While guerrillas having weapons is nothing new, The source of these weapons is quite interesting.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the FARC, I will give you a brief rundown courtesy of Global Security.Org
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC
Description
Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency. The FARC is governed by a secretariat, led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda (a.k.a. “Tirofijo”) and six others, including senior military commander Jorge Briceno (a.k.a. “Mono Jojoy”). The FARC is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts.
In February 2002, the group’s slow-moving peace negotiation process with President Andres Pastrana's administration was terminated by Bogota following the FARC's plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian Senator from the aircraft. On 7 August, the FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations—including the United States—attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack.
Strength
Approximately 9,000 to 12,000 armed combatants and several thousand more supporters, mostly in rural areas.
Location/Area of Operation
Colombia, with some activities—extortion, kidnapping, logistics, and R&R—in Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador.Now to the reasoning behind my interest.
It seems that the weapons recovered were not the usual suspects that one might expect to find in a Latin America guerrilla base, the Ak-47s, RPG-7s, UXE, etc- The weapons found were At4 shoulder fired anti-tank weapons.
Even more odd, is the fact that these weapons were produced by Saab Bofors Dynamics, a subsidiary of Saab AB. So lets get this straight, High tech weapons manufactured by a company in Karlskoga, Sweden somehow reach a militant revolutionary group hiding in the forests of Columbia?
If you're confused, than that makes two of us- But dear reader, the plot thickens.The Colombian Government attempted to track these weapons, to see who supplied them to the FARC. Guess what they found? Venezuela.
The Swedish apparently sold these weapons to Venezuela, no later than 2006 according to Jan-Erik Lovgren, the overseer of weapons exports- as he claims "that his country stopped selling weapons to Venezuela in 2006"Venezuela has denied any connections and is convinced that these
allegations are a direct attack on its country.I'm not throwing blame, but it seems that one way or another the FARC got the weapons from Venezuela, as the FARC surely didn't travel to Sweden to get them and Venezuela is only a trip down the old logging road from Columbia.
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