After six years as an underground guerrilla warrior, Jose took a deep breath, raised his arms in the air and slowly strolled toward a Colombian army base. Describing his surrender, he said he thought about Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia warnings: If you turn yourself in, they kill you. “I just want some kind of honest civilian job to put the suffering behind me,” he said days later at a government halfway house. “Guerrilla life is ugly.” Jose is one of 720 members of illegal Colombian armies who had deserted by mid-June this year. They make up a growing wave of men and women who are going AWOL, turning their backs on Colombia’s 40-year conflict, and becoming a cornerstone of President Alvaro Uribe’s administration. Full Story
About OODA Analyst
OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.