition leaders from running for office has been recognized by over 50 countries as the legitimate leader.

He spoke after the violence at the bridge and called for the international coalition, the Lima Group, that has supported him to consider “all options” to resolve this ongoing crisis that has paralyzed the once-thriving country.

Speaking to the media, he addressed the people and most especially the military members of Venezuela. “How many of you national guardsmen have a sick mother? How many have kids in school without food,” he said. “You don’t owe any obedience to a sadist … who celebrates the denial of humanitarian aid the country needs.”

He was to meet Monday with members of the Lima Group including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Bogota. His close ally and ambassador to the Lima Group, Julio Borges who is exiled from Venezuela after being a member of Congress ramped up the rhetoric even more.

“We are going to demand an escalation of diplomatic pressure … and the use of force against Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship,” he said.

This may be welcomed news to the more hawkish members of the Trump administration, including the President, who hinted at using force to remove Maduro as far back as 2017, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who said on Sunday’s CNN “State of the Union” that Maduro’s “days are numbered,” calling him “a sick tyrant.”

But to the Latin American members of the Lima Group, an armed incursion into Venezuela led by the Americans is the last thing they want to see. Even the much more conservative governments of Colombia and Brazil are on record as stating that they’re against a military solution.

Democrats in the U.S. wasted little time in denouncing this latest development. Chris Murphy, a Senator from Connecticut and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee blamed the violence on the Trump Administration.

“Cheering humanitarian convoys sounds like the right thing to do, but what if it’s not about the aid? What if the real agenda is laying a pretext for war?” Murphy tweeted.

Maduro may take this reluctance on the part of the coalition and the Democrats as a weakness and may dig in his heels, but many Latin American leaders now will see this as a time when they use all their diplomatic skills to maneuver Maduro out of power as peacefully as possible.

In a recent poll, over 50 percent of the people were in favor of Maduro stepping down, while more than 50 percent were against any form of military intervention to oust him, hardly the numbers the regime was looking for.

With increasing numbers of soldiers defecting, the rank and file of the Venezuelan army are either fed up or too scared to rise up against the regime. Maduro has courted the senior leadership with money, real estate, and titles. But they have to see the handwriting on the wall. All it will take is for one or two of the high ranking officers to turn and the floodgates will open.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials characterize this as only just the beginning calling this latest episode, “barely the first inning” of the crisis.

Photo: Juan Guaidó – Getty Images

“When Heroes Fly” Opens Tonight on Netflix, Actors Interview

Tonight, January 10, Netflix is releasing a new series that looks to be a guaranteed hit with American audiences. The new show called “When Heroes Fly” centers around an Israeli Special Operations unit that was fighting in Lebanon in 2006. They then reunite to rescue a woman they believed to be dead, held in Colombia.

The unit is getting ready to leave Lebanon and have an exfiltration route planned to get them back in Israel where their families and lives are ready to get back to normal. But all hell breaks loose. Moving along their exfiltration route, they come across a disabled Israeli tank that is believed to be empty and the IDF air force is preparing to blow up to keep it from falling into the hands of Hamas. But when the unit finds the tank, there are two young scared crewmen still inside.

The Special Operations team gets into a fierce firefight with Hezbollah fighters that greatly outnumber them while trying to rescue some crewmen from the disabled Israeli tank. During the fighting, their commander is killed and several men wounded. The team is torn apart over it and bitter recriminations go back and forth over their decisions on that fateful night and it gets worse after they must conduct an after-action review for the Army upon returning home.

The men go their separate ways for 11 years and each is shown dealing with the stress of their war and loss in their own way until the sister of one of the team members, who was also the lover of the officer who took charge when the commander went down is seen in Colombia by one of the men while looking at a photo in a newspaper. The catch is that she supposedly died in a car crash there nine years before. And they find out that she’s being held against her will. So the commandos reunite for a final, personal rescue mission.

The team, still bitterly resentful to one another, reunite for final mission together that takes them deep into the heart of the Colombian jungle, where they soon realize that if they are to succeed in their search to find Yaeli, the missing woman each of them must first confront the trauma of their battle in Lebanon that tore them apart so many years before.

The trailer for the series can be seen below:

SpecialOperations.com was fortunate enough to sit down for a telephonic interview with the two main stars of the series, Tomer Kapon who plays Aviv Danino, the second-in-command of the Special Ops unit and who still suffers from terrible PTSD 11-years after his horrific experiences in Lebanon. And Israeli pop singer and actress Ninette Tayeb who plays Yael ‘Yaeli’ Ashkenazi, the love interest of Aviv who everyone believed killed in Colombia in a car accident nearly a decade ago. She is the pivotal character in the series that everything centers around.

While both Kapon and Tayeb are already big stars in the Israeli entertainment industry, they are both going to be well-known to American audiences as well. Besides “When Heroes Fly”, Kapon will be seen in the soon upcoming American miniseries, “The Boys” starring Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings), Jack Quaid and Karen Fukuhara (Suicide Squad). Tayeb has moved to Los Angeles and in addition to her acting career, she is kicking off her music career in the U.S. as well. She has released her first video, which was directed by her husband.

So, when we were contacted by the film company and asked if we were interested in getting a sneak peek at the series, we jumped at the chance. The Israelis are producing some excellent quality miniseries for television. “Fauda’ which centers around another Israeli Special Operations unit that goes undercover inside Gaza also starred Kapon.

The company sent us a trailer and a teaser with the entire first three episodes. While we have no idea how the show will play out, the first few hours of the series is plenty enough to hook you right in. It was the most popular new show in Israel and won the Canneseries Award at the Cannes Film Festival last April for the Best Series.

So we asked first to the both of them why they thought it was initially so successful in Israel last year. Both believed because it was so well done had a lot to do with it and the fact that it tells such a personal story for all of the actors. And the plight of the soldiers with PTSD is something that not only touches Americans but also resonates deeply with the Israelis.

With the PTSD, I asked Kapon about the scene where his character, Aviv has returned home three years later and is in the bar he owns with his girl (Tayeb). Everything is good until he sees one of the tankers they rescued, a young soldier who was shot in the head. He has a crushing flashback that sends him into a terrible depression and his life spiraling out of control. It was among the most powerful scenes in the first three episodes.

Kapon, who was an Israeli paratrooper and fought in Lebanon, knows how that would play to fellow soldiers. “Thanks, bro, it was a great scene because we were showing how everyone can be affected by PTSD.”

Tayeb’s character, Yaeli who has to try to somehow to hold Aviv and their relationship together is ripped apart by her inability to reach and ultimately help the man she loves. “I’m glad you picked up on that,” she said. “It was very intense and you are dealing with a very hurt individual. So many soldiers and their families have to deal with this. And it shows that the wounds of war are not always visible. Many times they are hidden, and that is why the character of Yaeli was so important. Because she was the woman who can bring him and all of them back.”

She said that she told the director that her role scared the shit out of her, but she wanted to not only take it on but jump in with both feet.

Tayeb who is a very accomplished singer but suffers from panic attacks allowed her husband to bring that out of her in her newest music video. We asked if she used that to pull some of her character’s felling out of the show. “Oh, you saw that? Thanks, it was similar, but obviously a very different emotional state there, I use a different emotion I think in my music,” she added.

About the series, this will relate to everyone, she says because everyone has a heart, a soul, it is so emotional she said because war is everywhere and we all know someone that has been affected like this.

I asked them about filming in Colombia and how they enjoyed their time there. “The place was magical bro,” Kapon said. “It was beautiful, so different from Israel. I loved it there.”

Tayeb agreed that it was magical. “We shot our first scenes in the jungle and I loved it,” she said. “When we arrived there, I immediately loved the place. I picked up my guitar and took off into the jungle all by myself for a while and just played and got in tune with the entire place which is unlike anything I’ve ever been.”

We asked Kapon about his latest experience filming his upcoming American feature, “it was a blast” he said. “We were filming up in Vancouver and had a great time and I think that show is going to be a good one.”

So, we asked him, can we expect some of the same edge of your seat reaction that we saw in Fauda? He said, “This is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, while Fauda dealt a lot with the action in the unit, this deals more with the characters and how they struggle to overcome their issues and how they pull together in their search for Yaeli”

We don’t want to give too much away here, because we want everyone to just enjoy the show as it unfolds. These Israeli Special Operators all get a second chance to find the peace that has eluded them since their days in a war together over 10 years before. But to find that peace may require perhaps even more loss.

The series was created by writer and director Omri Givron, co-creator of the Israeli show “Hostages,” and based on a book by late Israeli author Amir Gutfreund.

Other cast members include: Nadav Netz is Yaeli’s brother, Dov ‘Dubi’ Ashkenazi, Michael Aloni is the very successful business Dotan ‘Himmler’ Friedman. Himmler blames Aviv for their commander’s death and the two have become bitter towards one another. And Moshe Ashkenazi is Yakir ‘Benda’ Ben-David, the one member of the team everyone loves regardless of how they feel about the others. Benda is a character every unit in every army in the world has. While he has had own problems, the sight of him always brings a smile to the face of his former teammates. And they all greet him the same way….”Fucking Benda!”

The Hebrew-language series with English subtitles is guaranteed to appeal to the fans of the action genre as well as those who prefer the thriller type cliffhangers. Having watched the first three episodes, we can’t wait for the rest of the series to make its debut starting tonight. And the series was picked up for a second season which is good news to see the story continue on.

Tune in tonight on Netflix, you’ll be glad you did.

Photos/video: Courtesy of Spiro Films

Drones May be Used in the Eradication of Cocaine Production

Colombia’s police and military units are considering the use of drones to combat a rise in cocaine production in the country. Colombian counter-narcotics police have contracted a local company to test drones for spraying herbicides on coca fields.

The remote-controlled devices will be expected to eradicate 20 acres of coca per day, while carrying approximately 2 gallons of herbicide on every flight.
Coca cultivation has doubled in Colombia since 2012, and currently exceeds 188,000 hectares, according to U.S. estimates.
Three years ago Colombia decided to ban the aerial spraying of coca crops over environmental and health concerns. But drones fly at lower altitudes than spray planes and are expected to have a smaller environmental impact.
The drones could also help Colombian police get around some of the challenges that come with eradicating coca fields in remote and often hostile areas of the country, where the fields are sometimes defended by heavily armed drug trafficking groups or seeded with land mines.
“This decision addresses some of the concerns raised by aerial spraying,” said Juan Carlos Garzon, a drug policy specialist at Colombia’s Ideas for Peace Foundation. “But drones also have their limitations.”
Colombia’s decision to stop aerial eradication of coca crops has been harshly criticized by U.S. officials who have pushed the country to reduce cocaine production.
Colombian officials have argued, however, that aerial spraying destroys legal crops near coca fields and pollutes local water sources. A World Health Organization study said that glyphosate, the chemical used in spraying campaigns, could be a carcinogen, leading Colombia to cancel aerial fumigation.
Colombia is testing other devices as it tries to crack down on cocaine production, including small, armored vehicles known as “caterpillars” that protect manual eradicators from land mines.

The DEA released a report that pegged 93 percent of the cocaine in the United States as coming from Colombia, where the production has tripled since 2013. The former guerrillas of the FARC turned to drug dealing to finance their operations and despite the peace treaty, many of them have continued to be involved in the drug trade.

To read the entire article from CBS News, click here:

Photo courtesy DEA Museum

The FARC Is Exactly Who We Thought They Were

The government of Colombia faces a big crisis in the very fragile peace accord that they signed with the rebel left-wing FARC ( Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in 2016. A former top commander of the FARC, who helped broker the peace deal has been arrested for drug trafficking and a breakaway group kidnapped and murdered three journalists from Ecuador.

When Colombia and the FARC finally agreed to a peace accord two years ago, it ended 52 years of strife where over a quarter of a million were dead and several million Colombians displaced. Internationally, the deal was praised as a landmark, where the former rebels put down their weapons and became part of the political process. As part of the deal, 10 former FARC commanders were guaranteed a spot in the country’s congress.

But many Americans were skeptical, especially those who had spent time in Colombia and had witnessed first-hand how the FARC had ceased being only a rebel political force but had become a full-blown criminal enterprise that got its money by drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder. Those fears came to light when the United States indicted Seuxis Hernandez, also better known as Jesus Santrich, by US courts and the Colombian general prosecutor with conspiracy to ship 10,000kg of cocaine – with a street value of $320 million dollars to the United States.

Santrich was born in Toluviejo in Sucre province in 1966, at the age of 16 he entered Atlantico University and joined the Communist Youth Movement. He joined FARC in 1988 and was the “Voice of the Resistance” on the rebel’s radio station. He suffers from a genetic condition that forces him to wear sunglasses all the time and it is said that he’s now nearly completely blind.

What makes this even worse is, Santrich was continuing to act in the criminal enterprise of shipping the cocaine to the U.S. after the peace accord was signed. He was one of the key brokers of the peace deal and one of the former FARC commanders sitting in their Congress.

The FARC cried foul and have accused the United States of drumming up the charges, citing the visit of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year. But the written and video evidence against Santrich, along with three other former rebels, who were also arrested is strong.

The vast majority of Colombians, unlike the world opinion, didn’t think much of the peace accord or the FARC members who ran for elections. FARC candidates received less than 50,000 votes in the last election. Most Colombians, after seeing first-hand what they were about, had no illusions about the FARC giving up their criminal ways. A Gallup poll conducted in February showed that more than 73 percent of Colombians believe the FARC will not abide by the peace accords.

Now, because of the arrest of Santrich, their worst fears are coming home to roost. President Juan Manuel Santos has vowed that if Santrich is found guilty, “his hand will not waiver” in ordering Santrich’s extradition to the United States. Because of this, as many as 1200 former guerrillas are set to become rebels again as they are refusing to demobilize according to officials in the Colombian military..

One political group that is playing a wait-and-see approach to the Santrich situation is the right wing party of Ivan Duque. His Democratic Center Party, which he is their presidential candidate, wants to roll back the peace accords.

The government of Santos now has the unenviable position of walking a very fine line with this case. They were the ones pushing for the peace accords with FARC. But they can’t appear to go soft on Santrich in trying to keep the accords going. Because most Colombians aren’t willing to buy it if it appears to be the case. And the nephew of another top FARC commander, Ivan Marquez was also arrested for drug trafficking. The Colombian Vice President spared no words on this stating that “this tends to point not towards an individual decision, but a collective decision by the FARC to continue with drug trafficking,”

Compounding matters is the sticky situation along the border with Ecuador. Three journalists, Reporter Javier Ortega, 32, photographer Paúl Rivas, 45, and their 60-year-old driver Efraín Segarra were kidnapped in the small border town of Mataje. They were investigating the spike in violence along the border and were taken by former FARC guerrillas under the command of Walter Patricio Artízala Vernaza, alias “William Quiñonez” or who is better known by his alias, Guacho.

Guacho’s group, goes by the name of the Oliver Sinisterra Front, was part of FARC until the peace accords were signed. They then split off from the rebels and opened up their own drug operation along the border.

His group kidnapped the three journalists who worked for the newspaper, El Commercio of Quito on March 26. They were kidnapped in Ecuador and then transferred to Colombia and were then murdered, however, their bodies have yet to be found. The former guerrillas announced that the three “had died” as Colombian troops approached. Guacho’s group has 70-80 members and is very active in the drug trade. The area along the border has among the highest concentration of coca plantations in the country.

“This area of limits in the sector of the Mira and Mataje rivers, between Nariño and Ecuador, is where that group that previously was part of the Daniel Aladana column of the FARC and now called Residual Armed Group Oliver Sinisterra, ” General Alberto Mejía, Commander of the Colombian Armed Forces said.

Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno put Guacho on Ecuador’s Most Wanted List with a bounty of $100,000 on his head. “We can’t allow the criminals to impose their rules,” Mr. Moreno said, adding “We’re going to fight them in the realm they have chosen and we are going to defeat them.”

President Santos vowed that Guacho will fall sooner or later. The Ecuadorian government moved an additional 550 police officers to Mataje and the Colombians on their side of the border will look to tighten the noose. President Santos vowed to send 12,000 police and military units to the lawless part of the border.

But regardless, the peace process in Colombia which took over 50 years of bloodshed to reach is in a very fragile state. And the actions of the FARC, which threaten to undermine all of it, come as no surprise to most Colombians or the Americans who have spent time there.

Photos: Wikipedia

Colombia Heads to the Polls in 1st Election Since FARC Peace Process

In the first election since the peace accords between the Colombian government and the FARC, the candidates for the Colombian presidency will be a right-wing opponent to the peace deal and a leftist former mayor of Bogota.

It was the first elections that the FARC were allowed to take part in. The election will take place in late May with the runoff in mid-June.

Polls closed on Sunday in Colombia’s highly contested parliamentary election, the first of its kind since President Juan Manuel Santos finalized a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
“We can say, with a lot of pride, that these elections are the most peaceful, the most transparent … in the recent history of the country,” said Santos after casting his vote.
Santos, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for ending a decades-long civil war, urged Colombian citizens to strengthen the country’s democracy and “get out and vote.” Santos, who signed the peace agreement with the FARC in November 2016, is stepping down as president in August after two terms.
Ivan Duque of the Democratic Center party won the right-wing primary on Sunday taking more than 3.9 million votes, with 96 percent of ballots counted. He will lead the hardline opposition to the peace deal which allowed the FARC rebels to take part in the elections, with a guarantee of five seats in the Senate and five in the lower house.
A close ally of former President Alvaro Uribe, Duque is a lawyer who wants to see the deal with the rebels renegotiated.
Former-mayor of the capital Bogota, the leftist Gustavo Petro will oppose Duque in the May presidential vote. He won 2.8 million votes in his primary on Sunday. He is in favor of the peace deal and is proposing a “social economy” for Colombia with increased taxes for the rich.
“Our results were very positive” Petro told his followers after hearing of the first results. “The presidential campaign starts today.”
The first round of the presidential election is set for May 27, with the runoff planned for June 17.

The FARC has changed their name to the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force, and thus far, engaging in the political process for them has been tough. Many FARC candidates were mobbed by angry crowds during the campaigning. Due to the kidnapping, drug trafficking and atrocities carried out by the FARC, Colombian citizens aren’t in a forgiving mood.

Early results have FARC candidates receiving 0.5 percent of the overall voting so their prospects at garnering more than their allocated 10 seats are slim.

To read the entire article from Deutsche Welle, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Colombia Calls Venezuela’s Fear of Invasion “Ridiculous”

The Colombian military scoffed at the idea that it is eyeing an invasion of its neighbor Venezuela as “ridiculous.” Colombia’s head of their military forces said on Tuesday to the border area visit.

The border between the two countries is wide open and the dire situation of the Venezuelan people is putting a strain on Colombia as thousands of Venezuelans stream across the border trying to get away from a country of the verge of collapse. But short of tightening the border areas, an invasion, Colombia says is out of the question.

Colombia’s General Alberto Jose Mejia, visiting the border town of Cucuta that has seen heavy inflows of migrants from Venezuela in recent months, dismissed the comments.
“Just thinking about that possibility is ridiculous,” Mejia told reporters. He walked down the Simon Bolivar bridge linking the two countries and greeted Venezuelan migrants.
U.S. President Donald Trump last year threatened military intervention in Venezuela, but Latin American countries have strongly opposed the idea of any such action. Venezuela’s government has seized on the threat as evidence that Washington, its ideological foe, is seeking to overthrow leftist President Nicolas Maduro.

“In Colombia, they are planning nothing less than an era of bygone times that had ended in bombings, invasions or the occupation, through blood and fire, of a peaceful country like Venezuela,” said Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, said in a statement. “We will not allow it.”

Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales called the fact that a US Navy Admiral visited Colombia over the weekend “suspicious.”

“Any imperialist military threat against our sister Venezuela, and our region will be undone by the dignity, sovereignty, and unity of our democratic countries,” Morales tweeted, never one to shy away from taking a shot at the U.S.

Morales was speaking of the visit by US Navy Admiral Kurt Tidd over the weekend in the Colombian town of Tumaco in the tense border area. Tidd, the commander of US Southern Command was there to discuss counter-narcotics initiatives with Colombian officials. This was more of a deflection effort by the Venezuelans as their country is about to collapse from within.

Last week, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos did say that Colombia is about to enact stricter control along the border area. They will deploy thousands of security personnel along the border region and limit the entry for Venezuelans. But war footing? Hardly.

To read the entire article from Reuters, click here:

Photo courtesy: US Embassy Bogota

Tillerson Praises Colombia’s Anti-Drug Efforts, “Results are What Matter”

United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is making the rounds in Latin America to drive home the point that while the drug trafficking issue is constantly being addressed, it still needs to do more.

Tillerson said the U.S. has been encouraged by the progress made by Colombia in the reduction of coca growth, but cautioned that “results are what matter,” in remarks while meeting with the country’s leaders.

“We need to see results, we need to see the trends reversing,” Tillerson said at a news conference in Bogota with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos.
Tillerson’s remarks came days after U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to curb assistance to illicit drug hotspots.
Last Friday, President Trump threatened to end aid to countries that fail to stop illegal drugs from pouring across the border, after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told him cocaine was primarily coming from Colombia and Peru, and trafficked through Mexico and Central America.
“There would be no supply of drugs if there’s no demand, and there would be no demand if there is no supply,” said Santos, indicating the demand in the U.S. is part of the problem.
“We have lost our best leaders, our best journalists, our best judges, our best policemen in this war against drugs,” said Santos, adding Colombia hoped to continue the cooperation with the U.S. to eradicate coca production.
Colombia receives large funding from the United States in the so-called Plan Colombia, which is the name of the U.S. foreign aid, military and diplomatic initiative aimed at combating Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups.

The end of the war with the leftist FARC was supposed to end the guerrillas using the drug trade to finance their operations. However, many of the former group are now using the illegal crop to survive as former insurgents are left with no means to feed themselves and the families.

To read the entire article from The Voice of America, click here:

Photo courtesy AP

Colombian Rebel Group ELN Admits to Killing Russian Hostage

Despite agreeing to a peace treaty with the government which would put an end to more than fifty years of war, the killings continue in Colombia. The second largest guerrilla organization, the ELN guerrilla group, said a Russian-Armenian citizen it held hostage for six months was killed in April while trying to escape.

One of the commanders of the National Liberation Army in an interview said that ransoms from kidnappings were necessary to keep its fighters in the field and that peace would be impossible without state funding to feed and clothe the rebels. And by state funding, he meant that the state encourages the kidnapping of foreigners for profit.

Meanwhile, the ELN’s political wing agreed to a cessation of hostilities in a negotiation with the Colombian government in Ecuador in honor of the visit by the Pope. Whether the ELN decides to keep the peace after the Pope’s visit is another matter.

The ELN seized Arsen Voskanyan in November. The group claimed that he was collecting endangered, poisonous frogs in the jungles of the northwestern department of Choco and accused him of wanting to smuggle wildlife overseas.
After his lengthy captivity, Voskanyan was shot when he grabbed a hand grenade in a bid to escape, according to the ELN commander, who would only give his nom-de-guerre Yerson.
“He’s dead,” Yerson told Reuters in a remote area along the banks of a river that sees frequent combat between the leftist rebels, government troops and right-wing paramilitaries.
“The grenade exploded … several of our boys were wounded, the entire unit of five boys. He fled, he was shot and killed … The issue of his body will be negotiated,” he said, adding that the death took place within his unit. Yerson supplied no evidence to back up his assertions.

The Russian Embassy and the Foreign Ministry declined to comment but the ELN has refused stop kidnapping, bombing, or extorting foreign oil and mining companies while negotiations were ongoing. Those activities along with suspected drug smuggling are what funds the group.

To read the entire article from Reuters click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia