With Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi dead, one of the questions for Latin America is whether more reports will emerge linking the Gaddafi regime to Colombia‘s drug-trafficking guerrillas.
According to International Assessment and Strategy Center (IASC) analyst Douglas Farah, there is a long history of contact between the Gaddafi regime and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Farah writes that in e-mails reportedly recovered from the computer files of slain FARC commander Luis Edgar Devia Silva, alias “Raul Reyes,” there are multiple references to “Comrade Colonel Gaddafi.” The correspondence reportedly thanks Gaddafi for hosting senior FARC commanders in Libya, and asks for a $100 million loan to buy surface-to-air missiles.
Another letter allegedly asks Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to pressure Gaddafi into answering the FARC’s request.
In April, many international media outlets printed rumors that FARC snipers — many of them allegedly battle-hardened females — were in Libya fighting alongside Gaddafi’s forces.
There was an unsubstantiated report from a Croatian newspaper that nine Colombian mercenaries were executed by rebels after fighting for Gaddafi, but there is no evidence that they were connected to the FARC.