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Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 26 Aug. - 1 Sep. 1999 Issue No. 444
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Colombian body bags
By Hisham El-Naggar"If we go on like this, we are going to end up like Colombia."
The phrase has achieved proverbial currency in Latin American politics as a warning against corruption, misgovernment and the collapse of order. In a word, Colombia, the one country in South America named for the daring explorer who discovered the new world, has become a metaphor for a state that is in the process of disintegration.
The American government seemed no less worried as it sent James Pickering, a senior foreign-policy official to assess the current political climate two weeks ago. Colombia has been marred by 38 years of war between the government and left-wing rebels. A fortnight earlier, the Clinton administration sent White House anti-narcotics chief Barry McCaffrey, who promptly called for the release of $1 bn of military aid. After Israel and Egypt, Colombia is the third largest recipient of American aid. The country is already expected to receive $300 worth of helicopters, training, and ammunition this year alone. The recent crash of an American reconnaissance aircraft over rebel-held territory has thus confirmed fears that Washington might step up the ante.
This sombre view of Colombia's condition does not square with the country's proud historical heritage. Once a pillar of the Spanish Empire in the New World, Colombia is also the country whose dialect of Spanish is considered the "purest", boasting a cultural elite that includes Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
But even today, with a GDP per capita income of $2,200, Colombia is a middle-income country, and its 3.8 per cent GDP growth rate in the past decade has ensured a very decent credit rating by multi-lateral institutions. The country's social indicators may not be as impressive as those of its neighbours, but they are hardly indicative of appalling underdevelopment: Ninety per cent of Colombians are literate and 96 per cent of the country's population has access to drinking water.
Nonetheless, Colombia resembles many Latin American countries in that the "macro-picture" is quite different from everyday reality. The unemployment rate of 15.7 per cent is alarming, given that much underemployment goes unreported. Though slightly falling, inflation has averaged 23 per cent in the past decade. In addition, a recent financial crisis has seriously hampered many smaller businesses' access to credit.
But Colombia's most serious problem is violence. Unlike many Central and South American countries which have tamed insurrectionist forces through repression, negotiation or a combination of both and have, in some cases, absorbed their leaders into the mainstream, Colombia's rural guerrillas remain decidedly untamed. The two revolutionary movements, the FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces) and ELN (National Liberation Army) are believed to control about 40 per cent of the country's area.
In addition, Colombia has become irrevocably linked to the drug underworld. Cocaine is, unofficially, the country's most important export. The production of coca -- the drug's raw material -- has risen by 50 per cent over the past two years. Processed locally, the drug is shipped to eager consumers abroad. The United States alone receives 80 per cent of its cocaine from Colombia.
Needless to say, cocaine is available for local consumption and drug addiction is rampant on a large scale. A lack of prospects in the official economy for many young people has also given rise to unprecedented violence in urban areas. Add to that the spectacular kidnappings and the assassinations carried out by guerrillas, ultra right-wing death squads, and drug-traffickers, and it becomes clear that the country's problems have assumed tragic proportions.
None of this is new, of course. What is particularly alarming to Colombia's neighbours, including the US, however, is that the guerrillas are becoming increasingly daring, and the government, headed by Andreas Pastrana for a year now, is proving increasingly impotent in the face of the rebels' evident might, even though the conservative president was initially considered a "peace candidate".
Things came to a head when, earlier this year, Pastrana negotiated an accord with the guerrillas which, for all intents and purposes, recognised their hold over the areas they controlled. The armed forces were hardly amused: here was a guerrilla movement which, rather than being wiped out or won over, was practically becoming sovereign at the expense of the legally elected government.
Unlike many Latin American countries, Colombia has long avoided military rule and functioned, in principle at least, as a democracy. True, there was a civil war which ended in a national "reconciliation" and a scheme whereby two colourless -- and mostly ineffectual -- parties "alternated" in power with depressing regularity. Many in Colombia and elsewhere have concluded that the system ceased to be truly representative, with politicians jockeying for power and working deals which barely took account of the growing misery to which the electorate was subjected.
Quite independently of the geopolitical considerations which the Pentagon views with alarm, there is real cause for alarm over the country's current political divide. At a time when Colombia's problems are going international, no one appears to have the confidence of the Colombian people themselves. Not only do Colombians have to endure the consequences of violence, but also of the measures that America takes to combat it and which will perforce imply more violence.
In the meantime, is anything substantive being done to combat the violence? It appears the more relevant and certainly the more sensational question is: who is going to do it? And the United States is getting ready to launch an intervention.
The enemy in this case would be a fairly well-organised paramilitary force controlling a large area of the country and enjoying some support in urban areas. Although the guerrillas have no backing from foreign countries, their war coffers are quite full, financed, say their enemies, by drug money.
In fact, the principal justification for American intervention is that the guerrilla are linked to the drug trade which is not altogether irrelevant to American interests. Although it is common knowledge that the drug business involves more than the guerrilla itself -- the US railed against a former president, accusing him of ties with drug barons -- the equation of insurrection with drugs is rather convenient for those in favour of American intervention.
Or so it seemed until the last few days. After the initial hysteria prompted by reports that the guerrilla were now in a position to threaten the capital Bogotá, a more sober message appears to be coming from Washington. The guerrillas, after all, are estimated to number 20,000, for whom the Colombian armed forces (300,000 strong) should be more than a match. There was talk that some of Colombia's neighbours, notably Brazil, could do their bit by at least stopping food supplies and arms from flowing to the guerrillas through the borders -- not an easy task; the borders go right through the tropical Amazon jungle.
Meanwhile, the Americans are said to be willing to increase aid to the government and to be more than generous with military advisers. The idea is to avoid direct involvement of American troops, so that the body bags flown out of the battle zone do not include American lads. The thought is sobering to the Colombians themselves, guessing who will be in those bags in tragically increasing numbers.
