Operation Check: Visuality of Success

This article examines the nexus between images and war in the context of the Colombian armed conflict.
Specifically this article focuses on the successful hostage rescue operation, Operation Check as in Checkmate. On
July 2nd, 2008, the Colombian army released 15 hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid
Betancourt, three American security contractors and 11 Colombian military and police. The FARC were tricked into
believing that the hostages were being relocated through the aid of an international humanitarian mission. In reality,
they were delivering the kidnap victims to disguised military officials. What I propose is an examination of
Operation Check as a layered composition of different military strategies in which a global imagination
simultaneously affected both the local and the global. I argue that the documentation of Operation Checkmate and
its different media recreations (upcoming film, National Geographic series, and books) have created and multiplied a
global “influential spectators’ gallery of the international community” (Kilcullen Location 1713). Colombia has
tapped into this global imagination with sophisticated strategies of netwar and cyberwar as well as market strategies,
whether by becoming an exporter of security and weapons, a haven for foreign investors, or a touristic destination
pushed by a national branding campaign. Operation Check is a story. From its planning, its execution to its
documentation, Operation check was conceived as a theatre piece with characters and a script. This fact not only
helped in the developing the ruse but it also created a story of a nation in which anything could be overcome and this
story took over the global stage.