What was on Raúl Reyes’ computer?

Last weekend the Colombian military executed the most significant military strike in South America in a generation, mounting a raid inside of Ecuadorian territory that resulted in the deaths of nearly two-dozen rebels, including Raúl Reyes, the rebels’ number two in command. The raid also represented the first time ever that a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leadership council was killed in action. In short this was a hugely successful military raid for the Colombians.

The raid also produced a diplomatic row of the first order. Immediately after the raid took place, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa protested the action as a violation of Ecuador’s territorial sovereignty, recalled a few diplomats, and placed a few thousand troops along the border. It is at this point that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez became involved, ostensibly to shore up support for Ecuador, its nominal ally, but the lengths to which Mr. Chávez went were absolutely silly, deploying 10 army battalions to the border (via his weekly radio program, no less). Why did Mr. Chávez go to such lengths for a quarrel that did not involve him and was none the less minor in scope and intensity?

The answer to that question might be found on the laptop computers of Raúl Reyes, which were recovered by the Colombian military. The seized files possibly detail a long association between Mr. Chávez and FARC, extending back to when Chávez spent time in prison after a failed coup. The embarrassing revelations could not have come at a worse time for the Venezuelan president. His program of “Bolivarian revolution,” which is a blend of FARC-style paleoleftism with rabble-rousing and macho politics, has reached the point of diminishing returns, and his support among Venezuelans – even those who initially benefited from the redistribution of the country’s wealth – is beginning to weaken.

Mr. Chávez’s theatrics, therefore, can be viewed as merely the time-honored political maneuver of distracting the populace from domestic woes via a manufactured foreign crisis. But this won’t last for long, and after this diplomatic crisis has been put to bed Venezuelans will still be stuck with Chávez, who in any event is becoming more unstable and unpredictable as his grasp on power weakens. For instance, it was but a year ago that Chávez interposed himself between Colombia’s government and FARC, wishing to be perceived as an “honest broker” in peace talks; now he sounds like an unabashed supporter of the rebels. In another age Colombia would construe such language as a declaration of war (and justifiably so), but wisely, Colombian president Álvaro Uribe has not taken Mr. Chávez’s bait (and just so, the situation has not moved from simmer to high heat).

Neither have the region’s other leaders. Personally, I am a little concerned that more Latin American heads of state didn’t congratulate the Colombians more openly on their great achievement of last weekend, but most of the region’s leaders have done a fine job of balancing the demands this incident have placed upon them. On the one hand the territorial sovereignty of Ecuador was violated, and this deserves some measure of reproach, but on the other hand anybody with one whit of common sense realizes that the Colombians reacted in a most measured way to achieve a clearly defined, and limited, goal; their exercise penetrated no farther than necessary and the presence of their troops extended no longer than necessary. The carefully worded communiqués from most Latin heads of state last week accomplished two important goals: they dialed down the heat of the moment by refusing to endorse Mr. Correa’s and Mr. Chávez’s outrageous statements, while at the same time lodging a formal censure for the violation of Ecuadorian territory.

Having done so, the crisis’s first stage looks to be finished. What comes next will largely depend on Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe, who no doubt will press on in his efforts to eradicate FARC and thus end the civil war in his country. But he is also in possession of a great deal of useful information thanks to those laptops, and surely not all of it was released this week. It would be wise to dribble it out over a period of weeks and months in order to keep Mssrs Correa and Chávez on the diplomatic defensive.

But it does seem quite a guessing game has started up concerning just what might be on those laptops, including some very wild rumors and gossip. For example, not long after the raid, the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout was captured in a sting in Thailand by, reportedly, DEA agents impersonating FARC guerillas. Coincidence?

Actually, the answer is probably yes. These stings take time to plan – apparently the one that nabbed Bout had been in the works for two years. So despite the delicious quality of laptops recovered in the Andes leading to the arrest of a big-league Russian arms dealer in Thailand, it is, alas, apparently not so.

Then, just today, Caracas’ El Universal reported on the capture of one Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco, reputed to be the leader of a drug cartel and a member of a Colombian right-wing paramilitary organization. Ah, so perhaps there’s a connection to our laptops? Again, probably not. FARC and Colombian right-wing nut jobs are mortal enemies; it’s hard to believe that hard evidence was gained from the laptops leading to Polanco’s arrest (though I guess stranger things have happened).

For me, aside from watching Mssrs Chávez and Correa sweat, the most interesting thing about the laptops is mention of a uranium transaction involving FARC. What would FARC want with uranium? Some have guessed that it plans (or planned) to build a dirty bomb; others speculate that, like cocaine or guns, the uranium was merely an investment to be sold on to the highest bidder. Whatever the truth of the matter is, it can’t be good for anybody. The sooner Mr. Uribe wipes out FARC the better.