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January
5, 2004 Score one for Uribe. The Ecuadorian police just nailed Ricardo Palmera, otherwise known as Simón Trinidad-- the highest ranking FARC leader to ever be captured by the government and one of the key members of the FARC leadership that sat down across the table from former president Pastrana's team during the failed attempt at negotiations back in 1998. Before joining the FARC 16 years ago, Palmera graduated from Harvard University, became a prominent banker in Valledupar in the Carribean region of Colombia, and then taught economics at Bogota's Jorge Tadeo Lozano University for 10 years. Wait a second, yes, you heard that right... the Ecuadorian government just captured the highest ranking Colombian guerrilla leader ever to be taken alive. Not only that, but they captured him right here, in Quito, in the Mariscal where I'm staying right now-- the main tourist area, otherwise known as gringo-town. Yes, the funny thing is not that I happen to be staying here, but that they captured him in the Mariscal! I mean, I guess guerrillas need vacations too, right? After all, when they're not fighting the injustices of the right and trumpeting the cause of the downtrodden poor, they must go hang out and party just like the rest of the world's bourgeoisie! I wonder if they nabbed him surfing Amigos.com (the popular local dating site, which oddly was started by a good friend of mine in Palo Alto, upstairs from our company) at an Internet cafe? lol...
Well the misinformation seems to be flowing free and fast around this incident. Mariana, my spanish teacher, told me that it was the Boss, the BIG boss, who she calls "Tiro Fino," but whose more common name seems to be Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda. And of course, the Colombians are claiming to have done the capturing here, with the help of the yanks, and have video showing that they were tailing him for months (and no doubt partying their asses off while doing so). The Ecuadorians of course claim that they stopped him on a routine ID check. I'm sure the truth is probably somewhere in between. What all the papers seem to have missed though, is the true irony of all ironies: that the Ecuadorians can capture a kingpin of the FARC in the Mariscal on a routine ID check, but they can't catch 3 motherfuckers who have been looting and robbing tourists for months now within a four or five block square area. If it didn't still sting a little, I'd be rolling on the damned floor over that one. But enough about me... here's some well-executed background from the Washington Post on Sr. Palmera:
Apparently, as the article goes on later to explain, Palmera may very well have been the one that sparked the explosion in kidnappings in Colombia. As a banker familiar that partied with the wealthy as well as handling the intimate details of their affairs, he knew exactly where to hit them the hardest--their pocketbooks. Of course, the FARC was smart enough to brand this strategy a "tax" on the wealthy in support of their political agenda, to lend credibility to their politcal party, and of course to put the leftist spin on it that would garner the most sympathy from the broad population. By all respects, the end of an era, and a fitting bookend to this most remarkable story of one extraordinarily twisted individual.
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