Guillermo León Sáenz, alias "Alfonso Cano," the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was shot and killed on Nov. 4 during Operation Odiseo, a joint air force-army raid that was triggered after police intelligence traced Cano's location through an intercepted phone call. Following this blow to the already weakened FARC, Colombia now faces the best opportunity in decades to end Latin America's longest and most intractable conflict.
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Cano, who succeeded long-serving FARC commander "Manuel Marulanda" in 2008, is the first ever Colombian guerrilla chief to be killed in combat. With his demise, FARC has lost not only its military head but also its most prominent political leader and chief ideologue -- a man who studied anthropology and law at university and was a committed communist before becoming a guerrilla.
The unprecedented operation will give a boost to President Juan Manuel Santos, who was battling deteriorating security conditions and demonstrations by remaining FARC forces in places like Cauca, Catatumbo, and Arauca, which had prompted him to replace his defense minister and the military command structure in late August. Somewhat ironically, Cano's death also represents a blow for Álvaro Uribe, the president's hard-line predecessor, who has transformed into a vocal critic of the government and who had recently suggested that the morale in the armed forces was dwindling under Santos. Cano's death will quiet such speculations.
Cano's passing, which follows a series of deaths of high-ranking FARC leaders over the last three years, has brought the group to its weakest point in its 47-year history. But it will not precipitate an overnight collapse. Led by a seven-member secretariat, FARC has shown in the past that it is able to overcome leadership losses and adapt to changing circumstances. After several near misses over the last two years, Cano's killing is not unexpected, and FARC might well have contingency plans at hand.
But given the strain inflicted by the relentless military pressure over the last years, FARC will struggle to replace him. The key question will be whether the new leader has a strong enough grip over the group to maintain its cohesion, preventing it from disintegrating into uncoordinated units driven entirely by criminal business interests. As no replacement will have the internal standing of Cano, who spent 33 years as a guerrilla, this risk is real.
His removal, however, could also pave the way for the appointment of a less intransigent leader. The leadership contest will probably come down to two secretariat members who go by the aliases Timochenko and Iván Márquez. Compared with Cano, who could not shake his reputation as a radical, both of these men could be more receptive to a negotiated end to the conflict. Marquez, in particular, played a prominent role in the Caguán negotiations that ended in 2002.
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