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NEWS & LETTERS, July 2002
Our Life and Times column by Kevin A. Barry
Colombian electionsIn May, ultra-conservative Alvaro Uribe was elected
president of Colombia by a wide margin. Uribe, who will take office in August,
has promised to crush the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) by doubling the size of the military. This policy marks a break
with that of the previous government, which had ceded FARC several provinces in
hope of negotiations to end four decades of civil war. FARC never established much in the way of positive
social policies in the areas it controlled, let alone worked to foster mass
self-rule. Instead, it has proved itself the prisoner of an utterly militaristic
conception of revolutionary struggle. Many now fear that Uribe will give the rightist
paramilitaries carte blanche to wipe out civilians they deem supporters of FARC,
that is anyone on the Left, including trade unionists and student activists.
Some 171 unionists were killed in 2001, mainly by paramilitaries. The
paramilitaries were created by the army and still enjoy its tacit support. For its part, the U.S. has given $1.3 billion in aid to the Colombian military in recent years. The U.S. Ambassador rushed to congratulate Uribe even before the votes were tallied. One positive aspect of the election was the candidacy of Luis Eduardo Garzón, an independent Marxist critical of FARC, who had to face numerous death threats from the paramilitaries. |
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