HomeNewsBriefPanama FARC Camps Highlight Need for Joint Security Work with Colombia
BRIEF

Panama FARC Camps Highlight Need for Joint Security Work with Colombia

FARC / 29 MAR 2012 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

In a joint operation, Panama and Colombia security forces destroyed two large FARC camps on Panamanian territory, as the two countries announced a new agreement that allows for better intelligence sharing.

Panama Security Minister Jose Raul Molino announced Tuesday that the security forces destroyed two camps belonging to the FARC's 57th Front. One of the camps was large enough to house 32 rebels, reports El Espectador.

Security forces found the camps in the most wild and thickly forested area along the Colombia-Panama border, a region known as the Darien Gap. The 57th Front, one of the wealthiest in the FARC thanks to its involvement in the international shipment of cocaine, uses the Darien as an important base of operations.

Molino mentioned the camps after meeting with Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon (pictured, left to right) Wednesday in Bogota, in order to discuss new terms for sharing security intelligence between the two countries.

As part of the agreement, Colombia will systematically share intelligence on drug flights and other suspicious aircraft with Panama, reports El Tiempo.

In addition, Colombian security forces will train Panamanian officials in more specialized operations, like collecting aerial intelligence and conducting drug interdictions at sea. The Colombian military will also offer a training course for Panama's border protection force.

InSight Crime Analysis

Colombia's concerns about the FARC use of Panama as a refuge helped produce the Binational Border Security Plan in 2011, intended to increase information sharing between the two countries. Besides facilitating more joint anti-drug trafficking operations, the treaty is also supposed to bolster Panama's capacity to confront the FARC.

A series of US State Department cables released in 2010 by WikiLeaks depicted the Panamanian border police as largely incapable of carrying out timely responses to FARC actions. One cable notes that after the 57th Front invaded an indigenous community on Panamanian territory in 2008, it took 10 days for the border police to mobilize to the scene. In part, the security pact with Colombia appears intended to help Panama conduct operations more quickly.

The guerrilla camps found in Panama were unusually large, and were indicative of just how comfortably the 57th Front is able to operate in the Darien Gap. In many parts of Colombia's territory, the FARC is more reliant on smaller, more mobile camps, often no larger than four or five people, in order to avoid being tracked by the Colombian Air Force. The FARC's ability to operate in relatively large groups in the Darien may be one reason why the Colombia-Panama security agreement appears to emphasize the sharing and collection of aerial intelligence.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Tags

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022

In 2016, two adopted nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro were found guilty of a conspiracy to bring 800 kilograms…

COCAINE / 3 FEB 2023

Colombia's negotiations with a range of criminal groups, as part of the Total Peace plan, will be complicated by record…

COCAINE / 9 DEC 2022

Panama has become a reliable drug trafficking logistics hub for cocaine shipments to Europe, as in the recent Super Cartel…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…