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(CNN Spanish) - The United States has almost 70 groups listed that it identifies as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
These include the bodies of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, ISIS, al Qaeda, ETA and the FARC.
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he intended to include drug cartels in the list of terrorist organizations. His Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, responded that he expects the US. cooperate, but do not intervene in internal affairs of Mexico.
López Obrador entrusted the matter to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard Ebrard, who said he is already in communications with the United States government and added that they will do "national unity diplomacy to defend their own sovereignty and decisions."
How do you designate the US? to a group as a terrorist?
Through its Counterterrorism Office, the US Department of State monitors the activities of active terrorist groups around the world to identify whether or not to designate Foreign Terrorist Groups (FTOs).
The secretary of state consults with the one of Justice and the one of the Treasury and all notify to the Congress of the United States on the intention of the Government to designate this organization like terrorist. Legislators have seven days to review the decision and if they do not block it, the State Department publishes the designation in the Federal Register and enters into force.
The organization that has been designated a terrorist by the State Department has the right to request a “judicial review” within 30 days of the appointment.
The website of the State Department indicates that to be considered an FTO, a group "must threaten the safety of US citizens or national security (national defense, foreign relations or economic interests) of the United States."
What happens when an organization is designated as a terrorist?
The designation of a group as an FTO makes it illegal for anyone in the US. provide "support or material resources" to the organization, such as property, financial services, communications equipment, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and transportation, "among others, says the State Department.
“The Counterterrorism Office designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means to reduce support for terrorist activities and pressure groups to get out of the terrorism business,” says the website of the Department of State.
With that designation, says the State Department, efforts to curb terrorist financing are supported and encourages other countries to do the same, stigmatizes and isolates international terrorist organizations, “discourages donations or contributions and economic transactions with named organizations ”and“ increases public awareness and knowledge of terrorist organizations ”.
These are some of the foreign organizations declared terrorists by the State Department:
ELN and the FARC
Two Colombian guerrilla groups were included in the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997: the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The latter remains on the list despite having signed a peace agreement with the Government of Colombia in 2016, after which he left his arms and many of his members reintegrated into society.
The National Liberation Army was founded in 1964 with the support of the Colombian Liberal Party. This rebel organization is a sympathizer of the Cuban Revolution and is therefore defined as a Leninist Marxist.
The ELN "is a less centralized guerrilla", "more rhetorical" and has "different conflicts" with regard to the FARC, Leon Valencia, political analyst and former chief of that guerrilla, told CNN.
But the ELN is smaller and is present in fewer territories, compared to the demobilized FARC guerrillas. According to PARES, at its strongest time, by 2002, the FARC had about 17,000 armed men, and by 2016, after signing the peace process, there were 7,000. Instead, by the beginning of 2019, after a “strengthening and expansion process,” the ELN has a little more than 3,000 combatants.
- This is the ELN, the guerrilla with which the FARC dissent is to be combined
The ELN attempted a negotiation with the Government of President Juan Manuel Santos, but the dialogues were suspended indefinitely by his successor, Iván Duque, in 2018.
The FARC, on the other hand, was created in 1964, with an anti-American, Marxist ideology, attracting an overwhelming majority of its members from poor rural populations. His goal was to overthrow the government.
But although it began as an insurgency and during its years of activity continued to defend the causes of the left, the FARC was criticized for its links to the illegal drug business. Colombia is one of the main cocaine producers in the world and by the time peace talks began with the Government of Juan Manuel Santos in 2012, it was estimated that the FARC earned around US $ 500 million per year for drug trafficking, according to the Foreign Relations Council.
The Observatory of Memory and Conflict of the National Center for Historical Memory reported in 2018 that between 1958 and July 2018, the armed conflict left 262,197 dead, of which just over 35,000 are attributed to guerrillas in general.
In addition, of the more than 39,000 cases of kidnapping in Colombia between 1970 and 2010, 37% of these cases are attributed to the FARC and 30% to the ELN.
Washington has cooperated through the so-called Plan Colombia, conceived as a military cooperation strategy for the fight against drug trafficking, and served in the fight against guerrillas in the country. In 2016, before the signing of the peace agreements, USA. approved a US $ 450 million aid package for the implementation of the peace process between the Government and the FARC guerrillas.
USA cooperates with Colombia "to undermine transnational criminal organizations whose activities, especially drug trafficking, are devastating for citizens" of both countries, says the State Department.
Some FARC guerrillas who demobilized announced that they rearmed in September 2019.
Shining Path
It was a Maoist terrorist group that caused terror in Peru in the 1980s. At its peak it spread terror in the country through a bombing campaign that aimed at buildings and infrastructure such as electricity towers. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the government waged a campaign that greatly reduced the capacity of the terrorist group, but resurfaced in recent years.
For Sendero Luminoso, its leader is still Abimael Guzmán, who has been incarcerated since 1992 and is serving a life sentence.
In 2011, “Comrade Artemio,” who said his real name is Jose Flores (but the government has disputed him), admitted defeat and said the group sought to negotiate the end of his war with the government.
“In principle we are Marxists. We believe that the only way to change a capitalist system is with a socialist system. But that is not possible at this time. And if it is not possible, what corresponds at this moment is to end ”the armed conflict, he said.
According to a 2018 U.S. Department of State terrorism report, Sendero Luminoso has 250 to 300 members in its ranks, of which 60 to 150 are armed combatants. "The deadly attacks of the Shining Path against the security forces of Peru in 2018 remained stable compared to the previous year."
ISIS and al Qaeda
The self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is on the list of terrorist organizations in 2016. Two years later, other ISIS factions joined Bangladesh, the Philippines, West Africa and the Great Sahara.
This is a group that began as an al Qaeda split. Its objective is to create an Islamic state called caliphate throughout Iraq, Syria and beyond. The group implements Sharia, rooted in 8th-century Islam, with the idea of establishing a society that reflects the region's ancient past.
ISIS is known for killing dozens of people at once and carrying out public executions, crucifixions and other acts. It uses modern tools such as social networks to promote reactionary policies and religious fundamentalism. The fighters have destroyed sacred sites and valuable antiques.
In August 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense warned that ISIS was resurfacing in Syria, just 5 months after President Donald Trump declared its destruction.
Al Qaeda is the group behind the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US. on September 11, 2001. Its most prominent leader, Osama Bin Laden, was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.
Al Qaeda was once a centrally managed group based in South Asia, according to the State Department, and became "a more loosely defined network of affiliates worldwide."
Nathan Sales, deputy secretary of civil security, democracy and human rights of the State Department, said in September 2019 that al Qaeda branches are “plotting and carrying out attacks in Africa” and have a presence in the Middle East, in the south of Asia and in South America.
ETA
Also on the list, since 1997 the Basque separatist group ETA, which in May 2018 announced that it “completely dismantled all its structures” and concluded “all its political activity”.
At the end of April of that year, ETA published a letter in which it issued a public apology for the "damage caused" to the Basque people during their decades of violence.
“We are aware that, during this long period of armed conflict, we have caused a lot of pain and damage that have no solution. We want to show our respect for the dead, injured and all those who have been victims of ETA actions, ”says the statement. "We sincerely apologize."
Listed as a terrorist organization by Spain, the United States and the European Union, ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its decades-long struggle for an independent Basque state from sections of northern Spain and southwest France.
Hamas
Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organization that operates in Gaza and the West Bank. The name Hamas is an acronym for "Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia" or Islamic Resistance Movement. The word "hamas" means enthusiasm, in Arabic.
Hamas has sections dedicated to religious, military, political and security activities. It executes a social welfare program and operates several schools, hospitals and religious institutions.
Hamas’s goal is an Islamic fundamentalist Palestinian state. His manifesto advocates the destruction of the state of Israel and calls to raise "the flag of Allah on every inch of Palestine."
Hamas members, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insist that Israel is an occupying power and that the group is simply trying to free Palestinian territories.
Hamas has an annual budget of US $ 70 million, according to the US Foreign Relations Council. Much of its financial support comes from expatriate Palestinians, private donors in the Middle East and Muslim charities. Since his election victory in 2006, he has also had public funding.
Hezbollah
It is a powerful Shiite Islamist political, military and social organization in Lebanon. Its name means "Party of God" in Arabic and is derived from a verse in the Quran.
This group grew by resistance to Israel's occupation in southern Lebanon in 1982 and has since been supported by the Shiite majority of Iran, both financially and militarily.
The United States declared it a terrorist organization in 1997. It is also considered as such by Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Argentina. However, those who support Hezbollah believe it is a resistance movement that took Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 and managed to survive a bloody 34-day war with its arch nemesis in 2006.
According to Human Rights Watch, the balance of victims of that conflict is 1,109 Lebanese dead, the vast majority civilians, almost 4,400 injured and an estimated one million displaced.
Those that have left the list
On the list of US terrorist organizations There are also groups such as the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Authentic Irish Republican Army, the Irish Republican Continuity Army, al-Shabaab, al Qaeda on the Peninsula Arabian and Boko Haram, among others.
In recent years, Washington has removed from this list the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Hawatme Faction), the Chilean Patriotic Front Manuel Rodríguez Disidentes, the Japanese Red Army, the Moroccan Group of Islamic fighters, the Peruvian Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, among others.
Terrorist groups