How Columbia Gained From Smashing a Terror Base

This is a spot of good news, from The Economist:

A YEAR ago Colombia’s neighbours condemned it for sending troops into Ecuador to bomb and overrun a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The raid was a success: one of the FARC’s senior leaders, Raúl Reyes, was killed and Colombian forces grabbed three laptops containing vital intelligence, including evidence of the guerrillas’ contacts with the leftist governments of Ecuador and Venezuela. Since then Colombia’s American-backed drive to crush the FARC has made further progress. The guerrillas have lost other leaders and suffered desertions. A group of prominent hostages they were holding was rescued in July. On March 2nd the army said it had killed another FARC leader, José de Jesús Guzmán, alias “Gaitán”, suspected of organising bombings in the capital, Bogotá.

After last year’s raid, Ecuador and Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Colombia and sent troops to their borders with it. Other South American countries, even moderate Brazil, condemned the incursion. Two regional clubs, the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Rio Group, expressed disapproval. However, within weeks of the raid, Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe was again on backslapping terms with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Mr Uribe smoothed things over with Brazil on a recent visit there. Relations with Ecuador remain cut but overall, says Alfredo Rangel, a security analyst in Bogotá, Colombia has paid a “small diplomatic price”.

As if the FARC didn't have it coming.