Europe & the Americas
Chechnya. The eight-year brutal war continues, but the deaths of both “political” and “combat” leaders in 2005 and 2006 seem to have sapped insurgent morale. With their organization splintering, more and more guerrillas are accepting amnesty and, reportedly, assisting Russian troops hunting for rebel logistics stockpiles and base camps. Some Russian analysts point to a significant decrease in terror attacks in Russia and Chechnya as proof of growing Russian success against insurgents, but others say that tight controls on media reports conceal the true level of violence and death. Still others predict that the Chechen opposition will reorganize in the first few months of 2007 or that conflict will become more common in the North Caucasus – or both. For example, Karachay-Cherkessia, Ingushetia, and Dagestan continue to experience “cross-over” violence from operations in Chechnya.
The Americas. Continuation of the gradual voluntary demobilization and disarmament of Colombia’s rightist Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries – which had reached 33,000 fighters – has been thrown in jeopardy as the result of information on a captured computer that detailed links between AUC death squads and more than a dozen members of Colombia’s legislature and close associates of President Alvaro Uribe. AUC leaders, who had surrendered with promises of limited sentences served in “upscale” prisons, were suddenly transferred to “ordinary” jails in what many observers see as an attempt by Uribe’s inner circle to distance itself from the growing scandal. Since 2000, when the U.S. launched the anti-drug “Plan Colombia,” $4.7 billion has been spent to eliminate armed insurgent organizations that today are little more than narco-terror criminal gangs. Diminished violence in the last few years was initially thought to reflect success against the drug cartels and Washington’s steadfast backing of Uribe – witness the 350 military and 750 contractors working out of the embassy training Colombian military and police units. This mirage was shattered when an elite police unit on a raid was gunned down by an army unit whose commanders are now believed to be partners of the narco-traffickers. Meanwhile, in the U.S. a federal judge declared a mistrial in the prosecution of Colombian drug lord Ricardo Palmera after the jury could not reach agreement on a verdict. Prosecutors say a new trial will be held. Back in Colombia, the government began peace talks in October with the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), which has some 3,000 fighters. The far larger (16,000) drug-tainted Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has also expressed interest in negotiating, but the government appears intent on trying to settle with the ELN before turning to the FARC.
In Haiti, former president (1996-2001) Rene Preval won the February 2006 presidential election, inheriting what one analyst termed a perpetual failed state. Even the presence of the UN-approved, Brazilian-led peacekeeping contingent of more than 9,000 cannot quell, let alone prevent, outbreaks of violence that threaten the government. What has changed is the motivation for the violence: more criminal and gang-related than political – not that this makes any difference to those killed.
