By IPS Correspondents
QUITO, Jan 5 2004 (IPS)

Analysts say the capture of Colombian guerrilla Simón Trinidad in the capital of Ecuador pointed to direct involvement by the previously neutral Ecuadorian government in fighting Colombia’s leftist guerrillas.

An anonymous source told IPS in Ecuador that the capture of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander, whose real name is Ricardo Palmera, was the first joint intelligence operation between those two countries and the United States in the framework of the heavily U.S.-funded Plan Colombia anti-drug and counterinsurgency strategy.

In addition, Colombian press reports that described Palmera – whose ”nom de guerre” is Trinidad – as a top guerrilla commander and stated that his arrest dealt a severe blow to the FARC were greatly exaggerated, according to an academic interviewed by IPS in Colombia.

Palmera was the commander of one of FARC’s 62 military fronts, and was neither a member of the national secretariat, the insurgent group’s seven-member executive body, nor of the 32-member central command, said the source in Colombia who specialises in research on the leftist group.

The scholar, whose identity will not be revealed for safety reasons, said that far from being one of FARC’s top leaders, Palmera held the equivalent rank of lieutenant-colonel in the guerrilla hierarchy.

Palmera was, however, well-known as a negotiator in the peace talks between the Colombian government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) and the 17,000-strong FARC, which broke off in early 2002.

The Colombian newspaper Hoy touted Palmera’s capture as ”the most important achievement in the struggle against the FARC in the organisation’s entire history.”

But the academic who spoke with IPS in Colombia said Palmera’s arrest last Friday ”means nothing” in the balance of military forces in Colombia.

Palmera, a 53-year-old Harvard-educated economist, is a former university professor, bank executive and politician.

He is also one of the few survivors of the leftist Patriotic Union (UP) political party, some 3,000 of whose members were killed after it was created in 1984 as part of peace accords between the insurgents and the government of Belisario Betancur (1982-1986).

Some UP leaders, like Palmera, joined the guerrillas ”to strike back at those who were killing us,” according to Imelda Daza, one of Palmera’s fellow politicians in the UP, who now lives in exile in Sweden, where she is a town councillor.

Her story appears in a book, ”The Red Dance”, published in December by anthropologist Yezid Campos, who compiled testimony from survivors of the UP.

If the UP had not been wiped out, ”Ricardo would have stood out in Colombia’s national political scene, and would have had great success. He would have contributed enormously to coming up with solutions to Colombia’s problems,” said Daza.

In Ecuador, an armed forces officer who did not want to be identified told IPS that the conflicting versions of Palmera’s capture put out by Ecuador’s minister of the government (interior) Raúl Baca and Colombian defence minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, and the way the operation was carried out, point to coordination between the two countries’ security forces.

The officer also said the coordination formed part of the second phase of Plan Colombia, which will involve participation by Ecuador. Up to now, this Andean nation had remained studiously neutral towards the four-decade civil war raging in neighbouring Colombia.

Minister Uribe himself said Saturday, the day after Palmera’s arrest, that the operation was carried out with the support of the U.S. government.

”This is the result of exemplary action by our police and army, with the vital support of the Ecuadorian government and police, and of the U.S. government,” said the Colombian minister.

But Baca flatly denied that the arrest had involved joint action between the Colombian and Ecuadorian police. ”This operation was carried out by the Ecuadorian police as an absolutely normal aspect of law enforcement in the city of Quito,” the minister said Saturday.

Palmera ”was taken into custody by the police because he lacked the necessary documents to be in Ecuador,” said Baca.

Sociologist and political analyst Alejandro Moreano also said the capture formed part of the second phase of Plan Colombia, which will require direct participation by the Ecuadorian army and police in combating Colombia’s leftist insurgents.

”It would seem that the meeting between Otto Reich and Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutiérrez a month ago helped strengthen a clear position of support for U.S. geopolitical aims in the region,” said Moreano.

Reich, U.S. President George W. Bush’s adviser on Latin America, visited Ecuador in early December at a moment of weakness for Gutiérrez, who was facing accusations that part of his campaign was financed with drug money.

The accusation emerged after the arrest of alleged drug trafficker César Fernández, who backed Gutiérrez’s campaign.

The director of public relations in the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador, Marty Estell, also contradicted Baca, saying Palmera’s arrest was an example of cooperation between the Ecuadorian and Colombian police, a ”joint operation” that ”we consider a success in the campaign against regional terrorism.”

Furthermore, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe congratulated the Colombian and Ecuadorian security forces on Saturday, and praised the Ecuadorian president’s cooperation.

But Baca denied a statement by Colombia’s defence minister that eight members of the Colombian security forces took part in Palmera’s arrest.

According to reports in the Colombian press, however, the Colombian army has a video showing that members of the military had mounted surveillance over Palmera in Quito for months.

On Monday, Baca stated in an interview aired by the TV station Red Teleamazonas that his remarks were based on a report by the Ecuadorian police, and that he was concerned about the contradictions with statements coming out of Bogota.

He insisted that participation in the capture by members of the Colombian military and U.S. intelligence services would amount to a violation of Ecuador’s national sovereignty, and said he would demand an investigation to get at the truth.

Political analyst Francisco Velasco, the director of La Luna radio station in Quito, said that ”According to the interior minister and police chief, police officers were just walking along and by chance decided to ask to see the documents of someone who turned out to be Palmera. Somebody is lying here.”

Velasco said the most far-reaching aspect of Palmera’s arrest is that ”for the first time, Ecuador has been drawn into fighting the guerrillas, in coordination with the Colombian and U.S. intelligence services.”

”It is irresponsible for the government of Lucio Gutiérrez to put an end to 40 years of neutrality maintained by a number of Ecuadorian governments towards Colombia’s armed conflict, and to involve us in that conflict,” said Velasco.

But retired general René Vargas Pazos, a former Ecuadorian defence minister and current member of the Group Monitoring the Impacts of Plan Colombia in Ecuador, argues that Ecuador began to be drawn into the Colombian conflict when it leased the Manta air base in the northwest to the U.S. armed forces in 1999.

* Constanza Vieira in Colombia contributed to this report.

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