A winning duo, they say. Indigenous volunteers, alongside the army: Colombian commandos, among the most experienced in the world, also played a key role in the miraculous rescue of four children lost in the jungle for 40 days.
“It was a successful amalgamation of indigenous knowledge and military art,” praised General Pedro Sanchez, who led the search operations, on Sunday.
Skin tanned by the sun, frank gaze and direct speech, General Sanchez is also the boss of the Joint Special Operations Command (CCOES) of the Colombian armed forces.
It was his special forces men who took part in the exhausting daily marches in the hostile jungle of Caqueta, where the plane carrying the children and three adults (including their mother) who died in the accident crashed on May 1.
For them “it was a different mission” from the usual fights against the multiple armed groups operating in the country.
Rescuing children? “We always save and protect lives, including during our combat missions,” said General Sanchez. As if to defend an institution often blamed for the summary executions committed during the long internal conflict which bled the country, its collusion with far-right paramilitaries or the complicity of officers with drug traffickers.
Here, “fail or give up was not an option”, he said, and it was his men, “the most trained soldiers in the Colombian army” but whom “nobody knows in the media”, who accomplished the “impossible”.
The CCOES is a bit like the Colombian equivalent of the French Special Operations Command (COS) or the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) with its famous green berets and other “Delta Force”.
Calling himself in his videos for the public attention the “guard of honor of Colombia”, his motto is “Union, integrity, victory”.
Created in 2007, the CCOES brings together elite elements from the Army, Air Force and Navy, and works in close cooperation with the North American ally.
According to articles in the specialized press, it would have around 3,000 men, with three components, land, urban and sea, and a fourth air support component.
Their primary mission is “the planning and execution of special operations inside and outside the national territory against terrorist groups, high-value targets and organized crime”, explained to AFP a Colombian military source.
CCOES took part in the capture in October 2021 of “Otoniel”, the leader of the Clan del Golfo, the largest cartel in the country.
Trained in nursing, but also in search and rescue, “they were entrusted with this mission in the Amazon, not only because of the difficult geographical conditions of the terrain and the difficulty of access, but also because the dissidents of FARC guerrillas are operating in this region,” the source said.
There are other special forces units within the Colombian armed forces, such as the marine commandos, or the COPES (equivalent to the French GIGN) and the formidable “Jungle Commandos” of the police. In Colombia, the police are under the authority of the Ministry of Defence.
These soldiers, in particular the “Jungle Commandos”, are “among the best elite units in the world”, deciphers for AFP a foreign expert who meets them regularly.
“They are volunteers for the most dangerous missions. They have an ascetic life, do not receive a bonus, can spend several months in the forest. It is extremely hard”, underlines this source who requested anonymity.
“Being a commando in the jungle in Colombia means being sure that you will know the experience of fire at very short distance, and often in numerical inferiority (…), it’s very risky”.
What motivates them? “Patriotism, they cry while listening to their national anthem, and simply the pride of belonging to an elite unit”.
“They eat little, they drink little, they sleep little, all with high exposure to insects, snakes and critters of all kinds”, details the same expert, judging their “level of health exposure very high”.
“Tactically, the environment and the opponent prevent them from having the slightest comfort. They rarely sleep in a hammock, without a tarpaulin, without anything. They live almost permanently wet in very degraded conditions so as not to make noise on contact. of the adversary”.
“One of their strengths is that they have very good level nurses. They have experience of very advanced care in extreme environments and of rescue in the middle of combat, few armies have this experience”, points out the same source.
“Their weak point is their sometimes too brutal mode of action, with a great habituation to danger and therefore a high risk-taking, in particular vertical assaults by helicopter to do the most damage to the adversary”.
“In fact, these soldiers are the quintessence of the profession of soldier, in terms of humility, hardiness and commitment”, concludes the same source, “all with techniques that are not too elaborate and limited means compared to armies western”.
06/12/2023 11:04:48 – Bogotá (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
