La Tentación de Uribe. The Economist. London.

Apr 17th 2008 | BOGOTÁ From The Economist print edition THE AMERICAS

Colombia´s President. The Uribe temptation America stiffs its best friend in Latin America. How much will he really care?

NOTIMEX

ALVARO URIBE is slight, bespectacled—and after nearly six years in office still in a hurry. Meet him in the presidential palace and he springs out of his chair, leads visitors to a map and with a plastic ruler explains the malevolent geography that for centuries has made this mountain-blocked and valley-scored Andean country of 44m people so hard to govern. Here is jungle, here savannah, there the 2,200km (1,400-mile) border with Venezuela. Where are the FARC guerrillas? Not long ago they used to be everywhere. Now—he waves his ruler—they have been driven into the remotest jungle, or across the border, and are harried even there. Mr Uribe is that rarest of beasts: a democratic, pro-American president winning an anti-terrorist war. On the day of his inauguration, in 2002, guerrilla units lurked not only in the lush peaks that tower over Bogotá but sometimes inside the capital itself. During his swearing-in, rockets aimed at the palace landed in a working-class district, killing 19 people and wounding 60. Six years on, however, it is not only Bogotá but Colombia as a whole that has been transformed. This is still a violent country, but the long epidemic of murder and kidnapping, spread in ascending order by class hatred, ideology and drug money, is at last being tamed (see chart). The economy is growing at a lusty 7% a year. It is good news all round—not least, you might think, for the United States. Colombia provides much of the cocaine snorted up American noses. In Mr Uribe, however, the Americans have an ally who has worked hard, through the American-financed Plan Colombia, to eradicate coca and disrupt the traffickers. More than this, he has made Colombia the odd-man-out in the Andes. Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia are run by anti-American leftists. Mr Uribe believes in free markets and has hitched Colombia's star to the United States. He even backed the war in Iraq. Such an ally should be nurtured. Or so says George Bush, who appealed to Congress this week to ratify a long-promised Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia so as not to "stiff" an ally. Stiffed, however, Colombia will probably be. The Democrats on Capitol Hill refuse to be bounced. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, responded to Mr Bush by accusing him of "stiffing" the American people via seven years of lousy economic policies. Ms Pelosi's view of Mr Bush is no surprise. But what do the Democrats have against Colombia? Its hopes for an FTA have been caught in a pincer, with protectionists on one side and human-rights activists on the other. The Democrats hope to protect American jobs (or, at least, win votes in the forthcoming elections). Groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch say America should withhold the plum of free trade until Colombia cleans up its human rights. Faced by such an alliance it seems safe to predict that Colombia will not win its FTA any time soon.

The quarrel in Washington highlights the difficulty Americans have in resolving the puzzle of Colombia's leader. Is Mr Uribe to be taken at his own estimation, as the man who is uprooting terrorism not just by employing a bigger and better army but also by strengthening democracy? Or is he, as some on the left say, a militaristic right-winger who behind the scenes is in league with the paramilitaries, the vigilantes who came into being to fight the FARC but turned out to be vicious killers and narco-traffickers in their own right? If Americans are confused, most Colombians have made up their minds. For bringing order, Mr Uribe was hugely popular even before the boost he enjoyed after last month's cross-border raid into Ecuador. That attack killed Raúl Reyes, a top member of the FARC's elusive seven-man secretariat. Better still, the Colombians grabbed several laptops said to contain (Interpol is now examining their authenticity) juicy evidence of the help the FARC receives from Venezuela, whose oil-fired socialist president, Hugo Chávez, is Latin America's loudest foe of the United States. In the edgy face-off against Mr Chávez, Colombians feel it was their man who kept his cool and emerged the winner. American labour unions and international human-rights groups make much of the fact that trade unionists are murdered in Colombia, and that few of the assassins are investigated and brought to trial. Human Rights Watch says that 17 unionists were killed in first three months of 2008 alone, and more than 400 during the six years of Mr Uribe's administration. No doubt, there is a problem. Photos of assassinated unionists are posted outside the thick glass security door of the CUT trade-union federation in Bogotá. Police with automatic rifles patrol outside. Carlos Rodríguez, the federation's head, claims that the killers include right-wing paramilitary groups and "agents of the state". Yet these murders, however grotesque, should be seen in the context of a society still emerging from extreme violence. It is not only success against the FARC that has brought about the startling reduction of killing. Between 2004 and 2006 Mr Uribe persuaded the right-wing paramilitaries to give up their weapons. If they gave an account of their crimes, they would be treated more leniently. As a result, the justice system is swamped. Mario Iguarán, the attorney-general, says that in spite of being voted extra resources from Congress, his investigators are overwhelmed by the numbers. Some 4,000 people are being investigated for crimes against humanity; 800 new murders have come to light as a result of confessions alone. In response to foreign pressure, the government has also set up a special unit to investigate the murder of unionists. But the government points out that union members are less likely to be murder victims than members of the population at large. Some of those killed, it says, may have been victims of common crimes, not singled out as unionists. Besides, says Mr Uribe, the unions have other reasons for opposing him. They do not like his liberal economic reforms. And although Colombians should be, and are, free to join unions, Mr Uribe says, there are historical reasons for distrust. In the 1960s unions were penetrated by Marxists who espoused all forms of struggle, including violence. All the way with UribeIn appealing to the American Congress to ratify the FTA, Mr Uribe ticks off his achievements: the protection of journalists and unionists, the squashing of terrorism and the extradition during his term of more than 600 drug traffickers to the United States. "We have more to do," he admits: "But we request that we receive recognition of the progress we have made." If he is refused, the economic damage to Colombia would not be immediate. A trade-preferences agreement already gives it access to the American market. This can be renewed if the FTA fails. But withholding an FTA after granting such agreements to other countries in the region may knock investors' confidence. And that, says Mr Uribe, would make it harder to create the jobs needed to wean Colombians from terrorism and narco-trafficking. The political impact on Mr Uribe himself is a different matter. Some foreign diplomats in Bogotá say the FTA's failure would land a heavy political blow on a leader who has paid a high price in the neighbourhood for aligning himself with the United States. And yet this danger can be overstated. There is little evidence that Colombians would blame their president rather than the United States. Mr Uribe is still seen by millions of Colombians as their saviour. If anything, indeed, he may be too popular for Colombia's good.

All the way with Uribe

Just one more push Having already served two terms, he cannot have a third. But the constitution can be changed, just as it was to allow him a second term in a row. His soaring popularity and confidence may tempt Mr Uribe to see himself as man of destiny, selected by providence to inflict a final defeat on the guerrillas of right and left, uproot the narco-traffickers and turn Colombia into a fully fledged democracy. He has come closer to this goal than any predecessor, but his term ends in 2010. Is it not his duty to seek a third term and finish the job? The temptation must be strong. If you believe General Freddy Padilla de León, head of the armed forces, the long and bloody war against the FARC is not just beginning to end: this is "the end of the end". The general makes no secret of the debt the army feels to Colombia's present political leadership. For the first time, he claims, the soldiers do not feel they are on their own. Mr Uribe's programme of "democratic security" has laid down a co-ordinated strategy that combines politics, social intervention and military force. The army has been modernised and provided with "extraordinary" resources. General Padilla says his forces can reach any part of the country's territory "with precision, surprise and a minimum of collateral damage". Central to its planning is the notion of legitimacy. With the people's support, he says, victory is at hand. Generals exaggerate. The army is still accused of abuses. But the FARC is plainly losing ground and its men are deserting. Though it holds hostages, such as Ingrid Betancourt, it is failing to extract concessions from this tough-minded government. The guerrillas may hope for a softening under a new president. But that is why Mr Uribe may be tempted to stand again. When asked if he will, he laughs off the question. Until a couple of months ago, the betting was that he would not. The legalities are complex and Congress is rich in rivals who fancy the top job themselves. But since the success of the Ecuador raid and his mano a mano against President Chávez the odds have shortened. His supporters have quietly taken the first step of organising a petition for a third term. One European ambassador says Mr Uribe has started to behave more like a candidate than a president nearing the end of his term. He has groomed no successor. Mr Uribe might win a third popular mandate. But elite opinion, even among admirers, is mixed. That is because his record is mixed. For example, although the president takes credit for the prosecution of the demobilised paramilitaries, his original plan was to grant them an amnesty; it was Congress and the constitutional court that insisted on tougher terms (and some are still running their rackets). His supporters give Mr Uribe credit for the "parapolitics" affair, under which almost a fifth of Colombia's Congress members are being investigated for secret links to the paramilitaries. But here it was the Supreme Court that made the running, not the president. For all its sorry history of violence, says Rafael Pardo, a former defence minister (and possible presidential candidate), Colombia has had some strong and independent state institutions. In Mr Uribe it has a formidably strong president, who has already concentrated a good deal of power in his hands. Whether the independence of the institutions could survive the re-election of the man is, at the least, an open question. And the answer to the question could matter, in the long run, rather more to Colombia than the fate of the FTA.

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