P L A Y B O O K
COIN Series,
Volume I
by
Volko Ruhnke
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Colombia
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Guide to COIN Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Role Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1-Player Example of Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Non-Player FARC March Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
What if a Non-Player Cannot Op? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Design Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Event Text and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Selected Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Counter Scan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Card List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Spaces List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
© 2012 GMT Games, LLC • P.O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308 • www.GMTGames.com
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Andean Abyss
GUIDE TO COIN OPERATIONS
Strategy Notes for the Government
by Joel Toppen
Here is an introduction to the forces and some key actions available
to the Government Faction.
Troops
Troops are your workhorses. They’re going to do all the
heavy lifting for you. Essentially, Troops are your pieces
that can be moved into spaces to search (Sweep) and de-
stroy (Assault) Insurgent Guerrillas and Bases.
Troops are brought into the game through the Train Operation.
Troops can move via:
• Sweep Operation—into an adjacent City or Department to find
(Activate) Insurgent Guerrillas.
• Patrol Operation—into and/or along LoCs to find (Activate)
Insurgent Guerrillas and perhaps kill them in one such space.
• Airlift Special Activity—any 3 troops (unlimited with Black-
hawks Government Capability) move from anywhere to anywhere
on the map. Do not underestimate the effectiveness of this Special
Activity!
Troops kill Insurgent Guerrillas via the Assault Operation, but only
Active guerillas.
Guerrillas must be Activated by a Sweep (or some action they them-
selves undertook) before Government Troops can eliminate them.
Also, through their presence, Troops can project Government control
of a space in a Control Phase of a Propaganda card. But, and this is
important, by themselves, Troops cannot alter Support/Opposition
status in an area. They need Police support to effect that. In the
Redeploy Phase, Troops in a LoC or Department space without a
Government Base must deploy out of that area (even if that space
is Government controlled). Thus their staying power outside a City
is limited.
Lastly, Troops, by their presence in a space, can inhibit the ability
of the AUC and FARC to make use of the Extort Special Action.
Also, when positioned with Support or on a LoC, Troops can spot
(Activate) marching Guerrillas.
Police
Police are very, very important Government pieces. While
much less mobile than Troops, Police give the Government
player crucial positional staying power.
Here’s what Police do for you:
• Police cannot move with Troops on a Sweep (unless the National
Defense & Security Council Government Capability is in play).
But they can, if already positioned in the space, assist the Troops
in the space being swept. Police cubes count when factoring the
effect of a Sweep.
• Police inhibit the ability of the Cartels to use the Cultivate Special
Action. Police can also inhibit FARC from using the Kidnapping
Special Action. Like Troops, Police on LoCs or in spaces with
Support can spot (Activate) marching Guerrillas (very important to
protect the Cities), and inhibit FARC and the AUC from Extorting
in a space.
• Police can be used to Patrol LoCs to activate Guerrillas on LoCs,
and even conduct an Assault on a LoC as a part of the Sweep.
• Within Cities, Police can participate in an Assault.
• Police, like Troops, can protect a Government Base from Attack
(cubes must be removed before a Base is removed).
So far they probably don’t sound terribly useful to the player. There
is, however, one crucial role Police have that makes them indispens-
able: Police enable the Government player to conduct Civic Actions
during a Propaganda card, and also as part of a Train Operation.
Civic Action is the means by which the Government player degrades
Opposition and/or adds/improves Support—necessary to fulfill the
Government victory conditions. At least 1 Police cube is required
to conduct Civic Action in a Propaganda Phase or as a postscript
to a Train Operation.
Police cannot move by Airlift or (usually) Sweep. They can only
be moved onto LoCs and/or Cities from an adjacent space during a
Patrol. If LoCs are free of Insurgent Guerrillas, Police can continue
to move from LoC to LoC and City to LoC, etc., until a guerrilla is
encountered or the player chooses to stop moving. But getting Police
into Departments is not quite as simple and requires some planning.
So how do you get Police to where you need them without using a
Patrol Operation? There are two methods principally:
Training—You can get Police into a space where they are needed by
simply undertaking the Train Operation and Training Police in that
space. For Cities, this is not a problem as you can Train in any City.
Training in a Department, however, requires a bit of planning.
In order to place cubes by Training in a Department, you must have
a Base there. In order to get a Base into that Department, you must
first have three cubes in that Department. OK, so how do you get
cubes into a Department so you can place a Base? Typically, you will
undertake a Sweep Operation to move Troops into a Department.
You could also use the Airlift Special Activity to fly an additional
3 Troops there. Then, in a subsequent turn, you undertake a Train
Operation in that Department, only you don’t place cubes; instead,
you remove 3 cubes and place a Base.
Once you have a Base, in a future turn, you can Train and place
Police into that Department. If you have Troops and Police and more
Government pieces than any other Faction in that Department, you
may also pay for Civic Action in order to improve Support (even
without a Base).
Redeploy—During the Redeploy Phase of a Propaganda card, the
Government player can reposition any and all of his Police to any
LoCs or any space with Government Control.
Adjacency does not apply during this Phase, so this is a very pow-
erful opportunity to move otherwise less-mobile Police around the
board. The player must plan very carefully here lest he be forced to
waste Resources and Operational tempo later on.
And so, in short, the Government player may reposition his Police
preemptively and for free during the Redeploy Phase. The Govern-
ment player may place new Police reactively and for a considerable
cost in Resources when undertaking a Train Operation during an
event card play. Police enable the Government to gain precious
support necessary to fulfilling his victory conditions. This then, will
likely free up Troops to deploy elsewhere against Insurgents. Police
give the Government player staying power.
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Andean Abyss
Bases
Bases are crucial to Government success in that they
provide the only means by which the Government
player can maintain a constant Troop presence in the
countryside. The Government player has only three
Bases they can establish. Don’t waste them!
Where do you need Bases? You need them in Departments. You
do not need them in Cities. Why? Cities, are de facto Bases. Bases
enable the player to Train Troops and/or Police in that space. Since
you an already do that in a City, you do not need to give up three
cubes and use one of your three Base pieces there! The only good
a Base will do the Government in a City is deny the ability to place
a Base in that City to one of the Insurgent Factions. But since the
Government only has three Bases with which to work, this seems
to be a wasted use of a Base.
Why do you need Bases? You need Bases in order to Train Police
and Troops in a Department. In order to decrease Opposition and
increase Support for the Government, the Government player must
undertake Civic Actions either in conjunction with a Train Operation
or during a Propaganda card. In order to undertake a Civic Action,
one or more Police must be in that space. In order to get Police into
a Department where there are presently no Police, they must usually
be Trained there. To be Trained there, you need a Base.
Bases also allow Troops to remain in a Department during the
Redeploy Phase of a Propaganda card. And so if the Government
player is still fighting to wrest control of a Department from an
Insurgent faction when a Propaganda card is resolved, the presence
of a Base in that Department allows the Government player to keep
his Troops in the field.
So there you have it! Bases are one more important cog in the
Government’s machinery.
ROLE SUMMARIES
Government
Situation. Colombia is at the edge of abyss. Illegal armed
groups—flush with drug money—are multiplying in the
countryside. Terror, sabotage, assassination, and kidnapping
have reached alarming rates, and little of the rural population sup-
ports the national Government. Only a full-out, whole-of-Govern-
ment counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign can restore law and
order to your nation.
Goal. Expand the Government’s legitimacy throughout the country.
The more population that supports you, the greater your chance to
win.
Tools. You can train forces to outnumber and assault the enemy
with fearsome firepower. But guerrillas must first be flushed out
from underground by sweeping cities or rural departments where
they hide. Your troops are highly mobile by ground or air lift but
must return to bases or city garrisons. Police—once established in
a department—can stay. Police and troops together can conduct
civic action to build your popular support. But COIN requires
resources—be sure to control the country’s cities, pipelines, and
other lines of communications and cultivate foreign aid to ensure
your war chest remains full.
Deals. It’s tempting to single-mindedly hammer the FARC and let
the cartels and AUC do their thing, since FARC’s political interests
directly oppose yours. But the smaller insurgents can quietly gain
momentum and win. Imagine a temporary truce in which you leave
FARC free to fight off the dread paramilitaries, while your eradica-
tion of the Cartels’ fields helps FARC politically and fills your aid
coffers.
Tip. COIN is a gradual campaign—plan your territorial control and
civic action several operations ahead.
FARC
Situation. Colombia’s popular revolution is ready to tran-
sition to the mobile phase. The Government has abandoned
the countryside. Your revolutionary movement—the
FARC—is drawing resources from Colombia’s drug economy. It’s
time to move: rally your People’s Army and march on the strongholds
of reaction!
Goal. Build opposition to the Government to prepare its collapse.
The more of the country’s population you can swing from support
to opposition while sustaining your logistics, the better chance
you’ll win.
Tools. That probably will mean infiltrating cities with your guerril-
las to agitate the bourgeoisie into uprising. Wherever you control
the population by outnumbering all enemy forces with your fighters
and logistical bases, you can agitate. Even where you can’t control
territory, you can terrorize the populace into resenting Government
fecklessness. To operate, you’ll need resources: extort controlled
areas or kidnap and ransom resources away from wealthy drug lords
or Government collaborators. If the Government or the reactionary
paramilitaries come after you, ambush them first!
Deals. You share the countryside with the cartels and can protect
drug Bases by making the areas dangerous for troops or police. You
share with your Insurgent enemies an interest in a weak Govern-
ment—their terror can erode Government support and aid; you in
turn can limit the growth of your logistical bases to placate the AUC.
Even the Government may help you—giving you a pause to trim
the AUC or Cartels when too strong or doing so itself.
Tip. Strike the country’s lines of communications—they are the
arteries of Government resources and maneuver.
AUC
Situation. Colombia’s Government has proven incapable
of controlling the leftist scourge of the FARC. You will step
into the security vacuum and use the terrorists’ own tactics
against them. Funded by landowners who have suffered an epi-
demic of FARC kidnapping, you will rally the autodefensa militias
under the AUC banner and cleanse the land of leftist infrastruc-
ture—or at least provide a counterweight.
Goal. Eliminate FARC logistical bases while building your own. The
more disparity in AUC’s favor, the closer you are to winning.
Tools. Your guerrillas are every bit as effective as the FARC’s,
though often less numerous, and can ambush to guarantee a suc-
cessful attack. Your terror operations enable you to eliminate even
protected FARC logistical bases through assassination, neutralize
local opposition to the Government to allow you rally forces, and
even trim back popular support of and foreign aid for the Government
when it’s getting too strong. You can rally your forces in relatively
safe Government areas and extort there for resources, then march
a guerrilla army into a FARC stronghold to attack or infiltrate indi-
vidual units to terrorize.
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Andean Abyss
Deals. You can help the Government by going where it can’t: Your
informants enable you to attack underground guerrillas, your terror
instantly dampens FARC-based popular opposition, and you can
take on FARC within demilitarized zones. But don’t dismiss hand-
shakes with other Insurgents. FARC rallying directly affects your
victory—offer truce. And your assassinations can easily target the
Cartels’ business—extract drug shipments for “protection”.
Tip. You’re a remora on the Government shark. Swim along, but
be ready for the day it shakes you off and bites.
Cartels
Situation. You have taken over Colombia’s illegal narcot-
ics industry. The bad news is that the Government is gear-
ing up its “war on drugs”, and the more it eradicates your
drug production bases, the more gringo aid it gets. The good news
is that the country is at the height of a civil war, and there are
plenty of other illegal groups around to keep the Government busy
and off your back.
Goal. Make money. And grow your productive base to make sure
that you can keep making money. The more resources and bases
you accumulate, the more likely you are to win.
Tools. You are a commercial insurgency and can attack and terror-
ize your enemies like the rest. But your gunmen are less numerous
and can’t protect everything you own. Your strength is that you are
the fastest growing enterprise in the country: cultivate and process
until you’re rich. Then bribe to neutralize whatever enemy guer-
rillas, police, or bases stand in your way. Process drugs and use
profits from the shipments to grease your operational skids and
grow even faster.
Deals. You got the drugs and the money, so you can get the deals.
Resources are transferable, and—sooner or later—you should have
garnered more than you need. Use them to buy friends. Or offer to
process shipments for other Insurgents—or even for a staged Gov-
ernment drug bust! Or agree to bribe away whatever threatens your
enemy—anything to keep the heat off your coca fields.
Tip. The potent Medellín gang just got shot up, so you are start-
ing weak. Try to get a lot of bases and shipments ready to earn
resources—but not so many as to draw unwanted attention!
27
Andean Abyss
DESIGN NOTES
ANDEAN ABYSS seeks to depict Colombia’s recent struggle in a
game that captures key principles of insurgency and counterinsurgen-
cy (COIN). Such principles include a focus on legitimacy (popular
support or opposition), the contest between government firepower
and guerrilla information advantage, and multiparty warfare. I aimed
to present the topic via rules no harder to learn than Labyrinth: The
War on Terror and with enthralling gameplay spanning multiplayer,
2-player, and solitaire. These Notes go into some of the reasoning
and history behind the game and its mechanics.
Origins
Why a COIN Series?
Insurgency is the most widespread form of warfare today. Indeed,
though military establishments persist in regarding it as “irregu-
lar” or “unconventional”, guerrilla war has been the commonest
of conflicts throughout history, occurring in one variety or another
in almost all known societies.
—David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency, 2010
Much like the study of warfare (in my country at least), board
wargaming traditionally has focused on conventional conflict. Even
within the realm of modern conflict, designers often choose hypo-
thetical conventional wars rather than real, ongoing insurgencies.
This fact leaves fields of virgin snow for the game designer who
would venture into the complicated topic of insurgency—the effort
of armed groups to use both violent and non-violent means to affect
political affairs within a state. I design and play wargames in part
to grapple with historically relevant issues, and the frequency of
insurgency in our life-times surely makes it among the most relevant
sorts to conflicts to us today.
Perhaps because insurgency (like terrorism) so intimately blends
politics with the use of force, too few boardgames have succeeded in
adequately representing even the fundamentals of counterinsurgency
(or COIN), such as the complex relationship between area control
and political legitimacy, to name just one.
The first board wargame that I came across that delved substantially
into COIN was Nick Karp’s Vietnam 1965-1975 (Victory Games,
1984), and once I played it, I was hooked on gaming guerrilla
ambushes in the jungle, airborne sweeps, pacification, and the rest.
But, for all its merits in depicting COIN, Vietnam still focused on
the maneuvers and clashes of big military units, with political affairs
as a backdrop, and in any event took several hundred hours to play
if its political-strategic aspects were to be included.
The greatest recent advances in boardgaming COIN, in my view, are
to be found in the designs of Canadian Brian Train. Brian’s wargames
feature insurgency itself (rather than a hex-and-counter tradition)
as their starting perspective, then build accessible simulations from
there. His Algeria: The War of Independence, 1954-1962 (Fiery
Dragon, 2006) more than any other game, provided the conceptual
basis for ANDEAN ABYSS. ANDEAN ABYSS’s mechanics rendering
asymmetric Operations, Troops and Police, Underground Guer-
rillas, Government Redeploy and Guerrilla March, Civic Action,
territorial Control, Terror and political Support all have starting
points in Algeria.
The menu of topics for future volumes in the COIN Series is rich.
For Volume II, Cuba Libre, ANDEAN ABYSS playtester Jeff Gross-
man and I adapted the Colombia game to Fidel Castro’s 1957-1958
insurgency. Cuba Libre exploits the same core system for ease of
learning, but portrays a far different insurgency and four factions
that each plays quite differently from those in ANDEAN ABYSS. I
plan the COIN Series in future to visit Africa, East Asia, and the
Mid-East—design time and gamer interest being the only limits.
Why Colombia?
With the wide menu of topics available, I chose Colombia for COIN
Volume I both because it is among those topics under-treated in con-
flict simulation and because of the remarkable richness of its story.
As far as I know, only one other boardgame about Colombia’s recent
insurgency exists, Crisis Games: Colombia by Karsten and Kaarin
Engelmann, (published in 1990, coincidentally, from my own town
of Vienna, Virginia). And that, printed over 20 years ago, predates
the period that ANDEAN ABYSS depicts.
The violence has worsened in Colombia, as the insurgent armed
struggle has become more entrenched and widespread. The most
violent zones of the country are those where two or more of the ac-
tors involved in social conflict—guerrillas, drug cartels, and illegal
self-defense (paramilitary) groups—are active.
—Colombian Labyrinth, RAND Project Air Force, 2001
Colombia’s recent history features a full array of combatants of
different objectives and tactics, ample to fuel a 4-way asymmetric
multiplayer game. The Colombian state in the mid-1990s faced
several simultaneous and well-resourced insurgencies—the FARC
and its ally ELN, the Cali Cartel and its successors, and the AUC.
By the mid-2000s, the state had contained each of them as significant
threats to governance. How? I wanted to explore that.
It was in the period chosen for the game that the Colombian Gov-
ernment learned how to do COIN—jointly by military and civil
institutions, extending state presence throughout the national terri-
tory, building legitimacy by taking on all illegal armed groups. (See
“Why does only the Government get permanent events?” below.)
According to some researchers, Colombia is a model COIN success,
and indeed the Colombians are now teaching other states.
Why multiplayer?
My previous designs, Labyrinth and Wilderness War, feature 2-way
asymmetry of roles as a central theme. I wished my next design to
take asymmetry to a new level: 4-way, including a solitaire experi-
ence that would bring home the complex interplay of many interests
that is COIN.
Counterinsurgency is fundamentally a competition between many
groups, each seeking to mobilize the population in support of its
agenda—counterinsurgency is always more than two-sided.
—Kilcullen, “Twenty-eight Articles”, reproduced in Counter-
insurgency
In ANDEAN ABYSS, the 4-way contest allows exploration, for
example, of the ambiguous, multi-faceted relationships between
Colombia’s Government and the right-wing AUC paramilitaries,
and between the FARC and the drug cartels. How long do such
28
Andean Abyss
uncomfortable bedfellows cooperate? When do they turn on each
other? Such decision points become key features of the game’s nar-
rative, as they were in history.
As in Labyrinth, ends (victory conditions) differ among roles just
as do ways and means (operations and forces). I had played Joe
Miranda’s Battle for Baghdad (MCS Group, 2010) and was taken
with its 6-way, overlapping victory conditions: each player con-
stantly has to watch the progress of every other against the unique
conditions of each, and more than one player can be making progress
without directly impeding the other. The play tension and diplomatic
depth offered thereby are tremendous. ANDEAN ABYSS attempts
something similar (if more modest, with just four factions).
The greatest design challenge was to render such a multi-faction
contest in a solitaire system. ANDEAN ABYSS provides multiple,
asymmetric algorithms for solitaire play—I hope in an accessible
enough form that solo players, once used to the play aids, will find
the non-player routines well worth the effort of implementing. They
generate a kaleidoscopic narrative, in which “bots” react to one
another as well as to the player. At the same time, the separate non-
player algorithms allow two or three players to represent Colombia’s
4-way conflict in a variety of player combinations.
An incidental benefit of ANDEAN ABYSS’s role-specific non-player
system is that any player but the Government can leave a game in
progress, and that game can continue with the system smoothly
taking over the departed player’s role (a benefit revealed to good
effect during pre-publication demonstrations of ANDEAN ABYSS
at game stores and conventions).
Core Mechanics
Why no hands of cards?
ANDEAN ABYSS is not in the Card-Driven Game (CDG) family. But
it does draw from CDG tradition the exemplary ability of cards with
choices between operations and events to bring detailed political and
economic occurrences into a wargame’s narrative without fuss.
Instead of dealing hands of cards, ANDEAN ABYSS offers events one
at a time from a face-down deck. This puts the focus not on “what’s
in my hand” but on “what’s happening on the map,” which seems
a more direct representation of managing an insurgent or counter-
insurgent campaign. Meanwhile, the unique design of the game’s
event card sequence of play interweaves the event and operations
choices with the exertion of influence by a faction with the initiative
over the options of an adversary or ally.
With both the current and upcoming event card exposed, and me-
chanics such as lingering “Govt Capabilities” events, ANDEAN
ABYSS retains the painful tradeoffs between short- and long-term
benefits of great CDGs. But player interaction and development
of board position dominate rather than hand or deck management.
Insurgency and COIN are long-term strategies, and players who
build their position on the map of Colombia toward the endgame
tend to succeed.
Why so many dual-use events?
In the development of Labyrinth, Joel Toppen and I found ourselves
adding more and more events that featured effects that differed
depending on which side played them. Because of Labyrinth’s
mechanic of card play triggering an enemy event, and therefore the
need to have a majority of events dedicated to only one side or the
other, these dual-use events had to be limited in number. But they
appeared so useful to represent alternative historical paths and the
ambiguous nature of real-world occurrences, that I set dual-use
events as the norm for ANDEAN ABYSS.
Dual-use events proved particularly helpful in representing the
historical and ideological controversy over Colombia’s struggle
prevalent in the sources that I had available (see “Fantasy of the
Right—or Left?” below). But these event cards represent not only
alternative interpretations, but also alternative history (that which
did not occur, but could have) and double-edged swords (uncertain-
ties over which of two effects might most influence the course of
conflict).
Where dual-use events at least in part represent alternative interpreta-
tions, I have sought to provide representatives of both views in the
event background notes and their sourcing in this playbook.
Why different sets of operations?
Beyond giving each faction its own historical identity and flavor,
ANDEAN ABYSS tries to model the asymmetric contest between
insurgent guerrillas and government security forces. The most central
distinction in this regard is the pitting of the insurgents’ information
advantage against the counterinsurgents’ firepower advantage—and
the nature of insurgent and COIN operations in the game reflects
this distinction.
Government forces must sweep to expose (find) underground
guerrillas before organizing a strike upon them—often giving the
insurgents a chance to escape first. Guerrillas know who and where
their enemies are, but their attacks are weak compared to govern-
ment troop assaults.
Since the insurgents get their information advantage from melding
with the local population, a hostile population can undo that advan-
tage by reporting on (exposing) guerrillas that march into their area.
Even a neutral population will quietly tolerate armed forces in their
midst, so allowing guerrillas to move safely.
These game mechanics represent the real-life cat-and-mouse char-
acteristic of COIN engagement, whether in an army “search and
destroy” mission against guerrilla columns in the jungle hinterland
or a police investigation of an urban underground.
Why does only the Government get permanent events?
In ANDEAN ABYSS, the Government alone may receive potent
improvements to capability that last the remainder of the game.
The insurgents, in contrast, can achieve only a momentum that
dissipates after a single campaign. This difference represents the
fact that, as mentioned above, the period of Colombian conflict
portrayed was fundamentally characterized by a steady building of
the Government’s COIN skill and capacity.
That building capacity rested on unifying COIN into one effort by
the whole government: national political leadership from president to
legislature, the joint military services, national police and judiciary,
and economic development orchestrated as never before to win
the war. It also included a better understanding of the nature of the
enemy’s strategy, so that military operations could be more effective
and supportive of a counter-strategy. The game’s Govt Capabilities
events National Defense & Security Council, 1st Division, Tapias,
Ospina & Mora and others represent this organizational and strategic
development of a potent Colombian COIN.
Uribe pursued an aggressive plan to address Colombia’s decade-long
conflict with the country’s leftist guerrillas and rightist paramilitary
groups and to reduce the production of illicit drugs. ... [Colombia]
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Andean Abyss
has made significant progress in reestablishing government control
over much of its territory, combating drug trafficking and terrorist
activities, and reducing poverty.
—Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 2011
With increasing US training and equipment assistance during the
period, first under the “War on Drugs” then the “War on Terror”,
and with Uribe’s full-force war effort against illegal groups, mate-
rial COIN capacity built along with skill and strategy. So we have
Blackhawks for air mobility, High Mountain Battalions for Andean
operations, 7th Special Forces for US training, and so on.
This treatment of a building COIN versus more ephemeral insurgent
capabilities contrasts with that in Volume II, Cuba Libre. There, to
represent the growth of insurgent potency contrasted with the Batista
regime’s failure to adapt its means, the game reverses mechanics
and instead presents lasting “Insurgent Capabilities” and temporary
“Govt Momentum”.
Why include lines of communication?
The game’s mechanics surrounding lines of communication (LoCs)
represent the dependence of the country’s economy, government
revenues, and therefore COIN operations tempo on railways, roads,
powerlines, and—in Colombia especially—pipelines delivering
energy exports.
A guerrilla sabotage and kidnapping campaign against the LoCs
of a government that is already resource-limited can spike a COIN
campaign. But insurgent players will find that sabotage is not cake:
LoCs are dangerous places for guerrillas, as security forces can reach
them quickly and tend to defend them aggressively.
What does the Propaganda Round represent?
ANDEAN ABYSS’s Propaganda Rounds punctuate insurgency-COIN
campaigns at irregular and not precisely predictable moments. They
represents less a given moment or time period distinct from the
general course of the conflict and more an accounting of various
matters that are really progressing concurrently with the game’s
events and operations: tax collection, export earnings, the political
effects of ongoing and steady FARC propaganda activities (agita-
tion) and government investment (civic action), relocation of forces
among relatively quiet or controlled areas, and the development of
effective local police forces.
Knowing only with very little warning exactly when this accounting
will take place adds to play tension and represents the real-world
uncertainties in war regarding the outcomes of these larger, cumula-
tive processes (how much revenue will we collect? how popular will
our political and military efforts be? and the like).
COIN History in the Game:
Local Security as a Key
Establishing local security for the population in order to deny support
to guerrillas is another key aspect of counterinsurgency represented
ANDEAN ABYSS’s mechanics. US COIN scholar Tom Marks de-
scribes the local security situation in the Colombian countryside
as of the mid-1990s—a good description of the challenge for the
Government player at the beginning of the game:
Domination of local areas was the linchpin of the counterinsurgent
effort, and a variety of imaginative solutions were tried to maintain
state presence in affected areas... But in the absence of local forces,
which had fallen afoul of constitutional court restrictions and thus
were disbanded, it was difficult to consolidate gains. As areas were
retaken, they could not be garrisoned with home guards. Instead,
regular units rotated in and out in a perpetual shell game designed
to keep FARC off balance.
—Military Review, March-April 2007
Troops and Police. In the game, Troops represent the Government’s
regular forces: highly mobile across the countryside and hard-hitting
against enemy forces, but eventually forced to return to garrison
in cities or bases. Police represent the local security forces: time-
consuming to build to effectiveness in contested areas, but essential
to day-to-day law and order and therefore to the Government’s
legitimacy and popular support.
In ANDEAN ABYSS, Government troops can sweep into an enemy
area and locate and assault guerrilla forces. As troops establish con-
trol, police eventually can deploy into the area to stay. Or the troops
can establish a Government base to more quickly train local police.
Only once both troops and effective police forces are in place, can
the Government invest in local development through civic action,
thereby building popular support and countering the insurgency.
“Imaginitive Solutions”—Help for the Government to Stay
in Local Areas
The above process is time-consuming and uncertain for the Govern-
ment. However, several events can help it establish effective day-
to-day security in the countryside more quickly. One example is the
establishment of local forces platoons called Soldados Campesinos:
forces that blend the advantages of regular troops and regional
police.
Whether these opportunities become available is not entirely up to
the Government COIN strategist: Will the talent to discover and
implement imaginative solutions emerge? Will politics and bureau-
cracy allow them to bear fruit? In the game, the event card may or
may not come up, and the Government player may or may not be
eligible to play it when it does, or may decide that other operations
are more urgent.
The Other Edge of the Sword—Military and “Paramilitary”
In light of Colombia’s tradition of local self-defense militias and
the evolution of those “autodefensas” into anti-FARC illegal armed
groups (labeled “paramilitaries”) eventually under the leadership
of Carlos Castaño’s AUC, there historically was concern that new
local forces platoons would simply augment the AUC’s reactionary
insurgents. In the game, the AUC is more likely than the Government
to get the first crack at the Soldados Campesinos event (because of
the order of the faction symbols on the card). And the AUC player
(or non-player, if run by the game system) would almost certainly
implement the card’s shaded, pro-insurgent effect, turning defecting
rural police into AUC guerrillas.
And so what is the FARC doing about it?
Beyond such special occurrences as defections, the Government’s
rural forces will have to weather the more routine threats that are
within the capabilities of the insurgent factions: FARC ambushes,
AUC assassinations, Cartels Bribes, and the like. Insurgent players
on the ball will be gunning for any newly established rural police
before Government civic action can gain the populace’s support
and make local insurgent operations that much more difficult: once
populations support the Government, they block FARC from ral-
lying new forces and (as discussed above) report on any guerrillas
entering the area, flushing them from underground status and thereby
blocking their ability to terrorize, ambush, and extort.
30
Andean Abyss
FARC History in the Game:
Nation Held Hostage
Insurgencies, like governments, need resources to operate, but the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the world’s leftist move-
ments largely on their own. In their 2010 book about Colombian
hostages, journalists Victoria Bruce, Karin Hayes, and Jorge Enrique
Botero describe how Colombia’s revolutionary FARC insurgency
turned to the drug trade for financing—contributing by the mid-
1990s both to its development of a kidnapping industry and to the
rise of the autodefensas that later merged into the FARC’s right-wing
AUC enemy:
The FARC ... controlled many of the coca-growing regions in central
and southern Colombia, while the cartels managed much of the co-
caine production and trafficking. The guerrillas operated by taxing
the cartels and drug producers for protection and services. ... This
economic alliance began to collapse when the leaders of the cartels
... began investing their newfound wealth in property, primarily
large cattle ranches which placed them firmly in the ranks of the
guerrillas’ traditional enemy—the landowning elite. ... In turn, the
guerrillas began a policy of kidnapping and extortion of the cartel
members. For protection and retaliation, the drug lords organized
and financed their own paramilitary armies.
—Hostage Nation: Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and the Failed
War on Drugs, 2010
Map from official Colombian sources
showing intensity of FARC guerrilla ac-
tivity during the period covered by the
game. Western Meta and Caquetá De-
partments are a hotbed containing the
sites of famous captures of both Colom-
bian presidential candidate Betancourt
and of three US DoD contractors.
FARC Kidnapping, Cartels and Government Victims, and
AUC Growth
Colombian analysts in 1998 estimated that kidnappings by the FARC
and its sister group, the ELN, accounted for 20 to 30 percent of all
kidnappings in the world (RAND, Colombian Labyrinth, p32). The
FARC held hundreds of hostages at a time—a large-scale ransoming
enterprise for them and a tragedy for the country that developed into
a political issue and a cause for national hatred of the guerrillas.
ANDEAN ABYSS depicts the enterprise through the kidnapping spe-
cial activity that the FARC faction may add to its terror operations.
It also depicts the impact of FARC hostage-taking on politics and
military affairs through a series of event cards.
In the game, FARC can use underground Guerrillas to terrorize local
populations into opposing the Colombian government. If the terror-
ized region has a drug cartels base or is a city or line of communica-
tion—and if FARC guerrillas outnumber local police—FARC may
kidnap as well to forcibly transfer a die roll’s worth of resources (or
a drug shipment) in ransom from the Cartels or Government faction
to FARC. As reaction to FARC kidnapping historically contributed
to growth of the right-wing “paramilitaries”, a particularly costly
kidnapping (a die roll of “6”) mobilizes a local AUC guerrilla unit
or base.
Defense Against Kidnapping
To avoid a grievous drain of resources from the counterinsurgency,
the Government will have to protect the populace from FARC kid-
nappers with police patrols of the country’s roads and cities. The
Cartels often can better afford the drain, but it may at some point
have to turn on the FARC parasite, relocate to FARC-free areas,
or just pay off the FARC player. The latter option illustrates how
ANDEAN ABYSS explores the multifaceted relations among the
contenders for control of 1990s Colombia through varied avenues
for player diplomacy.
AUC History in the Game:
Right-Wing Army
Colombia in the mid-1990s saw the leftist FARC insurgency build-
ing its strength dramatically as it transitioned from small-unit terror
tactics to military attacks on the Colombian Army. But the Govern-
ment was not yet on a war footing and still tacitly conceded immense
areas of countryside to the guerrillas. To protect themselves from
FARC terror, landowners in several localities raised self-defense
forces, autodefensas, that would use the FARC’s own tactics against
it. By 1996, these local anti-FARC units formed a nationwide force
under the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia or AUC) umbrella.
Over the next decade, the AUC grew to an estimated 17,000 fighters,
approaching the FARC’s strength. Journalist Mario Murillo describes
this illegal armed power:
Along with the ongoing collaboration between elements of the army
and the AUC, [as of 2004] there are approximately 1,000 active
AUC members who have served in the Colombian military, includ-
ing fifty-three retired military officers who have served as advisors
to the AUC. They have up to fourteen state of the art helicopters, a
dozen small planes, and countless speed-boats with mounted ma-
chine guns to use in their war against the guerrillas. Indeed, they
are a full-fledged army, operating almost with complete impunity
throughout the country.
—Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest, and Destabiliza-
tion, 2004
Logo of the AUC
FARC guerrillas
31
Andean Abyss
Potent Anti-FARC Faction
In ANDEAN ABYSS, the AUC faction can build an army rivaling the
FARC’s in the number of guerrilla pieces—and an army as military
effective and typically not under the pressure that Government
forces place on the FARC. Both FARC and AUC guerrillas can use
an ambush special activity that guarantees a successful attack and
the capture of materiel and recruits to form a new underground unit.
And a variety of event cards depict additional AUC capacities, both
military and terrorist.
AUC Aces in the Hole: Death Squads and Assassination
More than on military attacks, the AUC relied on terror and mas-
sacres as its principal means of taking control of FARC-dominated
areas. They mimicked FARC terror, but on a more brutal level,
including mass-murders of suspected FARC sympathizers and other
undesirables—so-called “limpiezas” that resembled the “ethnic
cleansing” that the same period featured in the Balkans. In the game,
the AUC can accompany its terror operations with assassination
special activities. Provided the AUC can position underground
guerrillas in a target area, AUC terror can eliminate an enemy base
even when protected by enemy guerrillas. Because the AUC wins by
reducing FARC bases to fewer in number than its own, assassination
of FARC base pieces is a key AUC tactic.
Double-Edged Sword for the Government
The AUC as blood enemy to the FARC would seem an unalloyed
friend to the Government, able to strike the enemy in ways that legal
Government forces cannot. But the AUC nevertheless remains an
insurgency—an illegal armed group that challenges Government
law and order and must in the end be suppressed.
In the game, too many AUC forces in a region block Government
control and thus the ability to build popular support—the Govern-
ment’s victory condition. AUC terror wrecks not only FARC’s politi-
cal base but support for the Government, as victimized populations
resent the Government’s failure to protect them. And international
suspicion of Colombian Army complicity in AUC atrocities costs
the Government foreign aid resources. This interplay of capabilities
and victory conditions poses the question every game: when will
the Government turn on its brutal AUC helpmate—as it ultimately
did historically—to trim its control of the countryside?
Cartels History in the Game:
Chess Player of Cali
[Cali cartel co-founder Gilberto Rodríguez] became known as the
“Chess Player” for his ruthless and calculating approach to the drug
business. ... The Rodríguez brothers ... controlled Cali in the way
that feudal barons once ruled medieval estates. ... Buy Colombia,
rather than terrorize it, became their guiding philosophy. ... The
cartel built dozens of high-rise offices and apartment buildings as
a way of laundering their money. The Cali skyline changed, and
thousands of jobs were created. Their money permeated the city’s
economy, and the natives became addicted to laundered cash and
conspicuous consumption.
—Ron Chepesiuk, Drug Lords—The Rise and Fall of the Cali
Cartel, 2003
Along with Government security forces, FARC rebels, and AUC
paramilitaries, ANDEAN ABYSS also depicts the Colombian drug
cartels. While the illegal drug industry does not care much about
legitimacy, it is an insurgency nevertheless. By definitions laid out
by National War College scholar Bard O’Neill, the cartels are “com-
mercialist insurgent” groups—contesting political power purely to
aid their acquisition of material resources (Insurgency & Terrorism:
From Revolution to Apocalypse, 2005).
In the game, the Cartels faction wins not through popular support
or opposition but by building its criminal organization (expanding
its bases) and amassing resources. But its presence can get in the
way of other factions’ objectives of territorial control and political
support. The Cartels, for example, start the game within one rally
action of controlling Cali, which begins politically neutral rather
than supportive of the Government.
As a result of the dismantling of the drug cartels, trafficking has
experienced radical changes in structure. ... There are [now] be-
tween 250 and 300 trafficking organizations in Colombia. Their
leaders are some of the former cartels’ second-rank members ... The
new organizations are smaller, closed, and secret ... . [They] have
developed strategies, methods and techniques aimed at making the
business more dynamic, sneaking away from law enforcement and
blending in better in their respective regions.
—Álvaro Camacho and Andrés López, “From Smugglers to
Drug Lords to Traquetos—Changes in Illicit Colombian Drug
Organizations,” in Peace, Democracy, and Human Rights in
Colombia, 2007
War of Weeds
The historical period of game—mid-1990s to mid-2000s—saw the
sunset of Colombia’s flashy, politically active drug cartels, but not
of the illicit drug industry that the game’s Cartels faction represents.
And so, in ANDEAN ABYSS, the Cartels can reconstitute themselves,
able to slip readily out of areas of danger and regrow elsewhere.
Unlike other insurgents, the Cartels can recruit forces anywhere:
battalions of hired guns—sicarios—await among the poor. But
the Cartels’ guerrilla force pool is the smallest: it cannot organize
One way to get drugs to US market: a narco-submarine, designed
to evade detection while it carries its load of product on the pas-
sage northward.
Cali skyline
Photo by D.A. Rendón
32
Andean Abyss
campaigns on the scale of the more military FARC or AUC. And the
Cartels do not have the other insurgents’ potent battle tactics.
The Cartels faction wins by accumulating resources (money) and
bases (the coca and poppy fields, processing labs, and distribution
infrastructure needed to continue making money). It will find it hard
to protect its bases with its smaller number of guerrillas, and rural
Cartels bases are vulnerable to aerial spraying (the Government’s
eradication action).
But the Cartels also can place new bases more easily than any other
faction, quickly though special cultivation actions or with delay but
cheaply though processing actions to ready drug shipments. Ship-
ment markers represent major caches of processed cocaine or heroin
awaiting delivery to market outside Colombia—they are vulnerable
to seizure by the other factions: any insurgent faction can liquidate
them to accelerate operations. But if defended and held long enough
to get to market (in the Propaganda Round), they yield resources
or a free base.
Cartels terror can hurt the Government or FARC politically, but the
Cartels’ most potent weapon is corruption: they can bribe to expose,
hide, or neutralize enemy forces—anywhere. Bribes are expensive,
however, and so only become a true threat once the Cartels are well
above their victory goal in resources. And so the other factions face
a choice: dedicate precious time and resources early on to trim the
Cartels weeds, or risk the Cartels growing so rich that they can block
any offensive by bribing their way out.
Fantasy of the Right—or Left?
English language studies of the Colombian conflict read so differ-
ently from one another that they seem to be describing multiple
countries. Is Colombia a thriving democracy, with a popular gov-
ernment that has brought economic prosperity and relative peace
to its people in the face of vicious terrorist and criminal threats?
Or is Colombia a harsh dictatorship by an economic elite, dressed
up as democracy but in fact using state-sponsored terror to keep its
ever more impoverished masses under heel, and the FARC simply
the people’s defense? You can find either thesis in North American
scholarship.
ANDEAN ABYSS does not attempt to settle these questions. I took
care to draw from writers (necessarily, for me, in English) who
view Colombia’s conflict from a range of political perspectives (see
Selected Sources). No one view seems able to tell the full story, and
I hope that players of a variety of persuasions will find something
relevant in the game’s design.
The game does take some positions. For example, it does not fully
buy the Left’s thesis of the AUC as an “extension” of the Govern-
ment in that both defend elite interests against the rest of the people
(see Murillo somewhat and Hristov especially). Yes, the Colombian
Government and AUC shared a core interest in suppressing the
FARC, and ANDEAN ABYSS accounts for this shared interest in the
factions’ victory conditions. Indeed, Government and AUC players
often will collaborate.
But the Government under Uribe developed and executed a plan to
extend its writ throughout the country—a true and, by the far-Left
model, unnecessary departure—including against AUC. Casualties
caused the AUC, extraditions of its leaders, and its imperfect but not
false demobilization show a real parting of Government and AUC
ways. And Colombia’s vigorous electoral politicking and, under
Uribe, undeniable and widespread popular enthusiasm for President,
government, and army seemed to gainsay the Leftist model of Co-
lombia as an exploitative oligarchy defended from its people by force
of terror. So ANDEAN ABYSS has the Government seeking popular
support to win, rather than the exploitation of the country’s poor by
the violence-backed rich, as the far Left might have it.
As for the nature of the FARC, the game does not depict the group
as mere “narco-terrorists” who have left people’s revolution behind
and continue mainly for personal drug profit (as some on the Right
argue). An insurgency may at once benefit from the drug trade and
provide much needed services to rural under-privileged. ANDEAN
ABYSS models the latter aspect with the FARC Agitation mechanic
and the effects of events such as Crop Substitution, Unión Sindical
Obrera, and others.
The persistence in hard times of the FARC’s leaders and fighters
demonstrates ideological commitment—dedication to something
larger than self. Purely commercialist insurgent leaders at some
point wish to live the high life. In contrast, Reyes, Mono Jojoy,
Cano, and the rest carried on in the face of the hardships of lethal
Government pursuit—and despite opportunities for reconciliation.
In the game, FARC victory depends directly on popular opposi-
tion and the strength of the movement’s political and logistical
base—the preconditions for an eventual revolution and overthrow
of the existing order.
Finally, ANDEAN ABYSS represents the US-sponsored “War on
Drugs” as neither clear failure nor clear success. Eradication in the
game may be a mixed bag politically, but, used judiciously, it is a
necessary and potent means for the Government to keep the Cartels
in check. Historically, aerial coca eradication has had its place in
curbing supply, as have the successes of the kingpin strategy of the
Colombian Police and US DEA. Economics being what they are,
Colombian coca production continues. But the country has escaped
the level of terror and political challenge of the big cartels that now
traumatize Mexico and Central America so brutally. Colombians
today can take pride in a low murder rate, growing economy, and
better governance.
Thanks and Dedication
My special gratitude is due to several groups and individuals for their
efforts on behalf of ANDEAN ABYSS: To Joel Toppen, who patiently
heard me out as we drove through the desert, when all I had was
first drafts of curious ops menus. To GMT Games and the testers
and players across many countries who made this project happen.
And to Dr. Thomas Marks of the National Defense University, for
sharing with me his photos and his deep and personal knowledge
of Colombian COIN.
Finally, I dedicate the design of ANDEAN ABYSS to Juan Fran-
cisco’s nation and people: They have faced their past—may they
overcome it.
Volko F. Ruhnke
January, 2012 Vienna, Virginia
33
Andean Abyss
EVENT TEXT AND BACKGROUND
This section reproduces the full text of each event card, along with
sourced historical and other background commentary.
1. 1st Division GFAC
GOVT CAPABILITIES
Jointness: 1 Civic Action space each Support Phase requires Govt
Control and any cube.
Service parochialism: Civic Action requires at least 2 Troops and
2 Police.
The Colombian Army’s 1st Division in late 2004 became a joint
operational command, part of a process of integrating services to
replace exclusively army divisional areas. (Marks p137)
2. Ospina & Mora GFAC
GOVT CAPABILITIES
COIN experts take charge: Sweep costs 1 Resource per space.
COIN strategy eludes Army: Sweep Operations may target only 1
space per card.
Senior army commanders Carlos Ospina Ovalle and Jorge Mora
Rangel collaborated intimately—Ospina fathering a sound coun-
terinsurgent strategy from his study of captured FARC documents
and Mora ensuring its practical implementation. (Conversation with
Tom Marks, 30Apr2011; Ospina pp57,58,60)
General Mora Photo by Tom Marks
3. Tapias GFAC
GOVT CAPABILITIES
CO tightens civil-military bonds: Assault costs 1 Resource per
space.
Civil-military rivalries fester: Assault Operations may target only
1 space per card.
Military Forces Commander Fernando Tapias Stahelin drew the
political backing to forge a whole-of-government COIN effort.
(Conversation with Tom Marks, 30Apr2011; Marks, p139; Ospina
p60)
4. Caño Limón—Coveñas GFCA
Profitable pipeline: Add twice the Econ of 3 unSabotaged pipelines
to Government Resources.
Pipeline draws attacks: Sabotage the 3 pipelines with highest value
and no cubes.
A particularly lucrative energy export pipeline from Arauca to the
sea attracted both rebel attacks and US training assistance. (Brittain
p23; Ricks-Lightner pp25,58,80; Hristov p34)
5. Occidental & Ecopetrol GFCA
Oil company security: Place 6 Police onto pipelines. 3 Guerrillas
there or adjacent flip to Active.
Industry thought exploitative: Shift a space adjacent to a 3-Econ
LoC by 2 levels toward Active Opposition.
Joint ventures between US and Colombian oil companies provided
enough government revenue to justify major security measures.
(Brittain p228; Ricks-Lightner p80) A $93-million batch of US
counterterrorism aid in 2003, for example, focused on protection
of Colombian assets of California-based Occidental Petroleum.
(Hristov p34) Critics saw government concessions to multinational
oil giants as overly generous and tied poverty and human rights
violations to US support for oil industry in the country. (Murillo
pp87-88; Hristov pp17-18,34-35)
6. Oil Spill GFCA
Rebels blamed: Shift 2 Opposition or Neutral Departments adjacent
to Sabotage to Passive Support.
Multinationals make mess: Sabotage a pipeline. Shift an adjacent
Department by 1 level toward Active Opposition.
Spilled oil from attacks created substantial environmental damage,
generating local hostility against whichever combatant side got the
blame. (Ricks-Lightner p80)
7. 7th Special Forces GAFC
GOVT CAPABILITIES
Infrastructure protection training: Each Control phase, Govt may
remove 1-3 Terror or Sabotage.
US training ineffective: Control phase—Sabotage LoCs with any
Guerrillas equal to cubes.
The US Bush Administration deployed some 600 personnel of the 7th
Special Forces Group (Airborne), most to train a new “infrastructure
protection brigade” in embattled Arauca Department. (Marks p131;
Ricks-Lightner p25)
8. Fuerza Aérea Colombiana GAFC
COIN strike aircraft: Govt executes 3 free Air Strikes.
Budget diverted to expensive jets: Government Resources –9.
After FARC successes in the late 1990s in overrunning remote
government centers, the Colombian military equipped its air force
with night-vision gear and learned to integrate air power in support
of ground operations. (RAND pp101-102) Less relevant to COIN,
Colombia also maintained a force of high-speed Kfir and Mirage
V jets. (RAND p42)
9. High Mountain Battalions GAFC
GOVT CAPABILITIES
Elites guard high-altitude corridors: Assault treats Mountain as
City.
Equipment not delivered: Assault in Mountain removes only 1 piece
for 4 Troops.
The Army in the Pastrana years equipped and situated special bat-
talions to block insurgent mobility corridors through hitherto inac-
cessible heights. (Marks p135)
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Andean Abyss
10. Blackhawks GACF
GOVT CAPABILITIES
US helos delivered: Air Lift moves any number of Troops.
Delivery of US helos delayed: Air Lift moves only 1 Troops cube.
The military as of 2000 had only 17 operational heavy-lift helicop-
ters. The US was to add 30 UH-60 Blackhawk and 33 UH-1H Huey
transports, but they had yet to be delivered. (RAND pp63,65,68-
69,104)
11. National Defense & Security Council GACF
GOVT CAPABILITIES
Military-police jointness: 1 Police may enter each Sweep space.
Military-police rivalry: A Sweep Operation Activates Guerrillas via
Troops or Police, not both.
Uribe’s “Democratic Security and Defense Policy” integrated
COIN planning, adding a National Defense and Security Council
to ensure coordinated and unified action by all state bodies. (Marks
pp132-133)
12. Plan Colombia GACF
US “War on Drugs”: Add lesser of Aid or +20 to Govt Resources.
Then Aid +10.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
US aid focuses on drug war: No Air Strike or Activation by Patrol
until next Propaganda.
The Pastrana Government’s response to Colombia’s insurgency,
Plan Colombia, included seeking $3.5-billion in foreign aid. The
US earmarked 3/4ths of its part of that aid to counternarcotics.
(RAND pp61-62)
13. Plan Meteoro GCFA
GOVT CAPABILITIES
Transport protection units: Patrol conducts a free Assault in each
LoC.
Transport security deemphasized: Patrols do not conduct a free
Assault.
The Uribe Administration funded special transportation network
protection units under “Plan Meteor”. (Marks p135)
14. Tres Esquinas GCFA
Forward base: Government places 1 Base and 3 Troops into any
Department.
Base overrun: Remove 1 Government Base and 1 cube from a
Department.
During the late-1990s heyday of the FARC’s large-unit “mobile
warfare”, it succeeded in overrunning a series of isolated army po-
sitions and briefly holding the capital of Vaupés. (Ospina pp59-60;
Marks p127; RAND pp42-43) Tres Esquinas was a key army base
at the heart of later Government sweeps into the FARC strongholds
of the southeast. (www.GlobalSecurity.org; Brittain pp226-227)
As of 2002, it hosted a Joint Intelligence Center and some 100 US
military advisors. (Hristov p35)
15. War Tax GCFA
Defense budget shot in the arm: Roll a die and add 4 times the result
to Government Resources.
Middle class resents cost of war: Shift a City from Neutral or Pas-
sive Support to Passive Opposition.
Uribe shifted and increased the tax burden in order to help fund the
military effort against the guerrillas. (Brittain p228-229)
16. Coffee Prices GCAF
They’re up: Each Mountain, +5 Resources to Faction with most
pieces, tied spaces to Govt.
They’re down: Government Resources –10.
Export income from coffee—a traditional source of economic
security to the Colombian highlands—fluctuated wildly from the
1990s on, mostly downward. (Brittain pp84-88; Hristov p191;
RAND p5) The late 1990s saw increased guerrilla presence in
the country’s agricultural backbone, the central coffee-growing
departments, apparently as part of FARC, ELN, and AUC strategy.
(RAND pp46-47)
17. Madrid Donors GCAF
Aid conference generous: Add lesser of Aid or +20 to Govt Re-
sources. Then Aid +6.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
EU aid focuses on reconstruction: No Sweep or Assault in Depts
until next Propaganda.
European and Japanese donors to Colombia channeled aid to non-
military programs. A July 2000 donors’ conference in Madrid, for
example, pledged $619-million, mostly for social development
projects. (RAND pp62,64)
18. NSPD-18 GCAF
US “War on Terror” takes on FARC: Add lesser of Aid or +20 to
Govt Resources. Then Aid +20.
US focused on Mid-East and South Asia: Government Resources
–6. Subtract a die roll from Aid.
In a departure from the more restrictive “war on drugs”, the US Bush
Administration’s 2002 National Security Presidential Directive 18,
“Supporting Democracy in Colombia”, called on the State Depart-
ment to implement a new US political-military plan in direct support
of Colombian national security strategy. The Bush Administration
had linked the counternarcotics fight to the “war on terror” and
would pursue not only cartels but the FARC and the AUC directly.
(Marks p131; Chepesiuk p281)
19. General Offensive FGAC
In each space possible, choose and execute either free Sweep without
movement or Assault (if Government), or free Attack or Terror (if
Insurgent).
The conflict during the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a number of
FARC offensives, including the use of homemade armored vehicles.
The Government’s 2003-2004 Plan Patriota included a major military
offensive around the capital and into FARC-held territory in the
southeast. (Ospina pp59-60; CRS p10; Hristov p36)
35
Andean Abyss
20. Mono Jojoy FGAC
KIA puts FARC in disarray: Govt player repositions up to 6 FARC
Guerrillas into adjacent spaces.
Military strategist: FARC free Marches any of its Guerrillas then
flips up to 3 of its Guerrillas Underground.
A Colombian military and police operation in Meta Department in
September 2010 killed the FARC’s operational second-in-command,
Victor Julio Suárez Rojas, alias Jorge Briceño Suárez or “Mono
Jojoy”, adding to a period of strong pressure on guerrilla remnants.
(CRS pp1,13)
21. Raúl Reyes FGAC
FARC Deputy killed: FARC Resources –6. Remove 1 FARC Base.
FARC Deputy channels foreign support: FARC Resources +6. Place
a FARC Base in a City or Department.
A 2008 Colombian military raid into Ecuador killed then second-
highest FARC commander Luís Édgar Devia Silva (“Raúl Reyes”)
and recovered evidence of planned Venezuelan and possibly Ecua-
doran support to the FARC. (CRS p10; Marks pp140-141n)
22. Alfonso Cano FGCA
FARC leader killed in military strike: Shift an Opposition space to
Neutral.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
Ideologue: May Agitate also in up to 3 spaces with FARC piece
and no Govt Control.
Communist Bogotá University student Guillermo León Sáenz Vargas
joined the FARC in the 1980s and eventually became its master
revolutionary ideologue, “Alfonso Cano”. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero
pp138-139) A 2011 military strike in Cauca Department killed him.
(www.ColombiaReports.com)
23. DoD Contractors FGCA
US provides aircrew: In a Dept, Activate all Guerrillas and remove
all Cartels Bases.
Plane down—hostage search and evasion: Govt removes 3 Troops.
Mark Govt and FARC Ineligible through next card.
US contractors provided pilots for crop spraying over FARC-held ter-
ritory and for reconnaissance flights to pinpoint guerrillas. Patrolling
FARC guerrillas in 2003 shot down one such flight along the western
slopes of Caquetá and took three US personnel hostage, setting off a
Colombian Army manhunt. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero pp3-19,107)
24. Operación Jaque FGCA
Dramatic hostage rescue: 1 City to Active Support. Mark FARC
Ineligible through next card.
Hostage rescue goes awry: Remove 2 Troops from a space with
FARC pieces. Shift a City with Support to Neutral.
In a show of operational prowess, Colombian forces in 2008 tricked
FARC captors into delivering celebrity hostage Ingrid Betancourt
and 3 US DoD contractors held since 2003. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero
pp238-256)
25. Ejército de Liberación Nacional FAGC
ELN and FARC jockey: Remove all FARC pieces from 1 Moun-
tain.
ELN and FARC coordinate ops: Place any 3 FARC pieces into
Antioquia or an adjacent Department.
Colombia’s second-largest revolutionary army, the Castroite ELN,
concentrated in the northern mountains, where it sought a Sierra
Maestra-style stronghold. While the ELN and the FARC shared the
same enemies and often coordinated operations, the two Marxist
groups occasionally clashed over territory or resources. (RAND
pp30-31,44; CRS pp13-14)
26. Gramaje FAGC
FARC protection rejected: All Cartels Guerrillas in spaces with
FARC free Attack FARC.
Schedule of fees: Cartels transfers 3 Resources to FARC for each
space with Cartels Base and FARC Guerrilla.
The FARC had a precise schedule of fees, gramaje, that it charged
to drug producers and smugglers for protection and other services.
Though imposed by the guerrillas, these taxes served as a US argu-
ment that the FARC and the drug lords were in cahoots. (RAND
p32; Camacho-López p80)
27. Misil Antiaéreo FAGC
FARC MANPADs deemed a myth: Government executes 3 free
Special Activities.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
MANPADs feared: Until next Propaganda, no Govt Special Activi-
ties where Guerrillas.
Given the importance of air power to Colombian COIN, fears grew
that guerrilla use of surface-to-air missiles could change the strategic
balance. (RAND pp35,102)
28. Hugo Chávez FACG
Caracas controls border: Remove up to 3 Insurgent pieces from a
space next to Venezuela.
Caracas aids rebels: Place a FARC Base in a Dept next to Venezuela.
Sabotage each empty LoC touching Cúcuta.
FARC information taken in the 2008 raid on Raúl Reyes suggested
that Venezuela was providing support to the insurgent group, includ-
ing plans by the Hugo Chávez regime to grant millions of dollars for
weapons purchases. Chávez later that year called on the FARC to
cease military operations, signaling a change in at least Venezuela’s
public stance. (CRS p10)
29. Kill Zone FACG
Army sniffs out FARC trap: Govt in 1 space Activates all FARC and
executes free Assault.
Tactics lure enemy in: FARC or AUC in a space executes 2 free
Ambushes with any of its Guerrillas without Activating.
The FARC between 1996 and 2000 developed a tactic to lure Army
reaction forces into a prepared kill zone surrounded by intercon-
nected rifle pits and bunkers. In one such kill-zone action in late
2000 along a key route from Antioquia to Chocó, guerrillas inflicted
heavy casualties on special forces of the Colombian 4th Brigade.
Often, however, the army could detect the kill zone before falling
into the trap. (RAND pp44-45,45n)
36
Andean Abyss
30. Peace Commission FACG
FARC accused in Commissioner’s killing: Remove 1 FARC Zone.
Peace bid: Government places 1 FARC Zone. (See 6.4.3)
The FARC’s ambush and execution in late 2000 of the head of the
Colombian congressional peace commission, Diego Torbay, dealt
Pastrana’s peace policy a new blow. (RAND pp73-74)
31. Betancourt FCGA
Sympathy for famous hostage: Shift 2 Cities and 1 Dept 1 level each
toward Active Support.
Hostage negotiations forum for FARC: Shift 3 spaces from Passive
Opposition to Active Opposition
Spitfire senator and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt—
known among other things for her outreach to the FARC—fell
hostage in 2002 as she toured the recently remilitarized FARC
zone. She became an international symbol of Colombia’s hostage
tragedy—and of the FARC’s role in it. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero pp94-
102,145,168-171,242)
32. Secuestrados FCGA
Fed up with hostage-taking: Shift 2 spaces from Neutral or Passive
Opposition to Passive Support.
Ransoming highly profitable: FARC Resources +12.
Colombian media constantly reminded the populace that kidnap-
pings were garnering 100s of millions of dollars for the FARC and
other groups. Public outcry grew under Pastrana as negotiations
with FARC failed to end the scourge, and regular radio messages
from loved ones to hostages further broadcast the trauma. (Bruce-
Hayes-Botero pp95-96,141-143,173)
33. Sucumbíos FCGA
Ecuadoran buffer zone: Remove up to 3 Insurgent pieces from a
space bordering Ecuador.
Cross-border war: Place 2 pieces in Ecuador. It is a 0 Pop Dept. No
more than 2 pieces per Faction may stack there.
As the 2008 Colombian raid on a FARC camp in the Ecuadoran
province of Sucumbíos vividly illustrated, Colombia’s insurgency
and counterinsurgency often spilled over borders. The FARC used
Ecuador’s territory for rest, resupply, and training; and some coca
processing took place there as well. (CRS pp10,23-24) Ecuadoran
troops at times clashed with suspected Colombian guerrillas within
Ecuador. Quito planned increases in development spending in border
provinces such as Sucumbíos to create a social and economic buffer
zone. (RAND pp88-89)
34. Airdropped AKs FCAG
Insurgents scammed by Russian criminals: Drop an Insurgent
Faction’s Resources by –5.
Covert weapons delivery: An Insurgent Faction places 2 Guerrillas
and 1 Base into a 0 Population Department.
A creative arms-for-drugs deal brokered by Russian mafia in 2000
included Russian planes parachuting as many as 30,000 automatic
rifles to the FARC in eastern Colombia. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero p91;
RAND pp36-37)
35. Crop Substitution FCAG
Government initiative: Replace the Cartels Bases in 1 Department
with 1 Police each. Aid +3.
FARC proposals lauded: Shift a Department with a Cartels Base by
2 levels toward Active Opposition.
Crop substitution or “alternative development” programs sought to
supplement coca and poppy eradication by providing licit income
to farmers who otherwise would replant drug crops. FARC initia-
tives in its zone in 1999-2002 drew attention and support from the
United Nations, the European Union, and other foreigners. (Brittain
pp95-98) US support via Plan Colombia also featured crop substitu-
tion. The US Agency for International Development claimed such
a program from 2005-2009 reduced coca growing by 85% in a key
cultivation region of western Meta. (CRS pp26-29)
36. Zona de Convivencia FCAG
ELN gets its DMZ: Govt places a FARC Zone in Mountain. (See
6.4.3) Shift 2 adjacent Neutral spaces to Passive Support, if possible.
Executing Faction remains Eligible past this card.
The Pastrana administration explored negotiations with the ELN,
parallel to those with the FARC. The ELN demanded a zone analo-
gous to that granted to the FARC, and Pastrana agreed in principle to
a 5000km2 “live-and-let-live zone” around the juncture of Antioquia,
Bolívar, and Santander. (RAND pp41,74) Uribe also pursued the
ELN’s negotiated demobilization, but the group broke off talks in
2008. (CRS pp13-14)
37. Former Military AGFC
Ties that bind: Government free Sweeps or Assaults FARC within
each space, no moves; AUC Guerrillas act as Troops.
Ex-officers advise paramilitaries: AUC free Marches any of its
Guerrillas and then, at any 1 destination, free Ambushes.
The AUC was purported to collaborate with elements of the Colom-
bian Army and to have some 1000 active members who had served
in the nation’s armed forces, including 53 retired military officers
who acted as AUC advisors. AUC leader Carlos Castaño himself
corroborated these estimates when in 2000 he claimed to have more
than 1000 ex-soldiers and 135 former army officers among his forces.
(Murillo p100; Hristov pp71,86-87)
38. National Coordination Center AGFC
New command fights paramilitaries: Remove all Active AUC Guer-
rillas from up to 3 spaces with cubes or Support.
Sympathizers alert AUC: All AUC Guerrillas in spaces with cubes
or Support to Underground.
The Colombian Government as of 2000 had declared the battle
against illegal autodefensas to be a strategic priority and established
the National Coordination Center to lead that fight. Government-
reported kills and captures of paramilitaries had been far lower than
of rebel guerrillas in absolute numbers. The casualties were more
comparable in percentages of total AUC and FARC-ELN strength,
however. Moreover, argued the Defense Ministry, the fact that rebels
sought out confrontations with security forces more often than would
paramilitaries explained any disparity. (RAND pp57-58)
37
Andean Abyss
39. Soldados Campesinos AGFC
Local forces platoons: Place 1 Police into each of 6 Depts.
Local forces augment autodefensas: In up to 3 Depts, replace 1
Police with 1 available AUC Guerrilla.
The reestablishment of local forces—Soldados Campesinos (“Peas-
ant Soldiers”), later Soldados de mi Pueblo (“Home Guards”)—and
a related expansion of municipal police proved indispensable to
Uribe’s counterinsurgency in providing a state presence in threatened
areas. (Marks p135,136) Others saw such forces as legitimation of
paramilitaries, in light of the overlap of their membership with that
of the AUC. (Murillo pp103,113-114)
40. Demobilization AGCF
Negotiated reintegration: Replace 3 AUC Guerrillas with available
Police.
Talks a ruse, fighters recycled: Move all cubes in a Dept with AUC
to any Cities. Place 1 AUC piece in each of 2 Cities.
The Uribe administration in 2003-2006 negotiated the AUC’s
demobilization. Some suspected that the aim was to rein in para-
militaries mainly to legitimize the state’s main offensive against the
FARC. (Murillo p102) Others charged that—while thousands of
AUC members demobilized and turned in weapons—much of the
demobilization was faked or of only temporary impact on paramili-
tary capabilities. (Hristov pp146-160) A UN and US view was that
remaining paramilitary bands were of a different nature, criminal
rather than political in purpose. (CRS p14)
41. Mancuso AGCF
AUC No.2 extradited: AUC Resources –6. Remove all AUC pieces
from 1 space.
AUC drug lord: AUC Resources +3 for each space with AUC and
Cartels pieces.
The FARC was far from the only insurgent group to benefit from
the drug trade. The AUC’s chief in 2000 acknowledged that the
paramilitary coalition received a majority of its financing from
drug trafficking. The US labeled the AUC a “cocaine-smuggling
terrorist” organization and sought its leaders’ extradition. Colom-
bian authorities extradited AUC deputy and military commander
Salvatore Mancuso to the US in 2008. (Camacho-López pp85-86;
Bruce-Hayes-Botero pp90-91; Murillo pp105,111-112; Hristov p80;
Chepesiuk p280; www.ColombiaReports.com)
42. Senado & Cámara AGCF
Unity behind Presidential war policy: 2 Neutral spaces to Passive
Support. Govt Resources +3.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
Insurgent sympathies: No Sweep or Assault against executing Fac-
tion until next Propaganda.
The Left charged that not only the military but the entire Colombian
political system defended elite interests by protecting right-wing
paramilitary violence, and therefore constituted no more than a
“death-squad democracy”. (Brittain pp204-205) Some claimed that
a third to a half of Colombian legislators were pro-AUC. (Murillo
pp105,212n34; Hristov p133) Paramilitary intimidation of politicians
may have played a role. (Hristov p125) Other AUC sympathies in
the legislature may have represented popular views, in light of polls
seeing the paramilitaries as less of a threat than the FARC. (RAND
pp56,59) As for the cartels, buying politicians rather than terrorizing
the public was a key Cali tactic, and some drug lords themselves
competed electorally at the local level. (Chepesiuk p68; Camacho-
López pp75-76) Finally, legislators and political candidates who saw
themselves as Government-FARC interlocutors engaged personally
in the peace process. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero pp94-97) In any event,
by Uribe’s term, public distaste for the status quo provided a uni-
fied political front for his war on all illegal armed groups. (Marks
pp129,131,138-139; Ospina p60)
43. Calima Front AFGC
Suspect leftists massacred: Place 2 Terror in and remove all FARC
Bases from a Dept with Troops.
Brutality blamed on Army: Place 2 Terror in a Dept with Troops.
Aid –9.
Affected communities charged that paramilitaries carried out assas-
sinations in broad daylight and close proximity to military posts. The
Army in 1999 in Cauca reportedly helped set up a paramilitary group
called the Calima Front, with military officers providing weapons,
logistics, and intelligence to AUC fighters—a case emblematic to
human rights observers of the AUC’s ability to wage war on civilians
with impunity. (Murillo pp94-97)
44. Colombia Nueva AFGC
Anti-corruption campaign: Shift a non-Opposition City to Active
Support. Govt Resources +3.
Political campaign divisive: Shift a City from Support to Neutral.
Govt Resources –3.
Young congresswoman and later senator Ingrid Betancourt made her
political reputation by outing fellow legislators for corruption and
by pursuing President Samper’s impeachment. Her tenacity earned
her both wild popularity and death threats. By her 2002 presidential
run— “Colombia Nueva” was her slogan—she had lost her popular-
ity, blamed for airing Colombia’s dirty laundry internationally in
her French-published autobiography. (Bruce-Hayes-Botero, pp94-
97,136-137)
45. Los Derechos Humanos AFGC
Officers disciplined: Shift each space with cubes and Terror 1 level
toward Active Support.
International human rights cartel: –1 Aid for each space with AUC
pieces. Subtract a die roll from Govt Resources.
Debates in the US Congress over aid funding focused on allega-
tions of human rights abuses on all sides, especially by paramilitary
groups and the Colombian military. Colombian authorities took
steps against military-paramilitary collusion, for example, in 2000
dismissing 388 military officers and NCOs for human rights abuses
or corruption and indicting several generals. (RAND, p58) By
2010, the Obama Administration certified to Congress that “years
of reforms and training [were] leading to an increased respect for ...
human rights by most members of the [Colombian] Armed Forces.”
Some outside observers felt that human rights charges had gone
too far and constituted “lawfare” against Colombia’s self-defense
by an international “human rights cartel”. In this view, foreign crit-
ics—hostile to the Colombian state itself—remained unwilling to
acknowledge any human rights progress despite a surging national
popularity of military and government. (Murillo p19; CRS pp14-
15,18-19,36; Marks pp129,137)
38
Andean Abyss
46. Limpieza AFCG
Ruthless elimination: An Insurgent Faction executes free Terror
with any Guerrilla, removes any 2 enemy pieces in the space, and
sets it to Passive Support or Opposition (unless 0 Pop). The Terror
places 2 markers.
“Limpieza social” (“social cleansing”) killings rose in Colombia in
the late-1990s and early-2000s, as both leftist guerrillas and rightist
paramilitaries sought to consolidate control by eliminating people
considered misfits or suspected of collaboration with the other side.
(RAND p6-7) Paramilitaries would defend areas from guerrillas
preemptively, by drawing up lists of potential leftist sympathizers
and then exterminating them, or using random terror to seed fear
and show what might happen to anyone leaning toward the FARC
or ELN. (Hristov pp74,92-94)
47. Pinto & del Rosario AFCG
Human rights investigators: All AUC Guerrillas Active. All Police
free Assault AUC as if Troops.
Prosecutors killed: AUC places 2 Guerrillas in Cúcuta, executes free
Terror there, and flips any 2 AUC Guerrillas Underground.
Colombian police and judicial authorities investigating right-wing
involvement in massacres became targets of threats and assassina-
tion. (Hristov p133) In what appeared to be one such case in 2001,
Cúcuta special prosecutor María del Rosario Silva Ríos and then her
replacement Carlos Arturo Pinto Bohórquez were both shot to death.
Authorities later convicted Cúcuta regional paramilitary commander
Jorge Iván “The Iguana” Laverde Zapata in the killings. Demobi-
lized paramilitary Orlando Bocanegra Arteaga also acknowledged
responsibility. (www.ElEspectador.com; www.ElTiempo.com)
48. Unión Sindical Obrera AFCG
AUC targets oil labor organizers: Remove 1 Opposition or FARC
Base adjacent to 3-Econ pipeline.
Labor backs FARC: Shift 1 level toward Active Opposition in 2
Cities other than Bogotá.
Labor unions—suspected of a similar social agenda as that of the
rebel guerrillas and therefore of collusion with them—became fre-
quent targets of right-wing paramilitary violence. The FARC and
the ELN had maintained a strong presence around the oil-refining
town of Barrancabermeja in Santander, a hotbed of the powerful oil
workers union, Unión Sindical Obrera (USO). The AUC entered the
area in 2001, killing 180 and displacing some 4000—acts popularly
seen as a continuation of efforts to suppress popular organizing
in the town. AUC leader Carlos Castaño in 2003 sent a menacing
email to the union, declaring all USO leaders and the children of
USO members to be “military targets”. (Murillo pp87-88; Hristov
pp77,117,120)
49. Bloques ACGF
Militias defy Castaño: Permanently remove 3 available AUC Guer-
rillas.
Independent militias join AUC: Place an AUC Guerrilla and Base
in any Department.
The AUC came together in the mid-1990s as an umbrella for several
regional “self-defense” organizations (bloques). An amalgam of
autonomous groups, the AUC was less cohesive than the FARC.
Several powerful groups, such as the Bloque Central Bolívar, did
not recognize AUC leadership, and paramilitaries fought turf wars
amongst themselves. (RAND pp54-55; Hristov p70; Murillo p108;
Brittain p126)
50. Carabineros ACGF
National police field forces: Govt places a total of up to 3 Police
into any Departments.
National police corruption: Remove any 2 Police or replace them
with available AUC Guerrillas.
During the Pastrana and then Uribe years, Colombia systematically
established police presence in every county of the country. Those
areas historically thought too dangerous for police presence were
manned by police field forces (Carabineros), similar in size and na-
ture to army local forces but more mobile and better armed. (Marks
pp136,145n38) As with the Army, however, some police were
suspected of collusion with the paramilitaries, for example taking
payments in return for armed protection of paramilitary units while
the latter carried out their terror campaigns. (Hristov, p87)
51. Pipeline Repairs ACGF
Speedy patching: Remove all Pipeline Sabotage or, if none, Govern-
ment Resources +12.
Security concerns hinder maintenance: Sabotage 3 Pipelines with
or adjacent to FARC Guerrillas.
Guerrilla action against energy pipelines often becomes a race be-
tween how often the saboteurs can damage the line and how quickly
the defenders can repair them. Attacks on the key northern-Colom-
bian Caño-Limón pipeline in the guerrilla heyday of 2001 shut it
down for 240 days out of the year. (Ricks-Lightner p80) Coordinated
FARC pipeline attacks as late as 2008 halted production of over
800,000 barrels of oil. (Brittain p23)
52. Castaño ACFG
AUC leader’s memoir a best seller: Shift 2 City or Mountain each
1 level toward Active Support.
Charismatic AUC political leader: Place an AUC Base into a space
with AUC, then add +1 AUC Resources per AUC Base.
Charismatic AUC chief Carlos Castaño Gil gave interviews to lead-
ing national publications and obtained favorable media coverage to
portray the movement as a politically legitimate “third actor” in the
Colombian conflict. The 2001 book Mi Confesión, purporting to
“reveal his secrets”, sold in all major Colombian cities and became
one of the most popular books in the country. (Murillo p99)
53. Criminal Air Force ACFG
Insurgent access to small aircraft: An Insurgent Faction moves 1
or 2 Guerrillas between any 2 Departments and flips them Under-
ground.
The AUC as of 2004 reportedly fielded up to 14 state-of-art helicop-
ters and a dozen small planes. (Murillo p100) AUC chief Castaño
in 2001 claimed to have loaned helicopters to the Cali Cartel.
(Chepesiuk p143) Witnesses reported Army helicopters deploying
AUC fighters to new regions or supplying them with ammunition
and medications while on terror operations. (Hristov pp85,88) Some
charged that troops wearing AUC armbands in 2003 parachuted
from military aircraft into a region of Arauca to conduct a massacre.
(Brittain p136)
39
Andean Abyss
54. Deserters & Defectors ACFG
Remove up to 2 Guerrillas or replace them with any other Factions’
available Guerrillas.
AUC ranks contained numerous FARC deserters, because of the
harsh discipline imposed by the FARC and because the AUC of-
fered protection from retaliation by former comrades. (RAND p56)
Castaño in 2000 claimed 800 ex-leftist guerrillas among his forces.
One such defector from the FARC led the rightist Bloque Norte y
Anorí. The AUC also offered monthly wages to unemployed youth
who had worked as sicarios for the drug organizations, if they would
serve as AUC troops. (Hristov pp71,88,96,106)
55. DEA Agents CGFA
Law enforcement assistance: Remove a Shipment and any 5 Cartels
Guerrillas.
Más Yanquis: In 3 spaces with Cartels pieces, shift 1 level toward
Active Opposition.
Colombian-US counternarcotics cooperation thrived from the mid-
1990s on, especially via the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
Some regard the takedown of the Cali Cartel during this period as
the DEA’s greatest victory. The relationship was not without its
political frictions, though, including a struggle under Samper over
how much control the Colombians would have over DEA activities
in the country. Exaggeration in Colombian media may have added
to the tension: the press in 1995 reported the presence of more than
500 DEA agents in Cali alone, even though the agency in reality
had no more than 2 or 3 agents there at a time. (Chepesiuk pp201-
202,272)
56. Drogas La Rebaja CGFA
Cali cartel’s drugstore chain seized: Transfer 9 Resources from
Cartels to Government.
Retail empire: Add twice Cartels pieces in Cities to Cartels Re-
sources. Then place a Cartels Base in each of 2 Cities.
The Cali Cartel’s Rodríguez brothers used their cocaine profits
to build a semi-legal business empire, the heart of which was the
Drogas La Rebaja drugstore chain. The Government in 2004 seized
the 400-store chain, breaking the back of that cartel’s finances.
(Chepesiuk pp68-69,259)
57. Op Millennium CGFA
Colombian-US strike at Bernal syndicate: Replace up to 3 Cartels
pieces with available Police.
Investigation penetrated: In each of 2 spaces, replace a Police with
an available Cartels piece.
After dismembering the Medellín and Cali cartels, Colombian and
US authorities pressed ahead with joint efforts to capture leaders
of the surviving, decentralized “cartelitos”. Operation Millenium
in 1999 netted drug group leader Alejandro Bernal and previously
released Medellín Cartel co-founder Fabio Ochoa. But an estimated
several hundred small cartels remained, into which Colombian po-
lice and the US DEA had little insight. (Chepesiuk pp241,276-277;
RAND pp15-16)
58. General Serrano CGAF
National Police hammer cartels: Cartels Resources –6. Remove all
Cartels Guerrillas.
Officials on cartel payroll: Cartels relocate up to 4 Police to any
spaces.
Colombian police—traditionally seen as corrupt, and many of whose
members were at the service of the Cali Cartel—in the mid-1990s
effectively declared war against drug traffickers. (Camacho-López
p79) Studious and tough Policía Nacional chief General Rosso José
Serrano Cadena cleaned house and from late 1994 on led the as-
sault on the Cali Cartel, in close alliance with the US. (Chepesiuk
pp xxi,192-197)
59. Salcedo CGAF
Cartel informant: All Cartels Guerrillas to Active. Free Assault
against Cartels in each space.
Cali cartel security chief: Cartels flip all their Guerrillas Under-
ground and relocate up to 3 of them anywhere.
Jorge Salcedo was a key member of the Cali Cartel’s intelligence
and security team—the talented, charismatic son of a Colombian
general, he had military training, counterinsurgency field experience,
excellent computer skills, and fluent English. Turned informant
by US enforcement authorities, Salcedo opened a window on Cali
Cartel operations and enabled the capture of its leaders. (Chepesiuk
pp137-138,212-219)
60. The Chess Player CGAF
Kingpin strategy scores: Remove all Cartels pieces from 2 Cities
or 1 Dept. Govt Resources +6.
Cali’s Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela expands empire: Cartels place
an available Base in each of 2 Cities and free Bribe in 1 space.
Less violent than Medellín’s Pablo Escobar, Cali Cartel co-found-
ers Gilberto (“The Chess Player”—cartel strategic planner) and
Miguel (“El Señor”—cartel boss) Rodríguez Orejuela only became
a Government priority after Escobar’s death in late 1993 and a drug
financing scandal reached the Presidency of Ernesto Samper in 1994.
A Colombian-US strategy of combining leads and focusing resources
on capturing cartel leaders netted the Rodríguez brothers’ arrests by
1996 and extradition to the US by 2005. (Camacho-López pp78-79;
Chepesiuk, pp xxi,22-23,68,95,202,269-270)
61. Air Bridge CFGA
Peruvian coca supply controlled: Remove all Cartels pieces from
1 City. Cartels Resources –6.
Colombian coca growers fill Peruvian void: Place 1 Cartels Base
into each of 3 Depts with no Cartels pieces.
Traditionally, the bulk of coca processed into cocaine in Colombia
had been grown in Peru and Bolivia. An “air-bridge” strategy of
US-Peruvian interdiction of coca deliveries into Colombia denied
Colombian traffickers most of this central-Andean crop—with the
unintended effect of encouraging coca cultivation inside Colombia.
Between 1995 and 1999, Colombia became the center of all stages
of cocaine production, from harvest to delivery. (RAND pp12,20-21;
Camacho-López pp 82-83)
40
Andean Abyss
66. Tingo María CFAG
Coca crop fails: Remove 3 Cartels Bases from Forest.
Hearty coca variety: Within stacking, place an available Cartels
Base into each Forest that already has one.
Under pressure from the Government’s coca eradication spraying
to shift cultivation to less ideal terrain, growers adapted by devel-
oping new varieties of the coca plant. One such variety, the Tingo
María, would produce 3 times as much coca as the traditional plant.
(RAND p66)
67. Mexican Traffickers CAGF
Major shipment busted en route: Cartels Resources –10.
INSURGENT MOMENTUM
New routes to US market: This Resources phase, Cartels add Re-
sources equal to 4 x Bases.
The Cali Cartel had relied on its own delivery networks to get cocaine
to US market. Disruption of that cartel’s distribution routes through
the Caribbean and the dismantling of the Cartel itself in 1995-1996
created opportunities for Mexican traffickers to provide Colombian
wholesalers with delivery and retailing services. Already prior to
Op Millenium, the Colombian Bernal group was working with a
Mexican Ciudad Juárez-based cartel to deliver 20-30 tons of cocaine
monthly to the United States. Mexicans soon came to dominate US
cocaine distribution with more extensive and efficient networks.
(Camacho-López p83; Chepesiuk p278; RAND p15)
68. Narco-Subs CAGF
Submersibles seized: Remove from coastal spaces 2 Cartels pieces
or up to 2 Shipments.
Littoral stealth: Cartels Resources +2 per Cartels piece in coastal
spaces.
A predawn Colombian police raid on a Bogotá warehouse in 2000
discovered a 100-foot submarine under construction, a joint proj-
ect between a Colombian cartel and the Russian mob, intended to
smuggle tons of narcotics. (Chepesiuk pp227-8)
69. Riverines & Fast Boats CAGF
Move any of your cubes or Guerrillas from 1 space through a chain
of up to 3 adjacent Depts. You then may execute a free Op other
than Patrol or March within the final space.
Colombia features two major river valleys—the Magdalena and
the Cauca—running south-to-north along the Andes, numerous
major rivers draining the eastern plains into the Amazon, and both
Pacific and Atlantic coasts. In all, 18,000km of navigable rivers in
Colombia serve as highways for Government forces, guerrillas,
62. Amazonía CFGA
Brasília’s Op Cobra blocks border: Remove up to 3 Insurgent pieces
from 0 Population Forests.
Jungle landing strips: Place 1 Cartels Base each in Guainía, Vaupés,
and Amazonas.
The lowlands of eastern Colombia, comprising 60 percent of national
territory but only 4 percent of population, formed a vast hinterland
vacuum for illegal groups to fill. Government pressure in the late
1990s and early 2000s pushed these groups—coca growers and
FARC alike—ever deeper into jungle sanctuaries. Brazil shared an
interest with Colombia in controlling their vast Amazonian frontier.
So it sought to block the daily clandestine flights between Colombia
and its airspace and, with Colombian authorities, dismantled numer-
ous jungle landing strips near the border. In 2000, it launched its
3-year Operation Cobra to augment its border presence with the
deployment of 6,000 Brazilian troops to the region. (Marks p129;
RAND pp66,90-91)
63. Narco-War CFGA
Rival syndicates go for the throat: In each space with Cartels Guer-
rillas, remove all but 1; Cartels conduct free Terror with that 1. Mark
Cartels Ineligible through next card.
Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel in 1993 fell into a tit-for-tat ter-
ror battle with a vigilante group (“los pepes”) backed by the Cali
Cartel—a narco-war that played a substantial role in Escobar’s fall.
(Chepesiuk pp139-142) Fighting among cartels as of the late 1990s
remained a major cause of the country’s 30,000 murders annually.
(RAND p17)
64. Cocaine Labs CFAG
FARC taps suppliers: Place a Shipment with a FARC Guerrilla in
the same space as a Cartels Base.
Well-oiled industry: For each Cartels Base, Cartels Resources +2 if
in City, +1 if in Dept.
Colombia’s illicit drug industry built on a long tradition of Latin
American smuggling. It initially required only the investment in
urban laboratories to process rural crop into cocaine and heroin.
Over decades, cartels built up into large-scale enterprises. The
Cali Cartel boasted safe houses strategically spread across the city
and an intelligence network of hotel clerks, corrupt police, street
vendors, and 5,000 taxi drivers. With the breakup of the big urban
cartels in the mid-1990s, profits declined, but the industry continued.
(Camacho-López pp61,64-67,82-84; Chepesiuk pp203-204) The
FARC helped fill any vacuum. For a fee, it would protect cocaine
laboratories and landing strips, transport precursor chemicals, or
ship finished cocaine. (RAND pp32-33)
65. Poppies CFAG
Growers and Government eradication focus on heroin source:
Place or remove 1 Shipment or Insurgent Base in any Mountain
Department.
Colombia in the 1990s became the Western Hemisphere’s largest
producer of opium poppies and refined heroin (though Asia produced
far more), with an estimated 7,500 hectares under poppy cultiva-
tion as of 1999. Locals in coffee-growing regions had responded
to a precipitous drop in coffee prices by switching to poppies, and
the Government quickly responded with aerial spraying. (RAND
pp12-13; Chepesiuk p27; Hristov p191)
41
Andean Abyss
and drug shipments. To exploit and control these waterways, the
Government with US support in 1999 established a riverine brigade
of 5 battalions spread throughout the country. The AUC meanwhile
fielded large numbers of speedboats with mounted machineguns
for their war against the FARC. And on the coasts, Colombian
narcotraffickers and guerrillas used fast boats that outclassed those
available to regional navies. (RAND pp xix,33,65,86,97; Hristov
p190; Bruce-Hayes-Botero p90; Murillo p100)
70. Ayahuasca Tourism CAFG
Eco-tourism helps trade balance: Government Resources +6 for
each Forest without Guerrillas.
Eco-tourists taken: A Faction executes free Terror with any 1 Guer-
rilla in each Forest and gets +3 Resources per Terror.
Colombia hosts some of the most pristine rain forests in South
America, drawing a growing eco-tourist trade (locally known as
Ayahuasca tourism). Pharmaceutical companies have shown in-
creased interest in the Colombian forest for potential medicines. The
amazing variety of species also supports a thriving illegal export of
animals. (Ricks-Lightner pp12-13)
71. Darién CAFG
Arms traffic interdicted: Remove a Guerrilla from Chocó; its Faction
suffers –5 Resources.
Border sanctuary: Place 1-2 Bases in Panamá. It is a 0 Pop Forest.
Sweep does not Activate Guerrillas there.
Arms stockpiles from the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan civil wars of
the 1980s were a major source of weapons smuggled into Colombia.
Central American arms arrived in part via a network of 40-50 foot-
paths through the triple-canopy jungle of Panama’s Darién province
bordering Colombia. The same network served to smuggle drugs
in the opposite direction. The FARC reportedly maintained 2 bat-
talion-sized units and a major logistics and support base in Darién,
outgunning the Panamanians. (RAND pp35,36f,85-86)
72. Sicarios CAFG
Hired drug guns unreliable: Replace all Cartels Guerrillas in 2
spaces with other Guerrillas.
Unemployed ready to work for syndicates: Place all available Cartels
Guerrillas into spaces with Cartels Bases.
Colombia’s big drug traffickers and guerrilla groups created a
violent social type—the sicario: a poor youngster, mainly urban,
who for a sum of money would kill a cartel’s opponents. The M19
guerrilla group in the 1980s, before its demobilization, organized
and trained such poor urban youth, who later became gangsters for
hire to the highest bidder, typically the cartels. (Camacho-López
pp79-80) The AUC in turn offered monthly wages to unemployed
youth who had worked as sicarios for the drug organizations, if they
would serve as AUC troops. (Hristov p96) Finally, ex-AUC fight-
ers with few alternatives often became sicarios for drug traffickers.
(Hristov p155)
SELECTED SOURCES
(roughly, from Right to Left)
“Insights from Colombia’s ‘Prolonged War’” by Carlos Alberto
Ospina Ovalle, JFQ, issue 42, 3rd quarter 2006. The importance
of strategy, doctrine, and legitimacy in internal war, from the
architect of modern Colombian COIN.
“Colombia—Learning Institutions Enable Integrated Response”
by Thomas A. Marks, Prism 1, No.4, August 2010. How the
Colombian Army and Government learned COIN during the
period of the game and won against FARC and AUC.
Colombian Labyrinth—The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency
and Its Implications for Regional Stability by Angel Rabasa
and Peter Chalk, RAND, 2001. From mid-period of the game,
a US view of how to win as the Government.
Colombia—Issues for Congress by June Beittel, Congressional
Research Service (CRS), March 2011. Looking back on prog-
ress in Colombian COIN and counter-narcotics, as assessed
for the US Congress.
Drug Lords—The Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel by Ron
Chepesiuk, Milo Books Ltd, 2003. Focused on US assistance
to the Government in fighting the last flashy cartel.
Insurgency & Terrorism—From Revolution to Apocalypse by
Bard O’Neill, Potomac Books, Inc., 2005. Theoretical discus-
sion of insurgency and COIN, including the nature of egalitarian
(FARC), preservationist (AUC), and commercialist (Cartels)
insurgencies worldwide.
Colombia: d20—Guerilla Warfare by Tom Ricks and Ken
Lightner, Holistic Design Inc., 2003. Background for roleplay-
ing the Colombian conflict, including economic and cultural
aspects.
“From Smugglers to Drug Lords to Traquetos—Changes in
Illicit Colombian Drug Organizations” by Álvaro Camacho
Guizado and Andrés López Restrepo, Peace, Democracy, and
Human Rights in Colombia, University of Notre Dame Press,
2007. How the big cartels learned to decentralize and keep a
low profile.
Hostage Nation—Colombia’s Guerrilla Army and the Failed
War on Drugs by Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes, with Jorge
Enrique Botero, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. The stories of the most
famous FARC hostages of the Uribe period.
Colombia and the United States—War, Unrest and Destabiliza-
tion by Mario A. Murillo, Seven Stories Press, 2003. Discus-
sion of the development, nature, and capabilities of the AUC;
sees Government design in the formation and tolerance of the
paramilitaries.
Blood and Capital—The Paramilitarization of Colombia by
Jasmin Hristov, Ohio University Press, 2009. A catalogue of
human rights abuses by AUC and Army, pinned herein on class
interests and Government complicity.
Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia—The Origin and
Direction of the FARC-EP by James J. Brittain, Pluto Press,
2010. The Marxist view of the conflict and why FARC is
destined to win.
43
Andean Abyss
CREDITS
Game Design: Volko Ruhnke
Development: Joel Toppen
Art Director, Cover Art and Package De-
sign: Rodger B. MacGowan
Map and Counters: Chechu Nieto, Xavier
Carrascosa
Cards: Mark Simonitch and Chechu Nieto
Rules and Charts: Mark Simonitch and
Charles Kibler
Playtest: Solitaire Aces—Steve Caler, James
“Norbert” Stockdale, Todd Quinn; 2-Player
Remoras—Jeremy Antley, Mike Owens;
3-Player Home Front—Andrew Ruhnke,
Daniel Ruhnke; Cartels Kingpin—Darién
Fenoglio; Team Bogotá—Juan Francisco
Torres; Devil’s Advocates—Jeff Baker,
John Gitzen, Dan McGuire, Patrick Neary,
Joel Tamburo; Demo King—Mark Mitchell;
Guerrilleros—Paul Aceto, Wendell Al-
bright, Mike Bertucelli, Jeff Grossman, Igor
Horst, Michael Lessard, Fred Manzo, Tim
Porter, Stéphane Renard, Martin Sample,
Roger Taylor.
VASSAL Module: Joel Toppen
Images: 1st Division, Ospina & Mora,
High Mountain Battalions, Plan Meteoro,
Kill Zone, Soldados Campesinos, National
Coordination Center, Carabineros—Tom
Marks; Caño Limón-Coveñas—Sémhur;
Occidental & Ecopetrol—Pedro Filipe;
War Tax, Colombia Nueva —Julián Ortega
Martínez & equinoXio; DoD Contractors—P
Alejandro Diaz; Gramaje—Luis Acosta;
Hugo Chávez—Presidencia Argentina;
Peace Commission—Germán Cabrejo;
Secuestrados—Paola Vargas & equinoXio;
Former Military—TerceraInformacion.
es; Calima Front—La FM; Senado & Cá-
mara—Leandro Neumann Ciuffo; Pinto &
del Rosario—Louise Wolff; Unión Sindical
Obrera—Mennonot; Bloques—Silvia An-
drea Moreno; Castaño—Socialist Worker;
Criminal Air Force—Mabadia71; Deserters
& Defectors—John Jairo Bonilla; Drogas
La Rebaja—jthadeo; Amazonía—Navy of
Brazil; Narco-War—F3rn4nd0; Cocaine
Labs—Valter Campanato ABr; Tingo
María—H Zell; Darién—Christian Ziegler;
Sicarios—Luis Pérez.
Production Coordination: Tony Curtis
Producers: Tony Curtis, Rodger Mac-
Gowan, Andy Lewis, Gene Billingsley and
Mark Simonitch
GFAC
1. 1st Division
2. Ospina & Mora
3. Tapias
GFCA
4. Caño Limón - Coveñas
5. Occidental & Ecopetrol
6. Oil Spill
GAFC
7. 7th Special Forces
8. Fuerza Aérea Colombiana
9. High Mountain Battalions
GACF
10. Blackhawks
11. National Defense & Security Council
12. Plan Colombia
GCFA
13. Plan Meteoro
14. Tres Esquinas
15. War Tax
GCAF
16. Coffee Prices
17. Madrid Donors
18. NSPD-18
FGAC
19. General Offensive
20. Mono Jojoy
21. Raúl Reyes
FGCA
22. Alfonso Cano
23. DoD Contractors
24. Operación Jaque
FAGC
25. Ejército de Liberación Nacional
26. Gramaje
27. Misil Antiaéreo
FACG
28. Hugo Chávez
29. Kill Zone
30. Peace Commission
FCGA
31. Betancourt
32. Secuestrados
33. Sucumbíos
FCAG
34. Airdropped AKs
35. Crop Substitution
36. Zona de Convivencia
AGFC
37. Former Military
38. National Coordination Center
39. Soldados campesinos
AGCF
40. Demobilization
41. Mancuso
42. Senado & Cámara
AFGC
43. Calima Front
44. Colombia Nueva
45. Los Derechos Humanos
AFCG
46. Limpieza
47. Pinto & del Rosario
48. Unión Sindical Obrera
ACGF
49. Bloques
50. Carabineros
51. Pipeline Repairs
ACFG
52. Castaño
53. Criminal Air Force
54. Deserters & Defectors
CGFA
55. DEA Agents
56. Drogas La Rebaja
57. Op Millennium
CGAF
58. General Serrano
59. Salcedo
60. The Chess Player
CFGA
61. Air Bridge
62. Amazonía
63. Narco-War
CFAG
64. Cocaine Labs
65. Poppies
66. Tingo María
CAGF
67. Mexican Traffickers
68. Narco-Subs
69. Riverines & Fast Boats
CAFG
70. Ayahuasca Tourism
71. Darién
72. Sicarios
73-76. Propaganda!
CARD LIST
44
Andean Abyss
GMT Games, LLC
P.O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308
www.GMTGames.com
SPACES LIST
Cities
Pop
Bogotá & Villavicencio . . . . . . . . .
8
Cali. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
Medellín. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
Bucaramanga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
Ibagué & Pereira . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
Santa Marta & Barranquilla. . . . . .
2
Cartagena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Cúcuta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Neiva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Pasto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Sincelejo & Montería. . . . . . . . . . .
1
Total Population: 25
Departments
Type
Pop
Antioquia - Bolívar . . . . . . . . .Mtn. . . .2
Huila - Tolima . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mtn. . . .2
Santander - Boyacá . . . . . . . . .Mtn. . . .2
Arauca - Casanare . . . . . . . . . Grass . . .1
Atlántico - Magdalena . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Cesar - La Guajira . . . . . . . . . .Mtn. . . .1
Chocó - Córdoba . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Guaviare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Meta East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grass . . .1
Meta West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Nariño - Cauca. . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Putumayo - Caquetá . . . . . . .Forest. . .1
Amazonas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .0
Guainía. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .0
Vaupés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Forest. . .0
Vichada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grass . . .0
Total Population: 15
Lines of Communication
Type Econ
Arauca - Cúcuta . . . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .3
Cúcuta - Ayacucho . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .3
Ayachucho - Sincelejo . . . . . . Pipe. . . .3
Bucaramanga - Ayacucho. . . . Pipe. . . .2
Ayacucho - Barranquilla . . . . Pipe. . . .2
Medellín - Sincelejo. . . . . . . . Pipe . . .2
Neiva - Bogotá. . . . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .2
Yopal - Bogotá . . . . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .2
Bogotá-Ibagué-Bucaramanga Pipe. . . .2
Cartagena - Sincelejo. . . . . . . Pipe. . . .1
Medellín - Ibagué. . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .1
Ibagué - Cali. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .1
Cali - Buenaventura . . . . . . . . Pipe. . . .1
Cartagena - Barranquilla . . . . Road . . .1
Bogotá - San José. . . . . . . . . . Road . . .1
Cali - Pasto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Road . . .1
Neiva - Pasto . . . . . . . . . . . . . Road . . .1
Pasto - Tumaco. . . . . . . . . . . . Road . . .1
Total Economic Value: 30