Time for US to rethink Cuba policy? - Sarah Stephens

President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia this week announced that negotiations will soon begin between Colombia and its principal enemy, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, that could end his country’s bloody, decades-long civil war.

The deal was struck in Havana, with help from Venezuelan, Cuban and Norwegian diplomats. Talks are due to start in Oslo Oct. 5. President Barack Obama, Reuters reported, “is aware of the process and is in agreement.” After the initial round of negotiations in Norway, Colombia’s government and the guerillas are to return to Havana, sit at the negotiating table and not leave until a peace pact is signed.

We can’t know now what this means for Colombia — though we earnestly hope it leads to peace. But one thing we do know is this: Because Cuba made a big contribution to this breakthrough, it undermines arguments by the anti-Cuba hard-liners in Congress. It also poses a direct challenge to Obama’s handling of the U.S.-Cuba relations.

As the Council on Foreign Relations has reported, “intelligence experts have been hard-pressed to find evidence that Cuba currently provides weapons or military training to terrorist groups. In 1998, a comprehensive review by the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Cuba does not pose a threat to U.S. national security, which implies that Cuba no longer sponsors terrorism.”

Read more: Opinion: Time to rethink Cuba policy? - Sarah Stephens - POLITICO.com

FARC Worlds Bigest Cocaine producer: Marxists with a Better Business Plan

According to a document captured by Colombian military intelligence, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the South American nation's biggest guerrilla army—negotiated a deal in 2007 to supply Mexican drug cartels directly on consignment, bypassing the gangs that had previously served as go-betweens.

Under the pact, the FARC undertook to provide a kind of vendor financing for shipments of tons of cocaine, in essence taking on more risk in search of higher margins. The flood of cash that has since flowed to the guerrillas has helped them remain a threat to the government of President Alvaro Uribe and has offset the damage to their finances inflicted by a seven-year army offensive. "I've heard the FARC derives somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion a year from the trade," says Michael Braun, who stepped down in 2008 as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's operations chief. "I happen to believe that number is woefully underestimated."

The FARC, a Marxist group, has been fighting to topple Colombia's government for 45 years, making it the oldest guerrilla force in Latin America. More than a decade ago it began to finance its operations with cocaine sales and has since become the world's biggest producer.

For more-Marxists with a Better Business Plan - BusinessWeek

Colombian terrorist group FARC planning European embassy in coordination with Venezuelan CCB

Colombia's largest rebel group FARC is planning to open an office in one of the European cities of Amsterdam, Brussels or Paris, newspaper El Tiempo reported on Sunday.

The newspaper, basing its reporting on Colombian intelligence documents, says that the FARC is in touch with the Venezuelan Continental Bolivarian Coordinator (CCB) about the establishment of an office in one of the three mentioned cities.

The FARC itself, because it is on the EU's terrorist organization's list, is prohibited from setting up any kind of office within European borders, but the Caracas-based CCB is not considered a terrorist organization and is therefore able to set up an office anywhere in the world.

Note EU-Digest: Based on the principle that "the friend of my enemy is also my enemy", the EU should also put the Caracas-based CCB on its "unwanted" list and block this initiative which seems to have the support of the Venezuelan Government.

For more: FARC is planning Bolivarian 'embassy' in Europe: El Tiempo