Mapping out a Potential Post-Uribe Political Landscape in Colombia - Juan Manuel Santos

Even if Alvaro Uribe is determined to be ineligible for a third term, it's quite possible that the next president of Colombia could be equally terrible on human rights. Uribe's former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, has said that if Uribe is ruled ineligible, Santos will be the candidate for the ruling Unity party. Santos's background as Minister of Defense is full of controversy. It was under his watch when the Colombian military attacked a FARC camp and killed Raul Reyes. While many Colombians were thrilled with the news, there was the little issue of Santos having the military violate Ecuadorian sovereignty in the attack. Additionally, Santos admitted that extrajudicial killings and the murder of civilians were not infrequent under his watch. While he claimed he admitted as much so that the Ministry could "resolve" the problem, he did not really take any substantial activity to combat tese type of extrajudicial and paramilitary activities, which continue to be one of the biggest problems for human rights in Colombia.

Santos's potential candidacy isn't some pipe dream, either. Certainly, Uribe is seeking re-re-election, a move that Congress has approved. However, the possibility of a third campaign for Uribe is not a done deal. While a top judge has recommended the rejection of a referendum on allowing a third term for Uribe, and even a majority of Colombians opposing a third term for the current president. While far from decisive, this legal and popular opposition gives some hope that democracy in Colombia can continue as it has. But with candidates like Santos, it's hard to imagine that there will be any real effort to rein in the out-of-control paramilitary activity in the country.

Around Latin America

-It's been awhile since we did any updates on Honduras. Micheletti and Zelaya had agreed to negotiations with Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and while things were looking good for awhile, they now appear to be breaking down. Zelaya has vowed to cross the border back into his home country by foot if a resolution is not agreed upon by the end of this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. is ratcheting up its rhetoric, telling Micheletti that, if Zelaya is not restored to power, the U.S. will impose "severe sanctions" on Honduras. Some are critical of the Obama administration for waiting this long to take such a strong stance, but it strikes me as the right approach: let the negotiations begin, with mediation by a smart and respected diplomat, and if/when Micheletti refuses to back down from the coup, raise the specter of fierce economic reprisals if Zelaya's (democratically-elected) administration is not returned to power.

-American interrogators apparently were not the only government agents present during interrogations in Guantanamo. According to one report, Chinese agents also had unsupervised access to a number of Uighur detainees held in Cuba after September 11th. This isn't terribly surprising, given China's efforts to crack down on Uighur separatism and general mobilization, a case that's resurfaced recently as massive protests and clashes recently erupted between Uighurs, Chinese, and the state police in western China, resulting in the deaths of 100s. Equally unsurprising is that Chinese agents were allowed into Guantanamo to interrogate prisoners, even while Congressional representatives were denied access to examine conditions. Still, the Chinese-U.S. collaboration in the "war on terror" is an interesting and unexplored topic, and if this story is any indicator, could mark some rather dark interactions between the two countries, in Cuba and elsewhere.

-I've commented before on the close ties between Colombian paramilitaries and Alvaro Uribe's administration, as well as the impossibility of attaining peace in Colombia until the government cracks down as hard on paramilitaries as on the FARC. Lillie points to one more way in which the government is trying to cover up paramilitary violence, as well as offering some fascinating news I had not heard about the search in Brazil for the bodies of guerrillas who were killed and "disappeared" in the Araguaia region in the early 1970s (as well as the controversy of having the military look for the very bodies it is accused of having executed and dumped.)

-Speaking of the FARC, Colombia is claiming it has evidence that the FARC financially sponsored Rafael Correa's election. Correa insists he did not know about it, and I imagine he didn't. Beyond that, I think Boz's analysis of what Correa needs to do is pretty spot-on.

-In a very noble cultural move, Cuba is restoring the 120-meter tall mural painted onto a mountainside in the 1950s by muralist Leovigidio Gonzalez. The restoration will weather-proof the mural, and the project will incorporate the labor of local campesinos, helping jobs in the region.

-I couldn't agree more with Evo Morales: Bolivians (and Brazilians, and Argentines, and Ecuadorans, and people in the United States, and etc...) need to be more aware of the role of dictatorships in Bolivia (and Latin America) in the past, the causes of their rises to power and the effects of their regimes, the lessons (positive and negative) that civilian governments have learned, and the ways in which repression continue to manifest themselves in the world today.

-Brazil is outraged over Britain's decision to quite literally dump its shit on Brazil:

Brazilian police are investigating after 64 containers with more than 1,400 tonnes of hazardous UK waste were found in three of the country's ports.

The authorities say that among the material which was brought in illegally they discovered batteries, syringes, condoms and nappies.

Since the initial discovery, another 25 containers with hospital waste were found, also apparently from England.

The dumps happened in Santos (one of Brazil's most important ports, located in Sao Paulo) and in Rio Grande do Sul. To add insult to insult, one of the bins was filled with dirty toys with a note saying to wash the toys before giving them to "poor Brazilian children." Britain has promised to take "immediate steps," but it's a pretty embarrassing and despicable action nonetheless.

-Also in Brazil, in the "lack of sensitivity" department:

Jobless people seeking information about their benefits on the Brazilian Labor Ministry's Web site were forced to type in passwords such as "bum" and "shameless."
Labor Minister Carlos Lupi is apologizing for the situation - and he blames a private company that created the site's security system.

The government had previously decided against renewing the company's contract, prompting the speculation that the website gaffe was a revenge-prank on the part of the company.

-In one final bit on Brazil, according to a new academic study, Brazil is the global leader in a dubious category: soccer-related deaths. The report says that 42 people have been killed in the last 10 years, putting Brazil ahead of Italy and Argentina.

-In Venezuela, former Defense Minister Italo del Valle Alliegro has been criminally charged for his role in ordering the repression of protests that resulted in the deaths of hundreds and probably thousands of people dead in 1989. The protests, known as "Caracazo," were in response to government-imposed price hikes, and as the article points out, the failure to punish any authorities for the excessive force in response has been a dark stain on the human rights record of Venezuela since 1989.

-In good news on the (non-Dirty War) human rights front, Argentine courts have ordered a reopening of the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish organization that killed 85 and injured over 300. Recent developments have included beginning a more thorough and nuanced investigation than the one that simply said Iran was to blame, and has allowed the re-admission of evidence that had been acquired prior to the date that a judge had bribed a suspect to falsely blame the police for the bombing.

-On a more light-hearted note for Argentina, and in what is a very interesting case of how individual cultures can force international companies to adapt, Pepsi is now changing its logo to read "Pecsi" in Argentina, making the spelling match the pronunciation Argentines have given to the soda for years.

-There are many reasons why Alberto Fujimori is a disgusting human being, and his conviction today for embezzlement only adds to that long list. Still, to get at the essence of Fujimori's evil, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better quotation that sums it all up than the one Fujimori issued today: "I only accept the deeds; I accept neither the legal responsibility, nor the punishment nor the civil reparations." (h/t to Lillie).

-If anybody has any information on the apparent arson of the Ministry of Health in Guyana, it could be financially useful: president Bharrat Jagdeo is offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpretrators.

-Finally, as Erik can no doubt attest, traveling in Costa Rica (and in many parts of the world) can be quite an adventure, particularly outside of the cities. This interesting (and kind of frightening) display shows the poor condition of many bridges throughout Costa Rica, from San Jose to the rural areas. Having lived there for awhile several years ago, it looks like travel has only gotten more "adventurous."

Details on the Deaths Colombian Paramilitaries Cause (and How the U.S. Is Involved)

I've talked repeatedly (here and here, for example) about the significant role paramilitary groups play in the high levels of violence in Colombia and the continued impunity they enjoy. The L.A. Times has a good article up giving detailed statistics on how the paramilitaries are directly responsible for growing violence in Colombia.

There were 329 so-called extrajudicial killings by the Colombian military and police last year, a coalition of Colombian rights groups asserts in a report, a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006."

In addition to this, the article states that, out of 900 cases of murder brought against military members and police officers, only 18 cases have resulted in convictions, and 14 of those 18 happened only after a special prosecutor's office was created in the middle of 2007. And politicians tied to paramilitaries still aren't being held responsible or accountable for their ties; indeed, just yesterday, one of Colombia's top senators (and a top ally of President Uribe) closely tied to the paramilitaries was released from jail after only four months. The prosecutor's office claimed a lack of sufficient evidence, but the likelihood that politics played a part in the inability/refusal to find enough evidence against him is pretty decent.

The LA Times article is also really worth checking out because it details the ways in which the U.S. under Bush has tacitly supported the paramilitaries' killing of innocent civilians that it later labels "subversives" (much in the way the innocent in Brazilian favelas are invariably "traficantes" once they're dead) by sending over $4 billion dollars in military and economic aid to a government that, again, is repeatedly and closely tied to the paramiliary groups; the best defense a U.S. spokesman could offer in face of the statistics above was the tepid defense that "such numbers were only "examples among a wide variety of statistics" gathered by various civil society groups that monitor human rights in Colombia.". Again, it's worth checking out the article in full, and it offers some bitter reality-checks for those who think that, just because the FARC has recently suffered some significant setbacks both politically and morally, Colombia is heading towards peace.

A Colombia Follow-Up: FARC, Paramilitaries, and Cocaine in the Rural Areas

Following up on my observations and thoughts on Colombia the other day, today the NY Times has this article up on cocaine production and FARC/paramilitary violence in Colombia's rural areas. Suffice to say, despite Uribe's recent efforts to show how successful he's been against the FARC, it's far from a victory by any stretch of the imagination (even wingnut imaginations). The article offers is an important reality check on those who are getting overly hopeful for Colombia (something I fear I may have inadvertently taken place in by not qualifying enough how ambivalent my hope for Colombia is now; things still look better than they have in a long time, but that doesn't mean they are better).

In addition, Simon Romero, the article's author, brings up the drug trade and its ties to the struggle. I suggested that, even if the FARC were to disappear, there's no good reason to believe the cocaine production and the violence tied to it would drop, and the article seems to back that up: "while the FARC’s share of the cocaine trade has declined, Colombia’s share of the world cocaine production has remained stable at about 60 percent. That means opportunities for new players like Colombia’s resurgent right-wing militias [my italics] and small-scale armed gangs taking the place of disassembled cartels."

Which leads us to the U.S.'s involvement in Colombia. It's been repeated so often that it may sound like a tired argument, but it's worth repeating once again: the "War on Drugs" does not, cannot, and will not work as long as it focuses strictly on production. When fields are attacked, they are either quickly replanted and/or pushed into more remote regions where it's easier to conceal your production. Additionally, the U.S. has made no secret in its willingness to pump lots of money into Colombia to fight "terrorism" (and, since Bush became president, maintain one of its few friends in the region in the figure of Uribe). However, given how close some top-level Colombian officials are to the paramilitary groups, the tie of U.S. foreign aid to Colombia is not hard to follow. I have no doubt that some of the U.S. funds end up in the hands of Colombian paramilitaries who are directly involved in the drug trade. Thus, while the U.S. is on the one hand spending millions and millions of dollars to combat drug production in Colombia, it is at the same time offering money to governments (both present and past) that are in bed with paramilitaries who are increasingly producing drugs. And even the farmers who are simply growing cocaine for survival aren't ignornat peasants; they are finding new ways to produce, all while the demand in the United States (where almost all of Colombia's cocaine goes) does nothing to force them to turn to other, more legal crops. So the United States ends up throwing money away by trying to combat the production of cocaine, while failing to address issues of demand or even reconcile how they can tacitly (and perhaps covertly) support groups involved in the drug trade even while combatting the drug trade.

These two pictures of the continuing local violence in rural areas and drug production are indeed depressing, and serve as an important reminder of how far Colombia has to go. Do things look better than they have in a long time? Sure. Does that mean that they are even close to improving? Absolutely not. And it indicates how many other problems Colombia will face, even if the FARC were to collapse. So while we can be thrilled that hostages have been released and that FARC has sustained true losses, it is still, as Erik said, a group that is often little more than an organization of criminals and thugs. As depressing as it is, the problems Colombia is facing run far deeper than a "revolutionary" group involved in a 40+ year civil war, and the country is still far, far away from the day when these types of conflicts can come to a close.

Thoughts on Colombia, the FARC, and the Possibility of Hope

I agree with the majority of Erik's points below: that the FARC hasn't been anything more than a criminal organization hiding behind a thin veil of "ideology" for decades; that things are genuinely looking better than I could have hoped for in terms of civil conflict (and its potential end) in Colombia, and this shift has indeed been far more rapid than I could have imagined; and, regardless whether the FARC disappears or not, paramilitaries can, should, and need to be brought to justice, for they have been as involved as the FARC (if not moreso) in drug production and running and the murder of innocent civilians in the name of (stop me if this sounds familiar) "combatting terrorism."


That said, I think the hope still has to be somewhat guarded. First, the FARC isn't gone yet. As I've said before, the recent setbacks have been embarassing, and the deaths of major FARC leaders (including second-in-command Raul Reyes, Ivan Rios, and Manuel Marulanda Velez) are significant. That said, that doesn't mean some charismatic leader can't emerge or come out of nowhere to give the FARC new impetus. There are reasons to believe that FARC may very well be entering its death throes, but this isn't the first time that this outcome has seemed possible.

Another issue that of course will demand attention is what happens with the cocaine production. Both the FARC and paramilitary groups are closely tied to its production and sale in Colombia. Should the FARC be eliminated, I don't see cocaine production just dropping or disappearing. The demand is still out there globally, and there will certainly be others, be they members of the paramilitary groups or just standard drug-lords with no politics other than profit, who will want to fill the FARC's void (again, if there is a void ever). The possible end of the FARC does not mean an end to cocaine production or the violence tied to the industry, and the government will really have to work hard via social and economic programs to turn cocaine producers into productive units in other, more legal areas. Given how Colombia's presidents have acted in the past, I don't see a lot of reason to be hopeful of this.

Thirdly, as Erik alluded to, there is the issue of paramilitary groups. They are as awful and violent as the FARC in many regards, indiscriminately and often contemptuously killing innocent civilians and extracting payments from international companies via protection rackets, all in the name of the "war on terror" or "drug war" or in the name of combatting "subversives." Colombia has refused to deal with this issue, especially under Uribe, in part no doubt because both the current and past governments have been in bed with the paramilitaries via "unofficial" (and sometimes official) channels. Colombia needs to tackle the paramilitary issue as much as it does FARC. I have shards of hope that, were FARC to fade away, dealing with paramilitaries would be facilitated as human right organizations could deal more directly with paramilitary violence in ways similar (albeit in different contexts) to those campaigns in Chile and Argentina. Nonetheless, such hopes are indeed just glimmers without the promise of much coming of it, particularly given the close ties of multiple politicians, administration officials, and even presidents tied to the paramilitary groups directly or indirectly. Certainly, as time goes on things could change on this front, but right now, I see no real reason to believe the politicians will stand down on this issue and let the true issue of paramilitary action at all levels, illegal and governmental, come to light.

All this is not to belittle where things are right now. As Erik correctly pointed out, this is the most hopeful we can be about Colombia for a long time. Of particular interest is how Colombian politics might play out on the ideological level if the FARC were to all but die out. Would they be as beholden to the U.S.? Would Colombians start electing more centrist and leftist leaders? Would the rightighst politicians who are popular right now really be able to maintain their popularity in a political context where the opponent on whom they base their legitimacy no longer is a threat? There's no way of knowing now, because the FARC still is around, even if diminished for the time. Still, one can't help but think that maybe, after 40+ years of conflict and 25+ years of stagnant, useless violence that has torn the country apart, things are looking better than they have for awhile.

Hope in Colombia?

This is really more Trend's thing, but I thought I would comment briefly on the situation in Colombia. I've long had a list of countries that I thought would never get better--Haiti, Palestine, Congo, Somalia. And Colombia. The problems Colombia faces are so intractable that I thought it would take a miracle for the nation to normalize itself.

But perhaps that miracle is happening. The FARC has weakened signficantly in the last year, which I have occasionally commented upon. Although I usually support left-leaning Latin American movements, the FARC have been nothing but criminals for at least 25 years and have made any kind of real social reform in Colombia impossible. It was quite unlikely that Colombia could become a functioning nation with the FARC still active. But their decline, topped off by the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and other prominent hostages two weeks ago, makes me feel hopeful.

Even if the FARC goes away though, the paramilitaries have to be brought to justice. My fear is that a right-wing victory in Colombia could lead to revenge killings by the paramilitaries and perhaps a purely military regime. But Colombian senator Carlos Garcia, a right-wing politician, was arrested on Friday for his ties to paramilitary groups. Garcia's case bears watching closely. If he is prosecuted for his crimes, and if the Uribe government can bring the paramilitary groups to justice, perhaps Colombia can become a functioning nation-state for the first time in several decades.

Would you care to add anything Trend?

Decline of the FARC?

It seems that the Colombian revolutionary group, the FARC, is in serious decline. They've had a rough year to say the least. They are facing severe military attacks from the Colombian government and supported by the US. One of their top military commanders was killed. And now their founder, Pedro Antonio Marin, has died at age 77.

While I think the Colombian government is loathsome, I have to think this is a good thing. The FARC is a horrible organization. I can't see how Colombia begins to get better with the FARC still around. Ideally, they would take a left-leaning reform path like Brazil or even Bolivia. But the FARC is revolutionary in name only. In practice, they are as reactionary as the government, using revolutionary rhetoric to justify kidnappings and cocaine dealing. If the FARC went away for the most part, the paramilitary groups would have to be dealt with severely, and then maybe some kind of peace and reform could come over the country. But none of this can happen with the FARC still strong. Their rapid decline would be the best thing for Colombia and all of South America. I fear that Hugo Chavez will somehow intervene on their behalf, but I hope that doesn't happen.

The Developing Crisis between Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela

To be up front, I am not a specialist in international relations, and in terms of Latin America, I am nowhere near as studied in Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador as I am in Brazil or the Southern Cone.

That said, the new developments between Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela are rather intense, and have I think a real chance to get worse. Late last week, Colombia announced it had killed Raul Reyes, FARC's "number 2" (although, as Boz points out, this is a simplification of a complicated command structure in the FARC). As the story develops, it appears that Colombia actually invaded Ecuadoran airspace, and the Colombian military crossed into Ecuador without permission to kill Reyes, who was in Ecuador's national territory. In response, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador has sent troops to the Colombia-Ecuador border, withdrawn his ambassador from Colombia, and expelled Colombia's ambassador from Ecuador. Hugo Chávez has also shut down Venezuela's embassy in Colombia, and sent troops to the Colombia-Venezuela border, threatening war if Colombia tries to invade Venezuela, even to attack members of the FARC or the ELN. And while Colombia has apologized to Ecuador, Ecuador says the apology is insufficient, while Colombia claims it has found evidence in the camp of the 17 FARC members that Ecuador was in contact with FARC. Suffice to say, things are, at the moment, rather tense.

I don't really know what the implications of all this will be. Certainly, the relations between Chávez and Uribe can't get much worse, and have been drastically declining since Uribe inexplicably (and, although it all worked out OK, rather indefensibly) kicked Chávez out of the delicate hostage negotiations in November). Plus, both Chávez and Uribe stand to gain from the bump in approval ratings in their respective country that such national disputes often engender (some are saying Chávez in particular could benefit given his allegedly lagging status in Venezuela, but I simply have virtually no faith in any of the polling mechanisms in Venezuela, given the extreme partisanship, pro- or anti-Chavista, that runs throughout many "non-partisan" organizations there).

But the Ecuador element is more troubling. Correa has yet to prove himself to be somebody who acts without just reason, so the fact that he has taken this this far already shows how serious he feels it to be. While national soveriegnty and the control of borders used to be sufficient enough an argument for war or a highly-charged national response in its own right, today it seems a bit differnet, given the nature of guerrilla tactics and less immediate antagonism to such border-violations (witness the lack of outcry when Turkey entered Iraq a few weeks ago to go after Kurdish PKK "terrorists"). I get the sense that many may say, "So what? So Colombia went a couple miles into Ecuador to get some "terrorists." What's the big deal?" Given the way the world has globalized not just in terms of economy, but also technologically, culturally, and even politically, the respect for national borders doesn't strike me as being as strong as it may once have been. This is in no way aided by the fact that, sometimes national territory means virtually nothing to major world powers (the U.S.'s support of Contra bases in Costa Rica and Honduras) while other times, national borders must be protected at all costs (the Malvinas War).

But territorial issues have always been sensitive in Latin America, from the independence movements to today. One simply has to look at the ongoing battle over the northern third of Chile, won in the wake of the War of the Pacific, which deprived Bolivia of its one outlet to the ocean and which Peru and Bolivia still insist belongs to them even today, over 120 years after the war itself. Wars of this type were not uncommon in Latin America, having affected the territorial control of Bolivia, Paraguay, and even Ecuador itself, which lost land to Peru in a war in 1945, and over which eruptions flared again in 1995. One can see how Colombia's invasion of Ecuador's border could be more than a little upsetting to Ecuador.I think Colombia's charges that Ecuador was in contact with the FARC are a weak defense, at least until it becomes clearer to how deep these contacts ran. Colombia itself only mentioned "possible" connections betwen FARC-Ecuador, and I find it unlikely that Ecuador was really closely tied to FARC. If such contact did exist, it doesn't necessarily mean Ecuador was being overly friendly.

I'm not convinced yet this will erupt into some regional war. I think cooler heads have to prevail, though, and given Uribe's brashness in invading Ecuador, and neither Uribe nor Chávez is exactly a calm, patient, diplomatic figure. War benefits nobody here, though (save maybe for the FARC, who can use the war as a breather to regroup). There still hasn't been much said from other Latin American countries on the issue; Lula is asking his Minsiter of Foreign Relations for more information, but the president of Brazil's Câmara has already said that, if necessary, Brazil should try to use its role in the region to avoid crisis as a neutral moderator (i.e., representing neither Colombia nor Ecuador nor Venezuela). Hopefully, things will calm down. Still, war is not out of the question, and it will definitely be worth seeing how the events play out between these three countries (and the rest of the region) over the next few weeks.