Pubdate: Sat, 09 Feb 2002
Source: Economist, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 The Economist Newspaper Limited
Contact:  http://www.economist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/132

COLOMBIA'S PEACE PROCESS

Not Looking Good

BOGOTA

The FARC carries on regardless

AT FIRST, Colombians were hugely relieved. On January 20th President Andres 
Pastrana decided, after some last-minute brinkmanship, to renew the decrees 
which conceded to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) a huge 
demilitarised enclave of 42,000 square kilometres in the south of the 
country. The agreement with the country's largest guerrilla group also set 
a tight agenda for reaching a ceasefire by April. After three years of 
drifting talks and continuing violence, respite seemed in sight.

No longer. Although ceasefire talks are continuing in the FARC's enclave, 
the 18,000-strong guerrilla force has stepped up its campaign across the 
rest of the country. More than 40 soldiers, police and civilians have been 
killed in the past two weeks, including five in a bomb explosion in Bogota 
on January 25th. On February 6th, a huge car bomb was defused in Medellin. 
Many recent attacks have been in urban areas, raising fears that the rebels 
are taking their war to the cities, where three-quarters of Colombians 
live. The guerrillas have also attacked power lines, bringing down more 
than 50 pylons and causing blackouts in three regions.

Mr Pastrana wants American military aid, which is currently dedicated to 
arming and training Colombian anti-drugs forces, to be used also to protect 
such things as oil pipelines. Attacks by a smaller guerrilla group, the 
National Liberation Army (ELN), on the Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline 
prevented Occidental Petroleum from pumping over 20m barrels last year, 
more than half its capacity. The Colombian government has already received 
$1.3 billion from the United States over the past two years for anti-drugs 
operations. Another $625m should be forthcoming unless Colin Powell, 
America's secretary of state, decides within the next month to suspend 
assistance on human-rights grounds. On February 5th Human Rights Watch and 
Amnesty International called on him to do just that, claiming that 
Colombia's armed forces were continuing to collaborate with the country's 
brutal right-wing paramilitary groups. But without American aid, both the 
guerrillas and the paramilitaries may well get stronger. On February 6th, 
the FARC demanded an end to Plan Colombia, the American-backed anti-drugs 
offensive, and the expulsion of all foreign military advisers.

Meanwhile, after a five-month suspension, the government resumed peace 
talks last week in Cuba with the ELN. Analysts say this group, which has no 
more than 5,000 fighters, represents Mr Pastrana's only real hope of 
striking a peace deal before he leaves office. But three days of talks 
produced no more than a well-meaning but woolly commitment to carry on.

Ordinary Colombians are fed up with all this. In May, they must elect a new 
president. The latest polls give Alvaro Uribe Velez, the most belligerent 
critic of the peace process among the seven presidential candidates, a 
nine-point lead over Horacio Serpa, the more dovish leader of the 
opposition Liberal Party. A former governor of the department of Antioquia, 
Colombia's economic powerhouse, he is accused by some of being too close to 
the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), the paramilitary umbrella 
group responsible for most human-rights abuses, though he denies this. But 
in a country crying out for order, Mr Uribe has struck a chord with voters. 
He has promised that, unless hostilities end completely, the armed forces 
will retake the FARC's enclave on the day he becomes president.

Whether his popularity lasts will depend largely on the FARC. James 
LeMoyne, the former journalist who, as the UN's representative for 
Colombia, was credited with reviving the peace talks last month, thinks 
that the FARC's current offensive is mostly a short-lived show of strength 
after their agreement to ceasefire talks. If this is so, Mr Uribe's chances 
of winning the presidency may subside as the violence does. But if the 
FARC's offensive endures, the volatile loyalties of the Colombian 
electorate may switch definitively to the hawk rather than the doves.
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