New Colombian President Promises More War

...However, it has been engaged in more fruitful dialogue with the government than has the FARC...

...Will the government accept peace dialogues with a relatively reasonable partner or will it make extravagant demands of the ELN before such talks get underway...

...The burgeoning right-wing paramilitaries, under the banner of the AUC, have tripled in size since 1998 and now count about 11,000 members in their ranks...

...The AUC is responsible for upwards of 70% of the politically motivated killings in Colombia and is increasingly taking on the FARC directly in battle...

...The Colombian conflict pits the ELN and FARC guerrillas against the paramilitary United Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC) and the Colombian armed forces...

...Uribe even used del Rio as an advisor on military matters, though his visa to the United States was canceled and he is currently under investigation in Colombia...

...Days later, the acting commander of U.S...

...Perhaps most troubling for observers, however, from the human rights community and elsewhere, is Uribe's proposal to invite one million civilians to participate in citizen militias, along the lines of the experiment with the Convivir civilian security groups he enthusiastically supported in Antioquia in the mid-1990s...

...official, discuss terrorism, drugs," Miami Herald, May 31, 2002...

...Uribe Sin Tapujos," Semana (Bogota), February 26, 2002...

...Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson met privately with Uribe in late 2001 at his home in Antioquia, a visit kept secret until revealed by a journalist in February 2002.19 She was also the first to congratulate him on the night of the elections, two hours before Uribe had acknowledged victory and before second-place Horacio Serpa had conceded defeat...

...Nobody knows what reforms, if any, he will demand of a military that has a dreadful human rights record...

...It is no secret to those who follow Colombian issues in Washington that some U.S...

...One thing is arming one million bandits...

...Joseph Contreras, "Law-and-Order Man," Newsweek, June 10, 2002...

...But that fact is unlikely to extend Uribe's honeymoon...

...A Bogotd lawyer said, "Colombia needs strong institutions and The aftermat respect for the law...

...Four p didate who seems truly committed to that agenda...

...Without guarantees, transparency, and a well-crafted process, few combatants will be willing to lay down their arms and rejoin civil society, even after four years of toughing out Uribe's new, improved war...

...Like U.S...

...2 0 Hours after his victory, Uribe reappointed Luis Alberto Moreno as Colombian ambassador to the United States...

...Prods Uribe on Drug War," Miami Herald, May 30, 2002...

...Colombia is a country scarred by violence and inequality, and much more than a tough-talking administration will be needed to move beyond that...

...he fancies himself a law-and-order man with innovative social policies...

...Uribe has said "the international community must know that there is no war...

...It was a stunning mandate considering that second place Horacio Serpa, a traditional populist and official candidate of the Liberal Party, earned only 31.7...

...28 NAULA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 9 clCRISIS IN COLOMBIA Government counterinsurgency troops wade through a river in Caquetb in search of FARC fighters...

...Uribe quietly and perhaps inadvertently acknowledges the depth of the past he pledges to overcome...

...4 The centerpiece of Uribe's campaign platform, and what drew voters, was his call to battle the illegal armed groups, particularly the FARC and the other main guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), during his administration...

...State Department...

...He promises to attack corruption and would like to reduce the 266-member two-house Congress to a unicameral body of 150 members while eliminating many of their privileges...

...4. Juan Forero, "Rightist's Hard Line Appeals to War-Weary Colombians," The New York Times, May 19, 2002...

...Interview with U.S...

...1 4 The FARC has declared the mayors of towns in Putumayo, Caqueti, Huila, and Arauca (bordering Venezuela and increasingly contested for its oil resources) as military targets if they do not renounce their positions...

...The rule of law is indeed critical to any long-term solution, because Colombia's conflict is, at its heart, a turf war driven by material motives with ideological and class-based undercurrents, in large part fueled by the drug trade that services a voracious U.S...

...All are known for orthodox tendencies and close relationships with the international financial institutions, but the demanding context will require creative solutions, a combination of social investment and belttightening.10 For all of Uribe's modern, technocratic trappings, his straight-talking, studious demeanor, and his can-do attitude often ascribed to the people of Antioquia, he also represents an enduring feature of Latin American political culture: the caudillo, or strongman, summoned to save the nation with a top-down political project based on the promise of order...

...Jason Hagen is Associate for Colombia at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA...

...Margarita Martinez, "Colombia Rebel Boss Reveals a Plan," Associated Press, February 12, 2002...

...Bankrolled by the drug trade as well as wealthy and middle-class Colombians who lack confidence in the state's security forces and the legal system to protect their interests, the AUC poses as serious a threat to Colombian civilians and the tenuous Colombian democracy as the FARC does...

...Interview with author, Bogota, May 6, 2002...

...3. Joseph Contreras and Fernando Garavito, Biografia no autor- izada de Alvaro Uribe Velez: El senior de las sombras (Bogota: Oveja Negra, 2002...

...Clara Inds Rueda and Jacqueline Guevara Gil, "El desafio del nuevo equipo econ6mico de Alvaro Uribe," El Tiempo, June 9, 2002...

...Despite campaigning on such a platform, he has been remarkably short on details...

...Policy in Colombia, September, 2001...

...In both cases, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had a preponderant role in determining those choices...

...The FARC is also accumulating hostages for what it hopes will be a massive prisoner exchange with the government, something it did successfully in 2001, turning over 364 captured military and police officers for 14 imprisoned FARC members...

...Howard LaFranchi, "Hardliner Winning in Colombia," Christian Science Monitor May 24, 2002...

...Criticisms aside, Uribe fulfills Washington's desire for a firm hand, one that will not be hindered by peace gestures or mistake the FARC for a dialogue partner...

...Alfonso Cano of the FARC claims that a new demilitarized zone in that area will be a condition for any eventual peace talks...

...5, March-April 2002, available at http://ANwww.nacla.org/artdisplay.php?art=1890 and Winifred Tate, "Colombia: The Right Gathers Momentum," NACLA Report, XXXV No.6, May/June 2002, available at http J//www.nacla.org/artdisplay...

...officials privately sympathize with the AUC...

...Washington is now primed to change its mission in Colombia from one devoted exclusively to counternarcotics to include counterinsurgency operations, the first time it has done so in Latin America since the 1980s...

...The European Union, for example, does not regard the ELN as a terrorist organization...

...The ELN, FARC, and AUC are designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S...

...Southern Command, Army Major General Gary Speer, met with General Fernando Tapias, commander of the Colombian Armed Forces, while Assistant Secretary of State, Otto Reich, visited Uribe in BogotA...

...9 To address these problems, Uribe has drawn from Colombia's vaunted economic technocracy and put together a formidable team of advisors and ministers...

...Such actions tried public patience and made dissident Liberal Uribe's hardline rhetoric resonate with an impressive range of voters, garnering him 53% of the vote in a field dominated by four candidates...

...Uribe and others in his future cabinet have refused to call the situation in Colombia a "civil war" or even a "war...

...Their priorities will be to renegotiate the external debt and implement tax reformsboth to pay for the expanded war effort-overhaul a pension system that is considered wasteful, and create jobs...

...In the bloodiest incident, the FARC admitted to killing 119 civilians when it launched a canister bomb, destroying a church where townspeople had sought shelter, while battling paramilitaries in the village of BojayA, Antioquia...

...8. See Human Rights Watch, The Sixth Division: Military- Paramilitary Ties and U.S...

...drug czar" John Walters and others in the administration, several members of Congress also made it clear that they expected Colombia to spend more of its own money on the war before they would be willing to further loosen U.S...

...In 2002, the FARC helped elect the president by waging an intense bombing campaign and kidnapping spree...

...ians at a time (An action that results in more civilian deaths than three is officially designated as a massacre...

...The position of the Uribe administration towards the ELN may indicate its policies towards the FARC...

...The boy was by paramilitaries and found at the morgue after a week...

...Uribe is the only can- 2001...

...Moreno has been particularly effective in recruiting congressional supporters for Plan Colombia...

...There are indications that without a peace process, the ELN could even join hands with the FARC.1 6 If that were to happen, Uribe's international credibility would suffer tremendously and his war would be even more difficult to wage...

...With or without a peace process in the foreseeable future, there will need be to one eventually, and the reinsertion of irregular combatants will be critical to any successful negotiation given their sheer numbers, now over 35,000...

...3 He has also been an open supporter of Rito Alejo del Rio and Fernando Millin, two generals who were dismissed by President Pastrana for rights abuses...

...6. See Winifred Tate, "Colombia: The Right Gathers Momentum...

...The FARC, like the AUC, is recruiting young people from shantytowns on the outskirts of major cities such as Medellin and BogotA.13 It is, at the same time, attempting to expand its control of the isolated and sparsely inhabited southern provinces of Putumayo and FARC leader Marulanda, March 2001, in Los Pozos, Caqueti...

...1 2 At the same time, they are crossing their fingers and hoping that human rights are not further trampled in the name of establishing that very rule of law...

...James Wilson, "ELN May Seek Dignified Exit From Revolution," Financial Times, June 18, 2002...

...The Convivir allowed armed civilians to patrol and gather intelligence under the control of local military commanders...

...9. "El costo de la guerra," El Tiempo, February 27, 2002...

...It is particularly important in Colombia, because few have forgotten the systematic extermination campaigns waged against ex-guerrillas by state and paramilitary forces in the 1980s and 1990s...

...Uribe has already met with Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, to discuss the Colombian situation...

...1 1 Even some academic leftists and human rights activists have discreetly backed him because of their commitment to the rule of law, which Uribe promises to strengthen...

...It will cost some $4 billion over four years, though the country's annual budget is only $27 billion...

...New Colombian President Promises More War 1. See Adam Isacson, "Colombia Peace in Tatters," NACLA Report, XXXV, No...

...Juan Forero, "Tough Talk Resonates in a Nation Sick of War," The New York Times, May 27, 2002...

...Caquetd, where most of Colombia's coca is grown and processed into cocaine...

...Colombia is currently the third largest recipient of U.S...

...php?art=2026 2. "Prensa de E.U...

...Uribe's support has come from odd quarters, as an expression of elite exasperation with the four-decade old conflict as well as lower and middle class faith in the contemporary caudillo...

...Those terms may be unrealistic, for they include a cease-fire and a halt to all kidnappings and bombings before a dialogue is to resume...

...Uribe says, "No state can provide an acceptable level of security unless the citizens cooperate...

...But if Uribe emphasizes security and public order above all, he argues that on that base his administration will erect other important changes, such as economic and social reform...

...Uribe was a persistent critic of Pastrana's peace efforts and he evidently harbors a deep personal mistrust of the FARC: His father, a prominent landowner, was killed by that group in a botched kidnapping attempt in 1983...

...purse strings.18 .eps at the funeral of her 15-year old son in Medellin...

...He could go much further with no risk to his hardline image...

...The aim, if not to defeat them outright, is to at least weaken them enough to force them to the table on his own stringent terms...

...5. "Likely Colombia Leader is Hard-Liner," The New York Times, March 17, 2002...

...U.S...

...civilian and combatant, and would likely violate international humanitarian law...

...Yet many are wondering how the government will first pay for the war effort...

...market...

...He lived in Colombia for several years as a Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor Uribe ascended fast in the polls, rising rapidly from third place in January, as the peace talks between the government and the FARC strained and then broke down definitively on February 20.1 His popularity continued to increase as the FARC conducted a massive sabotage campaign against energy and transportation infrastructure and violence escalated throughout the country...

...For example, he has an opportunity to attract the FARC and the ELN back to the table by designing a plan for reintegrating guerrillas into civilian life...

...A former governor of Antioquia and mayor of its capital, Medellin, Uribe has been dogged by a series of reports that link him to drug traffickers and paramilitaries...

...5 He has called for an increase in the number of professional, combat-ready soldiers from 55,000 to 100,000 and a doubling of the number of police to 200,000...

...The public is clamoring for an impossibly quick fix to intractable problems, and its wild expectations will be deflated fast as the new president, the most resolute of recent rulers, tackles NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6 C I 0 0 8 r H 26CRISIS IN COLOMBIA issues that no single person, or administration, can solve in four years...

...During the campaign, civilian institutions did not receive the attention they deserve and could be shortchanged in the name of military bolstering...

...Steven Ambrus, "Taking Aim at the City," Newsweek, February 18, 2002...

...A Bogotd architecture student encapsulated many Colombians' feelings: "Uribe will mean more war at first, but so be it if that gets rid of the violent ones and lets us start to make something of Colombia...

...Like the FARC, the ELN is involved in kidnapping, extortion, and sabotage...

...It is still unclear whether such gestures are merely symbolic or truly heartfelt, but they do point to a softer side, maybe a more thoughtful one...

...Though he did not exactly ask for the role, the public readily assigned it to him: The entire power of state, it seems, has been invested in the symbolic figure of Uribe...

...government official, Miami, March 25, 2002...

...Does Uribe regard the ELN as a social movement of any form or does he believe that the ELN, like the FARC, has been reduced to a band of thugs and terrorists...

...1 5 Paramilitary attacks have weakened the 4,000-member ELN and many within the military would like to see those attacks continue...

...Moreover, the country's economy is at its most troubled point since the 1930s: Unemployment now hovers at 18% nationally, more than 60% of Colombians live in poverty-that is, they make less than $2 per day-and the gap between rich and poor is widening...

...But it's another thing entirely to arm ordinary citizens, private security firms, neighborhood security groups, and civil defense organizations so they can support the military...

...Even by Latin American standards, where the executive branch dominates the political landscape, the Colombian president is particularly powerful...

...Here, we have terrorism by armed groups against the rest of Colombia, and this must be resolved quickly...

...Uribe has long spoken of getting tough on crime and subversion, but he disputes the far-right image the foreign media and other observers paint of him...

...1 7 The same cannot be said of the Congress, however: This spring, a heartening number expressed concern about the AUC's growth and its continuing ties to elements of the Armed Forces...

...Carol Rosenberg, "U.S...

...6 Uribe has waffled on the details of his current plans, but clearly through such an arrangement civilians would be provided radios, perhaps vehicles, and probably weapons, to act as informants for police and military commanders...

...Frances Robles, "Uribe to meet U.S...

...What we have to do here is recover peace, to somehow have the peace that we have not had in our 200year history...

...Uribe's rhetoric appealed to a weary people's instinctive desire for a sledgehammer solution of the type that contributes to Colombia's vicious and seemingly unending cycles of violence...

...7. Karl Penhaul, "Front-Runner's Tough Talk Plays Big in Colombia," Boston Globe, May 22, 2002...

...7 In Antioquia, by Uribe's own admission, several of the Convivir were infiltrated by paramilitaries while he was governor...

...Nonetheless, only days after Uribe's victory, the Pastrana government unilaterally and surprisingly declared peace talks with the ELN over...

...It would be frankly impossible to avoid replaying that scenario today at the national level, with the AUC's explosive growth, budding sympathies from the middle class, and well-documented links with elements of the Colombian military 8 Given Colombia's countless outstanding vendettas and history of private retribution, it is perhaps all the more alarming that local-level opportunists may try to further these longstanding conflicts within Uribe's state-sanctioned model of "democratic security...

...With or without military endorsement, the AUC is poised to wage a scorched earth policy against perceived guerrilla sympathizers, though it has recently tried to soften its tone for the sake of political credibility...

...Vol XXXVI, No 1 July/August 2002 25 0 aw 0 0 Z 0 Vol XXXVI, No 1 July/August 2002 25CRISIS IN COLOMBIA A child watches as a FARC guerrilla searches a busload of passengers on a road in CaquetJ in February 2002...

...In military circles in the United States and Colombia, the overwhelming emphasis is on fighting the FARC rather than the AUC, though the Bush administration has officially labeled both as terrorist groups...

...Human rights groups point out that doing so would blur the distinction between A peace march in Los Pozos, CaquetJ during the last days of the peace process, February 2002...

...Las FARC ante el nuevo gobierno, entrevista a Alfonso Cano," Jorge Enrique Botero, El Tiempo, June 9, 2002...

...For example, it has mostly held to its promise to not kill more than three civilVol XXXVI, No 1 July/August 2002 27 Vol XXXVI, No 1 July/August 2002 27CRISIS IN COLOMBIA Funeral for a bus driver killed by paramilitaries in Medellin...

...2 People close to him cite his abilities as a public administrator and his university coursework in the United States and Europe as important assets, his defining qualities even...

...In 1998, the reclusive FARC leader Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda appeared in a photograph with candidate Andr6s Pastrana days before the election, signaling that the FARC was willing to take part in peace talks with a Pastrana government...

...In any case, he will encourage other A woman we countries, especially the United States, to disappeared, join him in his crusade, particularly with assistance in information gathering, equipment, and training...

...h of a bombing outside the National University in Bogotd in May eople were killed and ten were injured...

...21 By focusing on the FARC and short-term security concerns, the Uribe government is in danger of magnifying them into long-term obsessions at the expense of other reforms that Uribe says he values, such as education, health care, and the economy...

...military aid, and has received almost $2 billion in assistance since 2000...

...John Otis, "Colombian Cities Now Targets of War," Houston Chronicle, June 11, 2002...

...Also see Human Rights Watch, Washington Office on Latin America, and Amnesty International, Colombia Human Rights Certification Ill, May 1, 2002...

...pone sus ojos en Uribe," El Tiempo (BogotA), May 20, 2002...

...2 3 Most analysts agree that a negotiated political settlement is the only way out of Colombia's current conflict...