According to an article published on the Wall Street Journal,
"Colombia's energy sector, the main driver of its economy, is limping away from "Black October," a term coined by Marxist rebels who set forth on a month-long blitzkrieg, attacking oil pipelines, coal trains, electricity plants and transmission towers in a show of strength during peace talks with the government.
There were roughly two dozen attacks during October on high-profile targets like oil pipelines, according to security analysts and companies. That was more than double the number of attacks in September and by far the highest for any month this year, according to analysts. The Colombian government usually comes out with a count months later. Colombia's army declined to comment.
Few parts of Colombia's energy infrastructure escaped unscathed. State-controlled power-grid company ISA said 19 of its transmission towers that dot the countryside were blown up in October, compared with 11 such attacks in the previous nine months combined.
Colombia's second-longest oil pipeline, the Cano Limon, was attacked at least three times last month, bringing pumping to a halt and leading locals to again start calling it "the flute" due to all the holes the rebels have blasted in the above-ground pipeline over the past 20 years.
The Cano Limon attacks have also forced the delay of a much-anticipated grand opening of Colombia's newest oil pipeline, the $1.6 billion Bicentennial pipeline, because it can't operate if the Cano Limon line isn't also pumping oil.
The timing of the rebel assault comes as Colombia's economy struggles with up-and-down growth rates and a widening gap between the rich and the poor that has led this year to a wave of violent, sometimes deadly protests by farmers and other low-income workers. In some cases, the protesters' demands run parallel with those of the FARC, mainly seeking better conditions for agrarian workers and criticizing foreign companies' influence in Colombia, Latin America's fourth-largest economy.
The peace talks were supposed to "last for months, not years," President Juan Manuel Santos promised when the talks were launched in October 2012. But the talks are now beginning their second year and rebel and government negotiators have so far only come to agreement on one of five talking points, that of land reform. The two sides are reportedly still far apart on important issues such as integrating rebels into the political arena once they would lay down their arms".
