New documents that a Colombian government official says were retrieved from the computer of slain guerrilla leader Raul Reyes show FARC's ties in Latin America may be more widespread than previously reported.
Some of the documents, obtained by The Miami Herald, indicate that a leading member of Ecuador's constitutional assembly, charged with reshaping that country'spolitical landscape, may be a longtime supporter of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Maria Augusta Calle -- also the head of Venezuela's Telesur tv network in Ecuador and a supporter of President Hugo Chavez -- let the rebels use her bank account for at least one transaction and helped promote their ideas through another news agency she directs, the Colombian offical said.
In two e-mails dated June and July 2006, a woman who signs as "Alicia" corresponds with someone she calls "friend" in one of her e-mails and "Dario" in the other. She talks about personal matters, current affairs and media strategies.
According to the Colombian official -- who requested anomymity as a condition to discuss the documents -- "Alicia" is a code name for Calle and the letters were intended for Reyes, the FARC's spokesman and primary peace negotiator who was killed March 1 in a Colombian military raid of a rebel hideout in Ecuador.
In one of the newly disclosed e-mails, "Alicia" talks about her ties to the Venezuelan embassy in Quito. She says she is hopeful she will soon get a job with the Venezuelans and offers to broker communications between the rebels and the embassy.
Calle -- whose resume says she is a sociologist and journalist -- was appointed head of the Ecuadorean division of the Chavez-supported Telesur network sometime in 2007.
The Miami Herald has not been able to independently verify the documents or "Alicia's" identity. The Colombian government has asked Interpol to review and authenticate the documents and is awaiting the results, expected within two weeks.
Calls to Calle's cellphone went unanswered on Saturday. Two e-mails sent to a Yahoo! address bounced back, and two messages left on the cellphone were not returned.
In the last month, the Ecuadorean press has mentioned Calle, elected to the Constitutional Assembly in 2007, as an alleged FARC supporter. At the end of March, the newsmagazine Vistazo published photos of Calle with FARC leader Rodrigo Granda, Reyes' daughter, Lidia Devia, and Nubia Calderon, alias "Esperanza," the FARC's representative in Ecuador.
The assembly member, who calls herself "a leftist journalist," has denied having ties to the FARC. She has said that she was photographed with FARC members while carrying out her duties as a journalist.
If confirmed, Calle's links would be yet another indication that the rebels' tentacles have spread far across the Colombian border and reached various sectors of Ecuador.
Previously disclosed documents reportedly seized from Reyes' computer have linked the FARC to cabinet members of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and suggested that the leftist rebels, who have been fighting the Colombian state for 40 years, contributed $100,000 to his presidential campaign.
The documents allege that Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea met with Reyes as recently as January and that he told the rebel leader that Correa's government was willing to post friendlier Ecuadorean security forces along the border with Colombia, where FARC rebels are known to seek refuge while eluding the Colombian military.
Correa has denied having any links with the FARC, while Larrea said that since December he had been actively negotiating the release of hostages held by the FARC at Correa's request.
Although Calle is not considered part of Correa's inner circle, she is a member of his Alianza Pais party and is a well-known figure in Ecuador's political arena. The Telesur network she oversees is viewed as a propaganda outlet for socialist ideals.
Calle's alleged connection to the FARC comes into focus in an e-mail where she is identified by her full name as the holder of an account at Ecuador's Banco del Pichincha. In that letter, dated April 2007, a woman who signs as "Gloria" asks someone she calls "my dear and adored little old man" to deposit $2,000 in Calle's account, to cover a surgery for Gloria, among other medical expenses.
The Colombian official who reviewed the documents said authorities believe "Gloria" is Gloria Marin, Reyes' wife and the daughter of the FARC's main leader, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda. The Miami Herald could not verify if Marin had any medical procedures in early 2007.
The Colombian official pointed to another of the documents obtained by The Herald as an indication that "Alicia" and Calle may be the same person. In that e-mail, under the headline "An article by Alicia," an unidentified sender pasted an opinion column signed by "Maria Augusta Calle, ALTERCOM."
ALTERCOM -- www.altercom.org -- is an Ecuadorean news agency that promotes itself as "an agency of alternative information." Calle is a former director and current editorial board member of the agency.
One of the e-mails talks at length about the role of ALTERCOM in the rebels' media strategy. Although the e-mail is not signed, the Colombian official said authorities believe it was written by "Alicia."
"Since we created ALTERCOM . . . we saw the need to create a space not belonging fully to the FARC to broaden the fan of information. That is, we thought that it was convenient to generate opinions from different, apparently unconnected, spaces," the e-mail says.
"That's how I see the work of the different media spaces in the media war . . . I don't want to brag, but in five years, we have convinced a lot of people, even from the right, to join the anti-imperialist fight and understand your fight."
The writer also defends herself against an accusation that ALTERCOM does not distribute the FARC's communiques.
"I have to indicate that [the communiques] are distributed from ALTERCOM to media outlets and local journalists, that is, to 639 addresses. In fact if you go through the local press -- El Comercio, El Universal, Ecuador Inmediato, many radios and some TV stations -- you will find the communiques."
Calle also is president of the Constitutional Assembly's commission "Sovereignty, International Relations and Integration," which, she said, recently finished drafting an article that will ban the presence of foreign military bases on Ecuadorean soil.
She has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. military base in Manta, on Ecuador's Pacific coast. The United States has used the base since November 1999 under a treaty in which Ecuador leased the facilities to the U.S. Air Force for anti-drug operations. The treaty expires next year. The Ecuadorean government has said the base's license will not be renewed.
In a speech delivered in March in Venezuela, Calle said she is the victim of a "media strategy," in part because of her stance on Manta.
She spoke at the "media terrorism" conference organized by Chavez to counter the Inter American Press Association gathering in Caracas at the same time.
"They say that this lady has a FARC mandate to close down the Manta base," Calle said, speaking of herself in the third person. "The objective is to warn the Ecuadorean government that it cannot make the changes in peace. The objective is to scare us."
First in a series on documents found on FARC computers. Coming Thursday: The Venezuelan Connection.
