Geneva

False Positive

‘My investigations found that members of Colombia’s security forces committed a significant number of unlawful killings in a pattern that was repeated around the country. Although these killings were not committed as part of an official policy, I found that many military units engaged in so-called ‘false positives’ or falsos positivos in which victims were murdered by the military, often for soldiers’ personal benefit or profit. Victims were generally lured under false pretenses by a “recruiter” to a remote location and then killed by soldiers who report that there was a “death in combat”, and takes steps to manipulate and cover-up the crime scene,’ Mr. Alston reported. ‘Within the military, success was equated with “kill counts” of guerillas, and promoted by an environment in which there was little or no accountability. Soldiers simply knew that they could get away with murder.’

Mr. Alston noted steps Colombia has taken to reduce the killings, including dismissing senior military officers and permitting UN and International Committee of the Red Cross monitoring, but expressed concern about continuing impunity. “The current rate of impunity for alleged killings by the security forces, up to 98.5 per cent by some credible estimates, is way too high,” the expert said. “Unless the Government ensures effective investigation and prosecution of killings by security forces, it will not be able to turn the page on the falsos positivos scandal. Victims and family members deserve justice. Colombian society and the international community need to know that security operations are lawful, or they will not be considered legitimate.”

Impunity for former paramilitaries

The Special Rapporteur also found ‘an alarming level of impunity for former paramilitaries.’ According to Mr. Alston, “Colombia’s effort to end and provide accountability for paramilitary violence is floundering. The vast majority of paramilitaries responsible for human rights violations were demobilized without investigation, and many were effectively granted amnesties. Today, the failure in accountability is clear from the dramatic rise in killings by illegal armed groups composed largely of former paramilitaries.”

Mr. Alston added that, “The Justice and Peace Law that was intended to provide accountability for paramilitary crimes has not been an effective tool for justice or truth. In order for the Government to provide accountability, there must be significant substantive and procedural changes to the law. But given Colombia’s record so far, a focus on this law alone is not enough. There is no substitute for prosecution of human rights abuses, but the Government should also consider establishing an independent truth commission to conduct a systematic investigation into the abuses committed by all sides during Colombia’s armed conflict.”

FARC and ELN guerrillas

Mr. Alston emphasized that “The FARC and ELN both carry out unlawful killings and often target or victimize the very populations on whose behalf they claim to fight. Guerilla groups cause instability in many parts of the country. The Government’s strategy has focused on military defeat of the guerillas, but it should also consider humanitarian accords and negotiation to end the conflict once and for all.”

The expert called attention to groups that are especially vulnerable to violence in Colombia. “Historically and continuing through today, all parties to Colombia’s conflict have targeted indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, human rights defenders, trade unionists, and other rights activists. Colombia must vigorously investigate and prosecute violence and threats against these groups.” Mr. Alston also emphasized that, “Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in conflict zones are especially vulnerable to massacres and other abuses, and Colombia must ensure its security policies and military operations prioritize their protection.”

Alston recommendations to the Colombian government

Mr. Alston commended the Colombia Government for the high level of cooperation he received during his mission, “The Colombian Government’s willingness to open itself to international scrutiny of its security policies sets an example for other states. Government officials repeatedly told me they welcomed suggestions for reform. As Colombia addresses its security challenges, continued transparency about the content and effect of its policies and a focus on accountability for wrongdoing will benefit victims, family members and society at large, and will also have a strongly positive effect on the legitimacy of the Government and its policies.”

Professor Alston was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions in 2004 and reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. He has had extensive experience in the human rights field, including eight years as Chairperson of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, principal legal adviser to UNICEF in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He is Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law.

Related links

• The Special Rapporteur’s full report on Colombia is available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add.2_en.pdf
• For further information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, please visit the website:http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/executions/index.htm
• For more information or and media requests, please call Ms. Pasipau Wadonda-Chirwa (Tel: +41 917 9252 / email: pwadonda-chirwa@ohchr.org) or Mr. Ugo Cedrangolo (Tel +41 917 9286/ emailucedrangolo@ohchr.org )

For use of the information media; not an official record | The source of this article is the News & Media room of UN.

The government of Álvaro Uribe is committed to hold on the position that there are camps and leaders of FARC and EPL, the Colombian communist guerrillas, in Venezuelan territory and proves were presented before the Organization of American States. The Maoist guerrillas are considered by the European Community, US, Mexico, Colombia and others as terrorist organizations associated with drug trafficking, while Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other governments do not refer to them under such terms. Accusations of direct contacts with the Colombian guerrillas by governments like Caracas and Quito have been always denied by their top leaders, however the resent accusation of Colombia has been the most direct and strong of the last years, just few weeks of the end of the government of Uribe.

President Hugo Chávez opted for a strong answer to Uribe denying strictly the accusations as an ambush of Bogotá to his revolutionary process in Venezuela and a treat of invasion with the support of the United States, while showing a expectancy for the next presidential period with Juan Manuel Santos. By his part, the new elected president, who comes from the Uribe side, has avoid any declaration to the crisis that was worsen with a diplomatic breakdown by Caracas. President Chávez militarized the border with Colombia under the consideration that there is a possible Colombian attack on his country before August 7.

The Venezuelan chancellor, Nicolás Maduro, visited some South American government, especially those supposedly aligned with Caracas like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and proposing a regional peace process for Colombia that was refused by Bogotá as an intention of distract the attention over the main problem. For Colombia, the real regional commitment with the peace of Colombia is not allowing the presence of terrorist groups like Farc and EPL. A peace dialog is a strategy of the guerrillas to strengthen, avoiding the confrontation with the authorities, manifested president Álvaro Uribe recently. President Álvaro Uribe refused also a declaration of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that suggested in an interview to Prensa Latina that the Colombian – Venezuelan crisis was rather a personal interchange of words.

While Maduro was touring South America to prepare the UNASUR chancellors’ summit in Quito, his Colombian counterpart Jaime Bermúdez was preparing to bring what Bogotá says are more evidences of the presence of guerrilla troops and leaders camping in Venezuela.

The results of the summit were expected: both governments hold their positions.

President Álvaro Uribe proposed recently that the guerrilla troops in Venezuela should demobilize in that country with the presence of Colombian prosecutors and they must return to their country under the guarantees of the Justice and Peace Law, a legal frame created during the first presidential period of Uribe to promote the demobilization of armed groups in Colombia like the communist guerrillas and the rightist paramilitary troops.

Nicolás Maduro denied once more that there are guerrilla troops and leaders hiding in the Venezuelan territory and he said that everything is a lie and attack of the government of President Uribe against the Venezuelan government. He insisted that president Uribe is planning a military intervention in Venezuela before the end of his government on August 7.

We enter by sure an interregnum now: not any diplomatic action from any part will be effective after August 7, when Colombia will see the upcoming of a new president, after 8 years of a strong leader like Uribe. The first declarations of Juan Manuel Santos as president of the Colombians will be strictly a guide to predict how the relations of Colombian with its South American neighbors will evolve.

The event comes in a very sensitive moment when the Colombian government denounced before OAS the presence of allegedly guerrilla camps in the Venezuelan territory. This coming Thursday, there is a summit of UNASUR chancellors to look for a resolution to the diplomatic crisis between both South American nations. Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan chancellor, did a a quick visit to some South American governments as the one of Lugo in order to promote what he calls a peace plan for the Colombian political conflict, something that was refused by Jaime Bermúdez, the Colombian chancellor, as a not fundamental solution.

Maduro asked from Argentina this week that the next Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos should withdraw the accusations, something that was refused again by Bermúdez as impossible.

ABC, one of the most popular newspaper of Paraguay, said that the photographs were found by the authorities in one of the camps of EPP in Kurusu de Hierro after the murder of two policemen, Lilio Ramón Giménez and Carlos César Cardozo on last June 17 in that region. The Paraguayan government did not give explanations to this fact, said the paper.

The newspaper said also that there are possible evidences of connections between the members of the logistics wing with high authorities of the Chávez and Lugo governments.

Nicolás Maduro, who has done strong declarations against the government of Álvaro Uribe for the denounce of Farc and EPL camps in Venezuela, visited last week president Fernando Lugo to introduce the position of his country in the coming chancellors summit in Quito.

ABC says that Adriano Muñoz is a ‘young militant of the Farmer Organization of the North that was created by fugitive Alejandro Ramos‘ that is considered one of the top leaders of EPP. Muñoz has a ’scholarship’ in the Latin American Agroecological Institute of Barinas (Venezuela) that is 155 miles far from the Colombian border in a region that is pointed by Colombian authorities as influenced by Farc guerrillas. The Paraguayan prosecutor says that EPP is trained by Farc in kidnapping methods.

Bermúdez said that a true plan of peace is the not intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries. The chancellor added that a compromise for peace is that no place in the world must become a shelter for criminal groups like the Farc guerrillas. ‘The true plan of peace is arrest those criminals wherever they could be,‘ he concluded. Bermúdez said also that there is not plans to attack Venezuela with the support of US, as Caracas insists. ‘Our enemies are the drug traffickers and terrorism. It is unthinkable an aggression or confrontation against a brother country,‘ he insisted. He concluded that Colombia will look in the UNASUR summit for the ways to verify and prevent the presence of Farc guerrillas in Venezuela.

Venezuela asks ‘rectification’ from Colombia

By his part, the Venezuela chancellor Nicolás Maduro said in Buenos Aires that his country needs a due ‘rectification’ from the next Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos in order to forward a relation based in an ‘absolute respect.’

He insisted also that the South American nations should promote a plan of peace for the region. ‘The solution is going to the peace of Colombia and build the peace; the solution must be built by South America,‘ he said in a press conference in the Argentinian capital.

The words of Maduro were answered by chancellor Bermúdez, who said that Colombia cannot give any kind of ‘rectification’ to its denounces of Farc and ELN presence in the Venezuelan territory. ‘What to be rectified? Do you think we are going to rectify? Do you think that Colombia will go back in what it is said? Do you think it is a story? Absolutely no! he said and concluded that Colombia has proves of the guerrilla presence in Venezuela and its locations.

Farc tries to promote a peace process in order to strength

President Álvaro Uribe said that Farc is trying to promote a peace process in the international arena in order to gain strength. ‘It is a trap in order to get strength and avoid confrontation with the authorities,’ he said. He asks the fulfillment of international law in the war on terrorism by not sheltering its members. Uribe recommended to the next government of Juan Manuel Santos, who will take possession on August 7, to keep up the offensive against illegal groups. He concluded that his government fought guerrillas and paramilitary groups alike and there were not the temptation to think that some were heroes and other villains. He asked also to the Colombian army a deep compromise with the human rights.

Social emergency in the border with Venezuela

The Colombian government decreed a social emergency status in the border region with Venezuela for the collapse of commerce after the conflict with Caracas. In the measures the traders of the region (16% of the towns of border with the neighboring country) were temporary exonerated from VAT  from several products like food, clothing, shoes, textile and material for construction.

There is also the possibility to create economic zones in municipalities at the Venezuelan border until December 31, 2011.

Everybody thinks that the reaction of Chávez is natural: he holds in his opposition to the US military posts in Colombia that Bogotá and Washington declare to be a way to fight drug trafficking in the region. It is without doubt his main argument to fear a possible US invasion over Venezuela to get control on its oil resources, although Venezuela is one of the main world oil providers to the US. Technically, it is little probable that the Obama administration would engage in an invasion to Venezuela, especially now that US does not find the way to withdraw in a political correctness way from Iraq and Afghanistan. Chávez by sure knows that Venezuela by itself is not considered at the same level of US national security’s risk as Washington considers Iran or it considers Libya, North Korea or Syria. However, even the rather tolerant Obama administration – if we compare it with the Bush’s – can feel annoyed by a Venezuela linking openly itself to nations like Iran, buying weapons to Russia and insisting that Venezuela will be invaded by the Americans at any time ‘through the puppet Colombian government.’ At the end you feel that the only country talking of a possible US invasion to Venezuela is only Venezuela and Chávez mentions it at any step of the debate with Colombia. Ahmadeinejad or Kim Jong-il, who have more probabilities to be invaded by Western forces than Venezuela, do not mention such case as Caracas does. Not even Sadam Hussein or Noriega thought they were going to be invaded by US, at least in the beginning. The good question is Why Chávez uses that figure of the invasion when Colombia puts any question to his government? The answer could be that he wants the reduction of the US influence over Latin America and especially over Colombia. It is not good to export his socialist political programs to a country where US has a strong alliance as Colombia. At the same time, the Chávez geopolitical project needs Colombia in order to grow.

It seems that the actions of president Uribe, by the other part of the northern South American borders, are unexpected. Those who think in that way know very little about the Colombian history and about the political tradition of president Uribe. Few days before the most affected businessmen of the Colombo-Venezuelan border were very optimistic with the words of Chávez promising to come to the Juan Manuel Santos possession in Bogotá. It reminded the optimistic words of the Venezuelan president when Barack Obama was elected president of the US to compare him with Bush few months after.

The serious accusations of the Colombian government over guerrilla presence in Venezuela are not new. When the Colombian political conflict goes out of the borders to countries like Venezuela and Ecuador, the song is the same: ´It is a Colombian internal problem´ as a way to prove innocence and take distance over it. What it is a historical demonstrable fact is that the 50 years Colombian political conflict has had the active presence of other countries of the region, more active than what it is possible to imagine, from the same US to Cuba, from Brazil to Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, from Peru to Argentina and Chile. Everyone, at its own way, with good or bad intentions, has had to see with the oldest regional political conflict. It is not new that the Colombian guerrillas use to take refuge in the neighboring countries. The problem is if such event has been known and supported by Caracas and Quito or they are really innocent of it. The Colombian army bombing over the Raul Reyes camp on March 1rst, 2008 was in Ecuadorian territory. Reyes felt safe in that place. Why? Now well, if a government is innocent of it, if guerrilla camps are hidden there without their knowledge or if it is a false alarm, Why to deny it immediately without an open international investigation? The accusation is deeply serious and it is a causal of war by sure, because it means that the territory of a country is used by an organization that is internationally hold as terrorist to attack another country. It would be the most evident prove that the Colombian political conflict is not constricted to Colombia as Chávez suggests, but he is a willing participant in that conflict. When a political leader wants to participate in a conflict of other nation, it is because he wants something for his own benefit from that conflict.

If the government of Uribe came to be with the strong proposal to end the Maoist Colombian guerrillas, it is not strain therefore that Uribe will let it as a legate to the next government. Uribe took distance from former peace intentions like Pastrana´s and he does not believe in good intentions of the guerrillas, after the Pastrana-Marulanda peace process failure in 2002.

In the middle of the strong declarations of the Venezuelan government after Colombia presented its evidence of allegedly guerrilla camps in Venezuela, there are already some signs of a better understanding: Venezuelan Chancellor Nicolás Maduro said that his government wants to build a relation of respect and cooperation, but at the same time the Venezuelan vice-president Elías Ajua called president Uribe an outlaw and the Colombian ambassador to OAS a criminal. If the Venezuelan government wants to build such a respect, must start to study the most select principles of diplomacy. If serious accusations like the ones of Colombia are to be answer with insults, it creates more suspicious than a real work for the true.

Santos seems to be more Obama than Uribe. He is around the continent making friends and giving hopes to everybody. By sure, his speech of possession on August 7 will be a piece of good promises inside and outside. But at the end we are going to prove something: history is written and the future is frequently consequent with it.

In the first hours of July 11 joined  forces of the Police and the National Army attacked a group of the Farc in a mountainous region of Central Colombia in the Tolima State and brought down 12 guerrillas that are considered of the security forces of the Farc top leader, Alfonso Cano, according to official reports from the Army to the media.

The Army reported also that among the bodies of the killed guerrillas, there is the body of Magaly Grannobles, alias Marleny Rondón, one of the nearest companions of Cano and the responsible of more than thirty attacks and 100 murders of army and police units in central Colombia. She was the leader of Heros of Marquetalia, a security team to protect Cano.

Grannobles, 34 years old, had more than 15 years as a member of the Farc guerrillas and was one of the most wanted leader of the Maoist group in Colombia for the planning and executions of 30 attacjs against security forces in the states of Tolima and Huila, mountainous regions of the central region of the country. She commanded more than 300 men, according with military reports and is accused of the murder of more than 100 persons.

Before the military operation over the Alfonso Cano security group and the dead of Grannobles, the guerrilla leaded two attacks against authorities in th states of Cauca, Arauca and Antioquia killing 8 persons, among them three soldiers, three policemen, a member of the Security Administrative of Security, DAS, and a civilian, plus six wounded persons.

They did an exhaustive and long process of investigation, they said in their communicated codified as No.003, to different organizations of human rights, associations of displaced people and unionists of the states of Nariño, Valle, Cauca, Putumayo, Risaralda, Quindío, Tolima, Caldas, Cundinamarca, Meta, Boyacá and Antioquia, according to their own declaration.

They declared to the Colombian public opinion that those organizations are related to guerrilla groups. Los rastrojos claim that those NGOs are allegedly defending the human rights.

The criminals conclude that the organizations must stop their subversive discourse in favor of the rights and ideologies of the Narco-terrorists of Farc and ELN and all their accomplices of the past and the present. They suggest that the activities of those NGOs are attacking the good and noble intentions of the high government in favor of peace.

If the said organizations do not obey their will, Los rastrojos will act without mercy and will return to what was in the 1990s.

The criminal intimidation enlisted several organizations and the name of different leaders with action in the Western states of Colombia, especially between Chocó and Nariño. They accuse these organizations of communist indoctrination. By contrast, they present themselves as a group fighting for the most needed sectors of the Colombian society. At the end, they end their threats from Some where in Colombia and the Valle del Cauca State.

Who are they?

A question like this can be dangerous in a country like Colombia. It is normally answered some decades and thousand of killed persons after their military successes.

As for now, it is possible to say that their main scenario are the Western region of Colombia and the Pacific, coming from the southern State of Nariño at the Ecuadorian border to the impoverished Chocó State to the Panama border. But it includes the Coffee Axes and Antioquia. As for Nariño, the unfortunate State became a new scenario of the long Colombian conflict. In the last years it is a target of ambitions for mafia and paramilitary groups, guerrilla and guns.

You can notice also that the Pacific Region from the Afro-Colombian port city of Tumaco to the Atrato Delta in Chocó, is the natural environment of several ethnic minorities of Afro-Colombians and indigenous, with thousands of hectares of indigenous shelters and jungle. The terrorist groups from left to right wings, are just fighting for this rather marginal territory of our country.

You can understand that the conflict has been sent to the borders and marginal areas of the countries, where the most vulnerable Colombians groups are living.

On 23 April the Police of the far in the north State of La Guajira arrested Einer Sandoval Madrid and Daimer Guzmán Flórez. They are accused of being members of Los rastrojos and were doing infiltrations in the region. They are also accused of extortion and selective killings.

The same day the Police of Antioquia arrested a man known by his criminal nickname, Picapiedra (Flintstones) and who was a former paramilitary that signed the peace agreements with the government. This Picapiedra was involved in a war against another group of criminals in the northern region of Antioquia, Caucasia. Picapiedra is accused of several assassinations and terrorists attacks with grenades and the training of sicarios for Los rastrojos and Los paisas.

The Administrative Department of Security (DAS) announced that it will follow the investigations over the threats of Los rastrojos to the Human Rights organizations’ defenders.

The same justice under threats

While criminals like Los rastrojos look to stop the human rights organizations, the judiciary branch of Antioquia declared to the public opinion that only in the region 27 judges of the Prosecutor were reported to get threats from criminals.

Luis Fernando Otálvaro Calle, president of the Association of Judicial Employees, said that the national government must work out the security for the administration of justice.

It is the situation in our country at the door of the new presidential elections. Let us wait more consistent political projects to fill the stubble with flowers.

The IACHR underlines the continuity in the Colombian program of protection for defenders of human rights, unionists, journalists and social leaders. The program was created in 1997 as a result of the combination between efforts of the government and the civil society for the protection of vulnerable groups or personalities. In 2009, the program was extended to 1,402 unionists, 950 social leaders, 550 members of communities of farmers, indigenous and afro-Colombians and 150 journalists. IACHR expressed the need to continue with this kind of initiatives and the strengthen of the systems of protection established by the program.

However, although this kind of programs continue, the situation of violence still the same and hits the most vulnerable parts of the society, said the report.

The IACHR´s report on Colombia is based under information given by the State and the civil society. IACHR gives recommendations to consider in dealing with human rights in the Andean country. For example, the clarification of crimes committed during the conflict, including the Paramilitary leaders, who are being prosecuted in US. It is necessary to review the continuation in the crimes against human rights, against the life and personal integrity and against defenders of human rights, unionists and operators of justice.

It is not wise to stop in the idea that we have improved in human rights in Colombia. By sure, yes. But we need more and this more should be more meaningful.

Armed groups and murderers should stop their violence against any Colombia if we want to have a real improvement in human rights. However, violence is a circle. Every crime is connected to another crime. It is not only the crimes against life, but it means also that killings try to shut mouths up from denouncing other problems of injustice. The displacement of minorities, the freedom of press and the rights to education, employment and health must be included in any plan to improve human rights.

A real land reform in Colombia could be the solution to many evils. Farmers should see their right to the land guaranteed if we want peace and justice again. Displaced population is only the sign that human rights are not respected in a definitive way. Every wandering family in Colombia, every forced migrant to foreign lands, every youth without opportunities for a best future, brings the eternal review on human rights.

The events of violence against afro-Colombian communities in the north of the State of Cauca, show that Paramilitary groups still alive in Colombia. Action is needed to stop their growing, putting the whole country under threat again. We have to understand that indigenous and afro-Colombian communities are vulnerable and they need the full protection of the State. Their rights of participation must be guaranteed. They are Colombians and they need the appreciation of every Colombian citizen and institution. Isn’t it a shame that foreign groups are more interested in their care than our own national institutions? Is it our proud Colombian Constitution just for some Colombians or for all Colombians?

Poverty and unemployment is a reality that is difficult to hide. Informal jobs like street sellers are not inside numbers of employment at all. Colombians are people of initiative and courage. They do not sit down if they lose their job. It is good at first glance, of course, because it shows that our people has much to give for our own development. But this initiative is also a sign of survival. In survival, everything is possible: to feed their children, people can do whatever, including violence. We cannot not be conformed in saying that people is working in the informal sector: it can mean selling in the corners of our cities or inside buses!

We need a more serious and definitive program for improving human rights in Colombia. Of course, such program must need a very deep change in many things. We hope our next government will work in it.

Tourism became a challenge for Colombia during the first decade of the 21rst century. It is a country with highest qualities for international tourism, but with a bad fame due to a long political conflict that fill the pages of international media. Many possible visitors hesitate when talking about the possibility to know Colombia, a name that has been associated with drug dealers, guerrilla, paramilitary massacres and many other evils.

But far from be a dangerous area for tourism, Colombia is improving its security in most of its tourists spots either in cities or rural areas. To exposure Colombia to tourism is not only a need of the national economy but also the opportunity of an alternative that can be more interesting than what tourist agencies can present. With the development of tourism in Colombia, the world is opening  jobs in the country, while taking out young workers from the risk of crime organizations. Tourism development means also improvement in security. Tourist areas are evidently safe, because it is also the will of authorities and common people.

Medellín is evidently a city to see and enjoy. Further than the wonders of its beautiful mountains, valleys, rivers and towns, the Paisa region is great for the warm of its people. Paisa people are in fact kind and welcoming. At the other side, if you come to Colombia and you do not visit Medellín, it is as you never have known Colombia in its totality. Though Medellín still a very provincial city in many aspects, some of its inhabitants can traced their origins from different Colombian regions that contribute to the identity of its culture.

According to reports of the Major, 40,273 persons arrived to Medellín in March by land to see the games. Other 5,900 persons were foreigners and arrived by plane. 5,000 were the same athletes, who came to participate in the competitions organized in Medellín and the Easter Antioquean Region (Rionegro, Guatapé, etc.)

Although the democratic security policy of Uribe is too much difference from the social governance of Sergio Fajardo, former major of Medellín, I fear that after Uribe the situation of Colombia will become something similar to what is happening with the Medellín under major Alonso Salazar.

During the Fajardo government of the second largest Colombian city, there were two factors to get that space of peace: the commitment of the national government to pacify Medellín and the compromises of Fajardo with the most marginalized and violent sectors of the metropolis.

I remember also the critics of certain individuals over the policies of Fajardo. Those who sit down on the steps of the stadium to shout how the soccer players should do on the field. Then it came Salazar and he became a more classic Colombian politic: a leader closed in his office, while the snake of violence woke up again to increase the number of killings.

The problem is not Uribe by himself as many want to show. I would point out an opposition that spent its time running after him as barking dogs. An opposition without a real political program to follow and to convince the Colombians.

It is true and very much true that during the two periods of president Uribe there were problems of human rights, poverty, unemployment, violence and many more social evils. But it is also true that those problems have been long time before Uribe and, I can be sure, that they will stay for a long time after Uribe.

It is also true that out of any ideological position, the government of Uribe has changed Colombia. It is logic: he changed paradigms and an old tradition of politics in the nation. When I left Colombia in 1999, the guerrillas were at the outskirts of cities like Bogotá, Medellín and Cali. If you do not believe it, you can look for newspapers´ articles of the time. But I was a witness of it. Now we have a government with more presence over the country. Even if you can point out several lacks, it is not the government of Laureno Gómez who established a dictatorship, not the government of Misael Pastrana who was imposed over the wishes of the Colombians, not the government of Julio César Turbay who closed the eyes to the strengthening of mafias, not the government of Belisario Betancourt Cuartas who was so weak that the M-19 took the Palace of Justice only few meters away from the presidential house…

Chávez and Colombia

The other element that would play its good role in this elections is President Hugo Chávez Frías of Venezuela. Evidently Chávez is an interventionist. Evidently, he is afraid of a Colombia leaded by Uribe, a threat for his communist revolution.

It is logic that Colombia is weary of communist guerrillas for already half a century. It is logic that most Colombians dream that the guerrilla nightmare will end. The presence of some former guerrilla leaders in the Latin American politics is a good evidence for Colombians that it is possible to fight for social ideals through political campaigns rather than shooting from the forest. At the same time, the Colombian guerrilla is using terrorist tactics to fight, while supporting their cause by drug smuggling. It can be easily demonstrated.

It is logic then that a communist discourse like the one of Chávez is not welcome in modern Colombia. Maybe foreign socialists could not understand it very well and they could see it as a discrimination, but you do not live in Colombia where thousands of men are on the hands of the guerrillas for more than ten years (even before Uribe came to the presidency.)  If Chávez is afraid of an anticommunist Colombia, Colombians are afraid of Chávez, who is seen by Colombians as friendly to the guerrillas.

I am agree that we Colombians need to appreciate socialism. But to do so, we have to be in peace first – like a country like Chile got its peace. Then, Colombians will be able to elect a socialist or not socialist president without any fear or bad remembrance of the past.

Nothing with Uribistas

The other factor is the Uribista Party and its fanatic vision of the President. Of course, its power allows it to access to the Colombian public opinion. The unpopularity of the opposition in modern Colombia gave it the space to perform as the leader of opinion. Their followers have the face of high and middle Colombian class, far from the social needs of the nation, ignorant of the loneliness of the countryside, the drama of the displaced by violence, the crimes against unionists and communitarian leaders. You cannot see the ordinary people in a so blue party that regards President Uribe as a kind of Pharaoh. As the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, they will be buried inside the tomb of their king at their due time. In conclusion, there is not a single leader coming from the Uribismo who can convince me.

A third period will be not easy for Uribe. The rather distant US President Obama is not too near to Colombia like it was the Bush administration. Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina will continue their pressure over Colombia in their intention to impose themselves as leaders of the region. The fissures of the democratic security must be attended. The consequences of the 2008 financial crisis will increase social expenditure and unemployment. The violent groups will try to gain power, while the opposition will change strategy to weak the popularity of the president.

I would prefer a new face, but I do not see such face. Maybe Uribe could avoid the emergency of a leader able to convince the Colombians. Maybe Fajardo could be a good option. Let us see what is going to happen this coming Monday.