On Saturday, March 1, 2008, the Colombian National Police carried out a combined ground and air assault on the camp of the Marxist guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (better known under its Spanish acronym FARC, which stands for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). The assault took place in the jungles of Ecuador, about 1.2 miles south of the Ecuadorian border city of Lago Agrios. [1]

FARC is Latin America’s longest-running Marxist insurgency, and for the past 40 years, has been fighting to overthrow Colombian government. The United States, European Union, Canada, and Colombia designate FARC as a terrorist organization. [2]

In the course of the cross-border raid, the Colombian forces intruded by about 1.2 miles into Ecuadorian territory and killed 16 rebels, including the FARC second-in-command, Luis Edgar Devia Silva (known by his nom de guerre Raúl Reyes). [3] Sources state that, upon examining the FARC campsite, the Colombian police discovered two or three Toshiba laptops that belonged to Raúl Reyes. [4] On Monday, March 3, 2008, in an attempt to deflect mounting regional criticism over the violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty and to justify the cross-border operation against FARC, the Director of Colombian National Police, General Òscar Naranjo, held a press conference at which he revealed that FARC was negotiating to purchase 50 kilograms (kg) of uranium of an unspecified enrichment level. To emphasize the importance of this discovery, General Naranjo stated: “When they mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become a global aggressor. We’re not talking of domestic guerrillas, but transnational terrorism.” [5]

At high enrichment levels, uranium can be used as the core of a nuclear weapon. According to U.S. Council on Foreign Relations nuclear specialist, Charles Ferguson, 50 kg of weapons-grade uranium, which has been enriched to 80 percent or more in the fissile isotope uranium-235, would provide enough fissile material to make an improvised nuclear explosive, which could release as much explosive energy as the Hiroshima bomb. Dr. Ferguson notes, however, that there are no readily available supplies of this material in Colombia, Venezuela, or the surrounding region. [6]

During a statement to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on March 4, 2008, the Vice President of the Republic of Colombia, Francisco Santos Calderón, fueled speculation when he stated that, as a result of the raid against the FARC camp in Ecuador, the Colombian police recovered evidence indicating that “FARC was negotiating for radioactive material for the purpose of making destructive dirty weapons and terrorism.” [7] The enriched uranium would not cause much damage if used in a dirty bomb, however, because it is only weakly radioactive. [8] Highly radioactive isotopes, such as cesium-137, strontium-90 or cobalt-60, which are widely used in industry, medicine and research, would be far more suitable for use in a potent radiological dispersal device.

Calderón specified that the information on FARC’s attempt to procure radioactive material came from the analysis of the contents of laptop computers belonging to Raúl Reyes. [9] However, on March 5, 2008, Calderón appeared to backtrack from his original statement. He told the Associated Press that the Colombian government did not have the evidence to suggest that FARC was planning to build a radiological dispersal device. [10]

In order to evaluate the merits of the Colombian government’s initial claims regarding FARC’s alleged interest in procuring uranium, it is essential to look at the source document on which they were based. The Colombian police released the cache of documents retrieved from the laptops of Raúl Reyes to the leading national newspaper, El Tiempo. El Tiempo subsequently posted these documents on its website. U.S.-based ABC News discovered a document there containing a reference to the alleged uranium deal and posted it on its own website. [11] The document is a letter to Raúl Reyes written by Edgar Tovar, a man described by Calderón as the commander of the 48th Front of FARC, which operates near Ecuador. [12] Dated February 16, 2008, the letter is written poorly and with minimal punctuation, which makes it difficult to translate. According to point six of Tovar’s letter, a Bogotá-based explosives supplier by the name of Belisario sent Tovar some “samples and specifications” with the proposed price tag of $2.5 million per kilogram. [13] The exorbitant price led Calderón to speculate that Tovar was implying that the uranium was enriched. [14] For comparison, purified unenriched uranium (sometimes referred to as “yellowcake”), which is mined both in Colombia and Venezuela, is sold for about $100-$300 per kilogram. [15]

In his letter, Tovar proposes an arrangement whereby the unidentified suppliers connected to Belisario would handle the delivery of the material, while FARC would be responsible for selecting potential buyers. Embedded in the proposed arrangement is an important caveat implying that it would be preferable to sell uranium in bulk to a government, with the proceeds to be used, in part, to fund FARC’s activities. According to Tovar’s memo, Belisario appeared to be in direct contact with the suppliers, who had 50 kg of uranium in their possession and were willing to sell much more. The full English translation of this passage appeared on March 5 on The Terror Wonk blog of Aaron Mannes, and it is presented in its entirety in the insert below. [16]

U.S. government agencies greeted Colombia’s allegations with skepticism. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spokesperson Richard Kolko stated that the FBI had “no information or intelligence regarding the FARC attempting to use WMD [weapons of mass destruction].” [17] Similarly, unidentified U.S. intelligence officials cautioned ABC News that reports about FARC’s alleged attempt to acquire radioactive materials for a “dirty bomb” should be treated with extreme caution. [18] At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are seeking access to the laptops, documents, and other materials seized by the Colombian police during the raid. The interest of the DOJ and the DEA stems from a 2004 criminal indictment charging the FARC leadership, including Reyes, with drug trafficking. As of March 5, 2008, the DEA requested permission from the Colombian government to examine the laptops and other documents recovered at the FARC campsite in Ecuador “to assess its evidentiary value for the U.S. criminal indictment and DEA’s ongoing investigation against the FARC.” [19] On March 14, 2008, the New York Times reported that the American investigative teams were assisting the Colombian government to decipher information from the captured FARC computers in Bogotá and Washington, DC. [20]

Colombia’s actions against FARC sparked a short-lived diplomatic crisis with Ecuadorian and Venezuelan governments, which maintain close ties to the FARC. [21] In a carefully choreographed show of unity, apparently intended for domestic political consumption, leaders of Ecuador and Venezuela – Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez – sent armed forces to reinforce their borders with Colombia to prevent further cross-border raids. In addition, in retaliation for the raid, Quito and Caracas expelled Colombia’s ambassadors and cut off diplomatic ties; Venezuela also suspended trade with Bogotá. The bellicose statements by Correa and Chávez soon gave way to mediation efforts by the Organization of American States (OAS), which ultimately defused tensions. [22] At the Rio Group Summit in the Dominican Republic on March 7, 2008, the three states struck an agreement according to which Colombian President Alvaro Uribe promised that he would not use the seized FARC documents to accuse Correa and Chávez of supporting terrorists at the International Criminal Court, as he had previously threatened. [23]

Nonetheless, on March 10, 2008, General Naranjo told Salt Lake Tribune correspondent Anders Oppenheimer that Colombia invited an international team of forensic computer experts from Interpol headquarters in France to examine more than 500 e-mails and Word files, which were used by Reyes to administer FARC’s economic, political, and military affairs. Comprised of investigators from Australia, South Korea, and Singapore, the team of experts traveled to Colombia the week of March 10-17. Prior to their visit, Naranjo noted, “We will put the computers at their disposal, and at the disposal of any other multilateral, independent organization. We are 100 percent sure that the information contained in these computers was from FARC.” [24] No details have emerged regarding the group’s findings.

In a surprising continuation of this story, late on March 26, 2008, at a hastily arranged press conference, the Commander of Armed Forces of Columbia, General Freddy Padilla de León, announced that the Columbian authorities discovered a cache of 30 kg of depleted uranium (DU), which Padilla de León claimed belonged to FARC and was the material mentioned in the February 16 letter from Edgar Tovar to Raúl Reyes. [25] Depleted uranium is a residue from the uranium enrichment process. In this process the easily split isotope uranium-235 is culled from a stream of natural uranium (in gaseous form) and added to another stream, creating one product with enhanced levels of the isotope (enriched uranium) and a second, whose proportion of uranium-235 has been reduced (depleted uranium). The material, which is denser than lead and only mildly radioactive, is used for armor-piercing munitions and aircraft nose weights, and radiation shielding.

Padilla de León stated that the material was discovered in Colombia, in a rural area just south of Bogota that is considered a FARC stronghold. Unidentified informants led Colombian authorities to the cache. Padilla de León said that the individuals were close to Belisario, “the contact in charge of delivering radioactive material,” identified in the February 16, 2008, Tovar letter. [26] Referring to the discovered DU cache, General Padilla de León stated, “According to the informants, it’s the material FARC was negotiating [to acquire] that appears in Reyes’ seized computer.” [27] Commenting on the significance of the DU cache discovery, General Padilla de León noted, “We feel that the fact that we confiscated this material is of great importance, given that we have once again kept the FARC from being able to use this radioactive material which they have been trying to obtain since October of 2005.” [28]

The press release issued by the Colombian Ministry of Defense (MOD) on the same day as the press conference provided more details about the discovery of the DU cache. According to the MOD statement, the informants brought a DU sample to Colombian military intelligence officials on March 20, 2008. [29] The MOD spokesperson later described the informants as two demobilized former FARC members. [30] The military intelligence officers gave the sample to experts at the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining (known under its Spanish acronym Ingeominas), who confirmed that it was DU on March 25, 2008. [31] On March 26, 2008, the informants led the Colombian military and security officials to the location where the rest of the DU was hidden, near the road to the town of San Juan Suampaz. The cache consisted of two DU pieces wrapped in white plastic bags, each piece weighing about 15 kg. [32] The Colombian authorities documented the entire operation on camera, and it is available on-line, at the Colombian MOD website, YouTube, and the website of El Tiempo. The footage clearly shows both pieces of material bearing the inscription “depleted uranium.”

The Colombian military transferred the DU cache to Ingeominas, where specialists are analyzing the DU pieces; the results are expected to be released in early May, according to the institute director, Mario Ballestros. [33] International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials are due to arrive in
Colombia the week of March 31-April 4 to carry out additional tests of seized DU and to conduct talks on nuclear security with Colombian officials, according to a statement released by the Colombian government on March 27, 2008. The statement notes that the IAEA visit was scheduled after the news of the uranium allegedly referenced in the letter by Edgar Tovar was picked up by the international media. [34]

While the DU discovery in Colombia is not a proliferation-significant incident due to the specific properties of the material seized, it lends credence to the allegations of the Colombian government regarding FARC’s interest in illegal transactions involving radioactive materials. The U.S. Department of State (DOS) spokeswoman Heide Bronke stated that the United States was “deeply concerned” about the DU discovery, which underscored “the terrorist threat that FARC poses to the people of Colombia and to the region.” [35] The U.S. government is seeking to better understand what may have motivated FARC to become interested in uranium. In this regard Bronke noted, “We have no indication at this time as to how the FARC intended to use the uranium. We commend the Colombian military for disrupting the FARC activity and hope that Colombian officials conducting the investigation will be able to determine the FARC’s intended use.” [36]

In a further sign of changing perceptions vis-à-vis FARC’s interest in uranium, a senior American intelligence official told the Los Angeles Times that U.S. intelligence agencies believed that at least some of the information extracted from FARC laptops was likely to be authentic. [37] Another senior U.S. intelligence official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, stated: “I think you have to take at face value what the Colombians are saying. There’s no reason at this point to think they’re making this up.” [38] The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee formally asked Columbian General Naranjo for a briefing on the recent FARC-related developments. [39] However, the head of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, was quick to dismiss the importance of the incident because the discovered uranium was depleted. Insulza told the Miami Herald on March 27, 2008, “This is not an imminent problem. I would doubt they (FARC) have any capacity to enrich uranium. But we will look into the matter, of course.” [40]

Conclusion
Following the discovery of the DU cache, the skepticism that initially greeted Colombia’s allegations appears to be dissipating. However, the DU find in Colombia raises more questions than it answers. If the discovered DU cache is, indeed, what Edgar Tovar was referring to in his letter to Raúl Reyes, as General Padilla de León claims, then the case is closed. But what explains the obvious discrepancy in total weight? The letter distinctly mentions 50 kg, whereas the DU cache amounted only to 30 kg. More importantly, where did FARC guerillas obtain the DU in the first place? And what forms the basis of General Padilla de León’s claim that the FARC has been seeking uranium since October 2005?

It is possible to conjecture from the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the DU cache that FARC simply intended to pull off a scam by reselling the material to a hapless buyer. Colombian analyst Pablo Casas of the Bogota-based think tank Security and Democracy concurs with this conclusion. Casas told the Reuters, “This appears to have been part of a black market operation that the guerillas were trying to use to make money.” [41] This sentiment was shared by an unnamed diplomat in Bogotá, who told Reuters, “This seems more like a black market action than military action. It shows how FARC is behaving more like an organized crime group than a political group.” [42]

Regardless of the fact that the material at the heart of the bungled deal was DU, the very intention on the part of FARC to engage in such transactions is alarming. Functioning at the epicenter of the multi-billion-dollar international drug trade, FARC is ideally suited to use its clandestine global network of smuggling operations to transport and/or sell uranium and more highly radioactive materials. If this dangerous possibility becomes a reality, FARC could pose a grave threat to international security. The reference to uranium in the internal FARC communication coupled with the discovery of the DU cache must be taken as disturbing indications of FARC’s intention to enter the illicit trade in nuclear and radioactive materials.

Alexander Melikishvili – Monterey Institute James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies