War clouds over Colombia

Colombia seems to be veering towards civil war, with the Pastrana government's decision to call off the peace talks with FARC and engage the guerilla organisation militarily with the help of the U.S.

COLOMBIA is witnessing yet another upsurge of violence after the government of President Andres Pastrana called off peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the third week of February and ordered the Army into the "demilitarised zone", which was under the de facto control of FARC.

The government has for some time been under pressure from the military and advisers from the United States stationed in the country to go in for a military solution to the long-running conflict. The Colombian army is being trained by U.S. experts in counter-insurgency operations, though officially the U.S. troops are in the country to combat drug trafficking.

The government has been accusing FARC of orchestrating kidnappings and carrying out narco-trafficking from the demilitarised zone. And the audacious hijacking in mid-February of a passenger plane on a domestic flight gave the government the excuse to call off the talks, which were aimed at achieving an eventual ceasefire and a permanent solution to the conflict. As an incentive to start the talks, the government had, in December 1998, given the rebels control of the zone in the southeastern part of the country.

One of the passengers on the hijacked plane was Senator Jorge Gechen Turbay. While most of the other passengers were allowed to leave after it landed on a road in the rebel-controlled area, the senior politician was not released. The hijackers reportedly belong to FARC.

Pastrana's move came as a surprise as he has only five more months left to demit office. He had come to power on the promise that he would work for peace. The rebels, however, had serious doubts about his ability to deliver on his promises, particularly since many senior officers in the Colombian Army propped up right-wing militias. FARC also had reasons to worry as guerilla groups that had in the past laid down their arms and tried to integrate themselves into the political mainstream were systematically liquidated by right-wing militias under the benign gaze of the government.

Pastrana ordered a full-scale assault on the demilitarised zone. The Army captured the city of San Vicente Del Caguan, where the rebels had set up their administrative headquarters, and the rebels fled into the surrounding jungles. The sophisticated weaponry supplied by the U.S. was put to good use by the armed forces. Helicopter gunships and planes strafed rebel positions. But from available evidence the Army and its advisers have not been able to make any significant gains in the now re-militarised 42,000-sq km zone. The kidnapping of a presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, by FARC guerillas in the last week of February, in the formerly demilitarised zone, is an illustration. Although the government had warned her against taking the hazardous route to San Vicente Del Caguan, she went ahead just for the sake of a photo opportunity.

The war has escalated after Pastrana sent in the Army. FARC guerillas attacked electricity pylons and transmission centres in many urban areas and put entire areas in darkness for long periods of time. There has also been an increase in car-bomb attacks in the big cities.

The Army has grown in size from 10,000 to 40,000 in the last couple of years. It has a rapid reaction force of 5,000 armed men with 30 attack helicopters supplied by the U.S. FARC too has grown in strength and its fighters are now said to number around 18,000. They had used the demilitarised zone to train and equip themselves for an inevitable showdown with the government. FARC, which started as a coalition of left-wing peasants' organisations, still commands considerable support among the populace, though recent opinion polls in the country show that the majority of the population is disillusioned with the guerillas.

Currently, the country's most popular politician is Alvaro Uribe, a critic of the peace process and the right-wing Liberal Party's candidate in the coming presidential election. The candidate Pastrana supports for the post is Horacio Serpa, who had until recently backed the government's peace initiatives. Pastrana's decision to resume hostilities may have been dictated to some extent by the need to bolster Serpa's chances in the elections. The President's hawkishness, coupled with quick military successes against the rebels, could help Serpa emerge as the frontrunner.

Influential elements in the Bush administration have for some time been pushing for more direct forms of intervention in Colombia. They have characterised the Colombian government's offensive against FARC as a fight against terrorism. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the big hawk in the Bush administration, had in the last week of February broadly hinted that the U.S. was considering the possibility of sending troops to Colombia. The administration had earlier asked Congress for an additional $98 million to train and equip the Colombian Army in order to protect the country's oil pipelines. Pipelines have been a favourite target of the leftist guerillas. Colombia's main oil pipeline was out of action for most of last year.

This is the first time that the U.S. has proposed openly to train the Colombian Army to fight the guerillas. The stated goal of U.S. military aid to Colombia so far was to train the Colombian Army to fight the narcomafia. There are quite a few members in Congress who oppose the plans of the administration. They argue that the Colombian military has strong links with the right-wing militias, some of which are bankrolled by the drug mafia. These notorious militias have been responsible for some of the atrocities committed against civilians. Many Americans also fear that an open intervention in Colombia could result in the U.S. military sinking in a quagmire.

The Bush administration, however, has announced that it would start providing to the Colombian government intelligence on the militants. This was authorised under a presidential anti-terrorism directive adopted after September 11. The Colombian government had been requesting for intelligence material relating to aerial surveillance and satellite photographs of guerilla installations. The Clinton administration had restricted intelligence sharing to counter-narcotics activities. A presidential directive in 2000 specifically prohibited the sharing of intelligence data involving the guerillas, though there are reports that the U.S. had started sharing sensitive information about rebel movements since 1998.

A congressional amendment has forbidden U.S. military aid to Latin American army units with a documented record of human rights abuses. Now, in order to expedite American military involvement in Colombia, the Bush administration has labelled the left-wing guerillas "terrorists" in the wake of the September 11 events. Right-wing guerilla groupings such as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which have resorted to mindless violence against civilians, have not yet figured in the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organisations. The Bush administration has taken care to target mostly states and organisations that have taken radical positions against acts of American unilateralism and hegemonism. Even Pastrana had refused to characterise FARC and the smaller guerilla grouping, the National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN), as terrorist outfits when negotiations were on during the last four years.

Those who argue for the resumption of peace talks say that it is the only alternative to an "all-out war", which would drag the country into an abyss. The economy is already in free fall. Figures released in the first week of March show that the urban unemployment rate is more than 20 per cent. Austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have virtually closed all opportunities for more than half of the country's population that lives below the poverty line. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said recently that Colombia's integrity and sovereignty should be respected. "Foreign military intervention would be unjustifiable under any circumstances. Colombia should not be invaded even under the pretext of imposing peace. Intervention would not resolve this war, it would aggravate it and would furthermore be a colossal error of unforeseeable consequences for the entire region and for international peace," he said.