Colombia's Creeping Breakdown

...Washington canceled Samper's tourist visa and then punished Colombia by decertifying it as an ally in the War on Drugs...

...They set up routine roadblocks in the areas they control, including the road to Villavicencio, and kidnap 20, 30 people at a time...

...Observers disagree about why Marulanda was absent—fear of an attempt on his life...

...Interestingly, a proposal to swap government security force members and rebels being held prisoner, featured prominently in the preliminary peace talks, has become a source of controversy...

...Last year was terrible for business," laments Jorge Cardona, my brother-in-law...

...Ironically, many Colombians believe that FARC helped Pastrana win the close 1998 election by endorsing key elements of his peace plan, a move that won over undecided voters...

...The increasing power of the guerrillas is reflected in everyday life...

...The cartels are currently estimated to be repatriating $2 billion to $5 billion a year from drug exports, an amount equal to between 4 and 9 per cent of the country's roughly $55 billion Gross National Product...

...One homeless victim, the father of six, told the press: "If the guerrillas were here, I promise you, we'd have all the shops open, one way or another...

...When you were here in 1997, the guerrillas concentrated on kidnapping foreigners," observes my wife's cousin, Dario Diaz, who works for a foreign oil company...

...The traffickers buy U. S. and other foreign made goods with United States dollars, then smuggle the merchandise into Colombia and sell it at below-market prices...

...In 1997, when I was in Colombia researching a book on the international drug trade, Leonardo Gallego, head of the antidrug police, told me: "The guerrillas don't share an ideological relationship with the drugtraffickers, buttheir alliance has produced a lucrative trade-off: cocaine and heroin is exported and weapons are imported...

...His book Hard Target: The United States War Against International Drug Trafficking...

...The problem with this country is that too much land is in the hands of too few...

...Despite the apparent headway Colombia has made, the U.S...

...The guerrillas' power comes not from popular support but from their deep involvement in criminal activity...

...Ron Chepesiuk writes frequently about Colombia for The New Leader...

...It also calls for the unconditional protection of human rights, emphasizing the need for hostage-taking to cease...

...The war, which claims 3,000 lives and costs Colombia $4 billion annually, has diminished the central government and created a refugee calamity as serious as any nation has faced in the past decade...

...I am married to a Colombian, and my family members have been feeling the crunch...

...Clinton also pledged about $280 million over several years in economic aid...

...Between 1991 and '94, for example, the value of urban property in Colombia appreciated by 40 to 60 per cent, while the average annual rate of inflation was 22 per cent...

...I don't know anything more difficult in Colombia right now than trying to find a job," she says...

...As I have learned in the course of an extended visit here, the country continues to march toward a political abyss while struggling with an economic situation that seems to get worse by the day...

...This time, the government is in a weakened position because the guerrillas are so powerful...

...Colombians and foreigners living in the country fear abduction, but it is the poor peasants in the rural areas who are the chief victims of a conflict that has no heroes...

...Unemployment hovers around 18 per cent...

...Most flee to the large cities, like Bogota, where they receive little help from the government...

...In addition, last fall Pasn-ana experienced what may be a harbinger of things to come—a widespread strike that included doctors, nurses, teachers, court personnel, and civil aviation and telecommunication workers...

...After graduating from college with an accounting degree in 1997, my sister-inlaw, Rosa Aranda Diaz, landed a wellpaying job with a school supply company...

...The ELN wants all natural resources nationalized, and "a new Army based on the insurgent forces...

...I have interviewed a number of them and they do have grievances...

...Hundreds of thousands of them have been driven from their homes...

...Little more than a year later, though, her employer went bankrupt...

...Castano himself was not killed, as the press initially reported...

...An examination of some of the key points of the rebel and government agendas shows how difficult it will be for the two sides to hammer out an agreement...

...The guerrillas don't do bad things...

...Similarly, a poll published January 29 in El Espectador, the country's second largest newspaper, found that half of those questioned believe the peace talks could drag on indefinitely, another 27 per cent believe they will founder and only 23 per centbelieve they will lead to peace...

...But it was obvious that they were not ideologically engaged in the civil war...

...But everyone except the government's spinmeisters agrees that his absence, and a speech made in his name warning of tough negotiations and more bloodshed, embarrassed Pastrana before international dignitaries as well as a national television audience...

...We need uprisings...

...it had become too dangerous to travel to Villavicencio...

...After all, the multinational Medellin and Cali cartels are gone, thanks to the successful anti-drug campaign of the National Police in the early and mid-1990s...

...They are here to help the people because the government forgets us...

...FARC, among other demands, wants the government to revise all of its military treaties, reduce the size of the Armed Forces, and show greater respect for human rights...

...Guerrillas now hold sway over roughly 50 per cent of the country...

...however, as my friend Herman Velasquez, a restaurant owner in Bogota, has observed: "Colombia tried to make peace seven years ago, but we failed...

...Knowing his own military intelligence has predicted that the guerrillas could possibly overrun Colombia in five years, Pastrana has staked his reputation and legacy on ending the war...

...Matters were made worse when FARC killed three American activists in early March...

...Now they don't care...

...In a speech at the National Press Club, he pledged "a crackdown on corruption and the cancer of drug money poisoning our country...

...others have strong sympathy for the 300 or so mostly poor government conscripts the guerrillas have carted off since 1996...

...The resulting controversy is likely to interfere with peace efforts...

...Every day throngs of people come to buy a large variety of goods at ridiculously low prices: authentic Nike sneakers for $35 a pair, José Cuervo Tequila at $6 to $7 a bottle, fashionable Levi's for under $30...

...Apartment complexes, shopping centers and office towers are still being built, even though many stand almost empty...

...As we shall see, the illicit funds help to finance what is perhaps the country's most serious problem, an ongoing civil war...

...Besides, the drug traffickers pay no taxes on the contraband they smuggle into Colombia...

...Many feel a prisoner exchange could raise the kidnapping rate, already the highest in the world...

...An importer of fine cloth, he sells to an upscale clientele in Bogota and points out that "It was much worse for the poor...

...The Colombian economy is expanding, but the use of narcodollars, particularly to buy land and put up buildings at inflated prices, is hurting the legitimate sector...

...With a straight face, FARC has insisted that a solution must be found "to the phenomena of production, marketing and consumption of narcotics and hallucinogens...

...The government promises land reform, together with programs that will help farmers find substitutes for illegal crops...

...That the goods are sold openly is an indication of the drug lords' power and the scale of corruption in Colombia...

...The guerrillas once feared the "paramilitaries," as the force of a Right-wing alliance of large landowners, military officers and status-quo seeking drug traffickers is known...

...support may come none too soon...

...Cash flow from international drug trafficking is especially evident in the construction industry...

...That strike ended without causinggreat havoc, but economists worry that future labor unrest could destablize the peso and damage the country's credit rating in world markets...

...To his credit, he has persuaded the guerrillas to begin negotiating...

...In January, Manuel Marulanda, FARC's reclusive 68year old leader, failed to show up at the inauguration of the talks with the government, although other guerrilla negotiators did attend...

...Not that those embryonic negotiations were going particularly well...

...Andrés Pastrana Arango, elected President on the Social Conservative Party ticket in March of last year, is scandalfree and off to a good start with the U.S., judging by his visit to Washington last October...

...The guerrillas are making the government face that problem...

...Until last year the family took an annual January vacation at its farm near Villavicencio, a city about four hours from Bogota...

...The Colombians I have talked to are deeply skeptical about the prospects for peace...

...This year they went to Silvania, a mere hour's drive from the capital...

...Unofficial estimates put the second figure as high as $500 million...

...Pastrana has been a significant improvement over Samper, but he's got his work cut out for him...

...Gallego furthernoted that the guerrillas can pay their troops $300 to $400 a month, whereas professional soldiers in Colombia's Army make a little more than $200 a month...

...In any event, the extent of its muscle was reflected in Pastrana's quick decision, against the advice of his generals, to give in to the demand that a jungle area in the South the size of Switzerland be demilitarized...

...Nevertheless, the brazen assault on the headquarters of a figure many consider a real-life Rambo shocked the nation...

...At first glance one might think Colombia is headed toward better times...

...As ordinary—and now desperate—citizens expressed their frustration at the way the government was handling the disaster, their voices took on a pro-guerrilla tone...

...The local markets and manufacturers can't compete with contraband, creating numerous business failures and high unemployment," explains Alejandro Saenz de Santamaria, an economics professor at the Bogota-based University of the Andes...

...1982-1997 was published last December...

...During a meeting at the White House, President Bill Clinton promised Pastrana that he would organize a conference of donor nations and organizations who are prepared to encourage Colombia's farmers to cultivate alternative crops...

...in the country's history...

...After the earthquake that devastated the city of Armenia at the end of January, there was widespread looting and defiance of government authority...

...In certain areas they are the law and authority," says Juan Tokatlian, an expert in Colombian politics and a former sociology professor at the National University in Bogota...

...Gone, too, is Ernesto Samper Pizano, whose four-year tenure as President was marked by charges of drug-trade corruption and the worst diplomatic relations with the U.S...

...Everybody knows San Andresito is a money laundering operation for the billions of dollars the hard-working drug cartels make from their global trade...

...Churches and volunteer groups try to provide for the basic needs of the socalled desplazados as best they can...

...They do nothing with it, and that's not good for our country's future...

...He added that "While Colombia is touted as a democracy with two major opposing parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, there is really only one party—the party of the ruling class...

...In 1998, Colombia had to devalue its peso because the budget deficit climbed to about 4.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product...

...Both groups want the redistribution of wealth, plus land reform that will take land away from drug traffickers and big estates and give it to the poor...

...At the heart of the country's troubles is its war with the Marxist guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN...

...Why the same items cost very much more in other stores here is no secret to Colombians...

...On the other hand, I have sensed a distinct feeling that the guerrilla threat is bound to spur economic and political reform...

...says Velasquez...

...Ten years ago I could—and did—travel almost anywhere, including the Amazon region, without fear...

...According to the government, FARC and the ELN earn $500 million a year from the drug trade and another $200 million from kidnapping...

...simply stagefright...

...A year and a half ago my inlaws advisedme that, as a gringo, I should not venture into the countryside...

...Several, for instance, told me that in some cases large landowners were using the danger of an attack as an excuse to take land away from the poorest residents...

...But today the guerrillas' strength is such that this past December they razed the heavily fortified mountaintop headquarters of their paramilitary archrival Carlos Castano in northwest Colombia, brutally murdering some 30 civilians in the process...