Victories, but no Waterloo

摘要

It is the largest offensive by the Colom-bian army since troops descended on peasant militias who had set up a self-styled Independent Republic of Marqueta-lia in 1964. The scattered survivors of that push formed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's oldest and largest guerrilla army. Over the past two decades drug money, extortion and kidnapping have allowed the once Marxist FARC to expand to a peak of some 17,000 fighters in 2002. Now, Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, is trying to knock the organisation out. In a series of operations dubbed the "Patriot Plan" he has launched 15,000 troops and special forces, backed by American-supplied helicopters, against the guerrillas' strongholds in the country's southern jungles