“There is a message I want you to understand, to internalize, from this short speech. It’s that the FARC are weakened, yes, but they are not defeated,” and it would be a mistake for us to assume they are, Juan Manuel Santos, the Minister of National Defense of Colombia, told an audience at the Center for American Progress on Wednesday morning. Santos was introduced by Dan Restrepo, Director of The Americas Project at the Center for American Progress. He spoke about Colombia’s efforts to end illegal armed conflict and the successful hostage rescue operation on July 2, in which Colombian military intelligence and special forces liberated 15 hostages, including three Americans, who had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

According to Santos, the operation “was practically risk free for the hostages.” If the unarmed rescue forces had been caught prior to the rescue, he argued, the hostages would have just “disappeared into the jungle.” Santos said that preparations for the operation were “like a Hollywood studio,” as nine rescuers assumed false identities as an Australian, an Italian, an Arab, a Cuban, a Dominican, a journalist, a nurse, a doctor, and a cameraman. The “actors” spent many months learning their new identities, which was crucial in case they were caught.

Santos also predicted that the FARC’s strength would continue to decline. While acknowledging the difficulties faced by the government, he said that the FARC’s fighting style is “completely anachronistic,” especially in a democracy.

“We have always told them that there is a generous hand of the government if they want to negotiate…we tell them, and I believe this is so: If they don’t seize the moment—their opportunity—in a year, two years, they will have no bargaining chips, because the momentum is on our side,” he said. He predicted that if the FARC continues to weaken, it will become reduced to fragmented extralegal groups that resort to kidnappings and narcotraffic but have no ideological unity.

In introducing Santos, Restrepo noted that “a clarion call has arisen for the FARC to release all of its remaining hostages, lay down its weapons, and renounce its use of terror.” He cautioned, however, that, “July 2 and the events leading up to it did not magically make all of Colombia’s deep-rooted challenges go away. Nor can we pretend that they put to rest all issues in the dynamic and complex U.S.-Colombia bilateral relationship.”

Santos echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the progress made by the Colombian government while stressing the need for continued action. “Eight years ago…480 mayors could not work from their hometowns; they had to go somewhere else where they were safe,” he said. Today, the state has established control over the entire Colombian territory for the first time since independence. Santos credited the success of the military to President Alvaro Uribe’s efforts to establish “democratic security,” which Santos defined as security for all citizens that conform to the rule of law and the constitution.

Santos also emphasized the importance of improved intelligence gathering and information sharing between the armed forces to their success in combating guerillas such as FARC. “We set up a structure where they were almost forced to share information…we are a team” he said. The emphasis on creativity and audacity in intelligence gathering led to the information which enabled the hostage rescue operation. Santos said that the operation also exploited the current breakdown in leadership and communications within the FARC organization.

After Santos’s remarks, Restrepo asked whether the United States should diversify Plan Colombia—the mechanism through which the United States provides military, anti-narcotics, and social aid to the South American country—to provide more social assistance and less military aid. “We would make a tremendous mistake of weakening the security part at this moment.” Santos responded, explaining also that in order for social aid to succeed, it must be accompanied by military security. “In a way, Plan Colombia has been the most successful, bipartisan foreign policy initiative that the U.S. has made in the recent past.”

Other audience members pushed Minister Santos to explain ongoing concerns regarding human rights violations by Colombian security forces and questions that have arisen regarding the use of a Red Cross insignia by one of the hostage rescuers. Santos acknowledged the need for continued vigilance on respecting human rights, emphasizing the work that has been undertaken to assure greater adherence to basic norms. He also repeated his condemnation of the decision of one nervous rescuer to don a Red Cross bib, characterizing the action as “the human element of the rescue mission.”

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