Unfortunately the worst part of it was that she still needed his help.
“Once my business here is through, you will never see me again.”
NINE
In beautiful, sunny Havana, the first session of the Colombian peace talks was underway after Operation Phoenix. ANIC sources warned that members of FARC’s Secretariat had been in contact with representatives from Caracas the previous week and intended to use public outcry over the military raid in Venezuela to their advantage, to make threats and demand further concessions from the Colombian government or, if the peace talks broke down completely, attribute blame to President Santos as an imperialist warmonger.
Among those in attendance, heading the delegation of the Republic of Colombia was President Santos’ deputy interior minister, a forty-nine year old former lawyer and career diplomat who was widely criticized by the media for his apparent lack of interest in the peace talks and his unwillingness to give any leeway to FARC’s demands. From the deputy interior minister’s perspective, the point of these talks wasn’t political reconciliation, but to negotiate the terms of FARC’s surrender, demobilization, and disarmament.
The deputy interior minister was delayed that morning on his way to the Palace of Conventions because President Santos had instructed him to first stop at the Colombian embassy to see the ambassador and the ANIC station chief. The latter presented him with a note in a sealed envelope and instructed him to discretely pass it to Antonio Lascarro, the chief of the FARC delegation. The deputy interior minister was vaguely briefed on the content of the note and assured that it was a matter of the highest national security.
Fifteen minutes later, the deputy interior minister left the embassy in his official car for the ten minute drive to the Palace of Conventions, the massive, square-shaped glass and concrete building one mile south of the Straits of Florida where the National Assembly of People’s Power, the Cuban legislative branch, convenes. The building’s modern look was a stark contrast to the fifty year old cars driving past on Calle 145, belching black and gray exhaust into the air.
Although only members of the Colombian and FARC delegations would be allowed inside the locked, climate-controlled conference room, the hallways and reception floors of the Palace of Conventions was filled with representatives from other countries with a stake in Colombian politics.
There were many players with an interest in the outcome of the Colombian peace talks. Colombia has massive reserves of oil and natural gas, production of which has been stymied by the ongoing conflict, allowing Venezuela’s and Ecuador’s own petroleum industries to prosper in the past decade. There was further concern over the integrity of shared borders and the future of certain FARC factions, like Commander Dios’s intransigent 34th Front, that were expected to oppose any ceasefire or reconciliation.
As a result, amongst the diplomats and reporters from Ecuador, Venezuela, Spain, the United States, and elsewhere, there were also intelligence officers, as there invariably were at any diplomatic function. This in turn drew the attention of Cuba’s Directorate of General Intelligence, which was also responsible for providing security for the Colombian peace talks.
Modeled after the Soviet-era KGB, DGI is one of the most professional and active intelligence agencies in Latin America. Throughout the eighties, DGI was heavily involved in communist revolutionary and insurgent movements in Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico, while taking part in Soviet interventions in Yemen, Angola, Zaire, and Mozambique. DGI remains active in the US, where it had compromised or bribed a number of reporters, government employees, and congressman, resulting in the pro-Castro American news reports, legislation, and policies.
As security officers escorted him to the conference room, the Colombian minister ignored the questions reporters threw at him. Questions concerning the army raid into Venezuela and how he expected that to affect the peace talks. He gave reporters little attention and, when he did, his words were often derisive, accounting for the less than favorable portrayal of him in Latin American media.
The DGI men closed and locked the doors behind the deputy interior minister after he entered the conference room.
Today’s session began with the usual formal handshakes exchanged amongst the members of the opposing delegations. Then everyone took their seats, one delegation seated across from the other at the table positioned in the center of the vast hall.
The Colombians thought the Secretariat members looked out of place, clean shaven, in ties and business suits, exchanging their jungle fatigues and rugged guerilla fighter look for the façade of respectability and political legitimacy.
Seated at the ends of the table were the Cuban mediators, one of whom was in actuality an intelligence officer reporting directly to Raul Castro after each session.
The air conditioning kept the room’s temperature at just below seventy, to allow the negotiators to keep cool and maintain composure during the often heated discussions. A table against the far wall had water coolers, plastic cups, muffins, and fruit, plus notepads and pens.
These talks have long since grown tiresome for the Colombian diplomats in attendance, having dragged on for over three years. The Colombian government accused FARC of intentionally dragging out the talks to protect senior FARC commanders, who were guaranteed safety from Colombian security forces while in Havana and in transit to and from the conferences. Meanwhile, as the talks took place, government troops continued to engage FARC forces across Colombia.
There are six main topics on the peace talk’s agenda: land reform of rural territory controlled by FARC, political participation and rights of disarmed insurgents, total FARC disarmament, repatriation for victims’ families, and cocaine production and trafficking, as well as the implementation of these items. Once the terms and conditions in all of these areas are agreed upon, the plan would go to Colombian voters for ratification.
The tedium that morning was offset by the excitement that came with carrying out a task, however small, on behalf of the intelligence service, a first for the deputy interior minister. He could hardly wait to tell his wife when he returned to Bogotá.
After spending too long over thinking and planning how to pass the note, the deputy interior minister finally slipped the sealed envelope across the table to Antonio Lascarro.
The FARC negotiator accepted the note with a befuddled expression and examined the envelope in his hand. When he looked up at the deputy interior minister across from him, the Colombian official’s focus was set on his copy of the morning’s agenda, his face bored and impassive as if nothing had happened.
Lascarro tore the envelope open, withdrew the folded piece of paper, and read the text printed on it.
“Inform Rodrigo Echeverri that we are fully aware of Plan Estragos and the intended use of SA-24. We will hold Senor Echeverri personally responsible for any action taken by the Viper against the Republic of Colombia or her allies. Order the Viper to stand down at once and have her delivered into the custody of government authorities or the negotiations are over and there will exist a state of total war. There will be no quarter granted to anyone wearing the FARC banner. We will hunt down every last member of the Secretariat and the Central High Command and execute them where our soldiers find them.”
The color drained from Lascarro’s face.
Rodrigo Echeverri is the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. He is more commonly known by the nom de guerre Timoshenko, taken after the famous Red Army general who commanded Soviet forces during World War II. In 2011, Echeverri/Timoshenko replaced Alfonso Cano, who was killed by the Colombian army, as the man at the very top of the FARC chain of command. Because of his involvement in the production and trafficking of cocaine to the United States, the US State Department continued to offer a $5 million reward for his capture.