http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20111107_03

The killing of FARC leader
Nobel laureate Barack Obama has added another feather to his cap. His government has been instrumental in dealing a paralysing blow to another guerrilla outfit posing a serious threat to the US. Leader of FARC or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Alfonso Cano--his real name was Guillermo Leon Saenz--has been killed in a raid conducted by the Colombian troops with the help of the US. The location of Cano's camp was traced with the help of telephone intercepts and the army swiftly moved in after the place was bombed, we are told.
Calling the elimination of Cano the most devastating blow to FARC, a jubilant Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has called upon other guerrillas to give up arms or choose between 'tomb and prison'. Washington has welcomed his call and it is expected to step up military assistance to Bogota so that Santos could take on FARC in a bigger way.
FARC has been banned in the US and Europe as a terrorist organisation. Why the US has gone all out to destroy it is understandable. Funds for FARC's terrorist war camouflaged as a Marxist struggle mainly come from the sale of narcotics that find their way into the US, which considers Marxism as dangerous as narcotics. Washington has been pumping military aid worth billions of US dollars into Colombia over the years. Never has Washington genuinely encouraged any Colombian government to try to make peace with FARC. But, the US, as one of the Tokyo Co-Chairs, did its damnedest to coerce Sri Lanka into making peace with the world's most ruthless terrorist outfit, the LTTE, also banned in the US and the EU for its criminal activities.
Now that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has finally realised the need for lumping all terrorists together in trying to remove the scourge of terrorism, it is hoped that Washington will not fail to notice a striking similarity between FARC and the LTTE besides the use of terror; both of them have raised funds for their terrorist operations, military or otherwise, from the narcotics trade.
Two and a half months after the LTTE's military defeat, an Indian newspaper, Daily News and Analysis (DNA), in an article titled, Drug world out to grab LTTE's thriving cartel, reported, quoting a former Director General of India's Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Swaraj Puri, on August 4, 2009, that the killing of Prabhakaran had created a vacuum in the narcotics operations in the region and several terrorist groups were vying with one another to fill it. DNA quoted a former Director General of India's Border Security Force, Prakash Singh, as having said, "India is located between the Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle which are the largest producers of opium globally. There are many organised drug mafias, operating from India, who have knowledge of the vast market the LTTE catered to. They would try to take it over. Separatists, too, would try and control it to fund their activities." DNA report further said: "At a recent seminar on global terrorism, Sundeep Waslekar, President of the Strategic Foresight Group, said the LTTE had one of the most sophisticated drug cartels. Their ships were the best in the business and it was a well-oiled syndicate. After Prabhakaran's death, this network is likely to be taken over by other cartels."
The LTTE has earned notoriety for its money laundering operations as well. It has invested a great deal of its drug money through various fronts. It has been established that Galleon Hedge Fund chief Raj Rajaratnam sentenced to jail for insider trading in the US, financed the LTTE to the tune of millions of US dollars and facilitated the investment of its funds. Although the LTTE's narcotics operations have been badly affected because the Sri Lanka Navy destroyed many of the outfit's ships used for gun running and transporting narcotics, one should not make the mistake of assuming that its narcotics smuggling racket has come to a halt. Some of the semi-independent cells the LTTE established to ensure flexibility in carrying out narcotics trade internationally are believed to be still in operation as those responsible for running them are alive and have the wherewithal to remain in business. The LTTE rump cannot depend entirely on its reserves and contributions from its backers to fund the on-going expensive diplomatic and propaganda offensives against Sri Lanka. It seems to be getting big money from somewhere, somehow.
Therefore, while trying to destroy FARC to cut off one main narcotics supply route to the US, Washington ought to be wary of lending itself as a cat's paw to the international arm of the LTTE which is notorious for gun running, narcotics smuggling and money laundering and seeking revenge for the killing of its leader, Prabhakaran, who was far worse than Cano.
Courtesy : The Island