May 9, 2019
Colombia’s Plight.
Most foreigners ignore that the key reason why the country started to suceed at leaving behind its paria status is today at serious risk.
For the last 30 years Colombia has been considered a paria country due to its key role in the international drug trade. On account of this, unfortunately, the first person that pops up into most foreigners mind’s when they hear the country’s name is Pablo Escobar. Furthermore, the never ending saga of movies and series on the character reinforce the stigma.
Despite this, since the turn of the century Colombia has been contending to show a different side of it. Anchored on the cachet of it’s coffee and the growing appetite in the world for it, the country has become a regional cultural powerhouse. A first generation of artists led by Juanes and Shakira began to open the doors of foreign venues to local talents. Today, singers like J Balvin and Maluma are international superstars. Colombia is one of the main exporters of Television content in Latin America. And plenty more talented Colombians such as the visual artist Doris Salcedo or the fashion designer Esteban Cortázar are part of this wave.
Another group of ambassadors of Colombian goodwill that must be highlighted are football players. What began with the golden generation of Valderrama and Asprilla is today spearheaded by James Rodriguez and Falcao Garcia.
But the real game-changer in the improvement of Colombia’s international image came in 2012 when the country launched itself in the pursuit of a peace agreement with the FARC, which was finally signed and ratified at the end of 2016. Proof of this is that the influx of non resident foreigners for tourism almost doubled between 2013 and 2017. Unfortunately, the fate of Colombia is rarely covered by international media which is unsurprising given that the 4th largest economy of Latin America is as big as Denmark’s. Thus, most foreigners ignore that the key reason why the country started to succeed at leaving behind its paria status is today at serious risk.
The current government which replaced the one that achieved the deal is undermining the peace treaty by different means. Objecting key parts of the special justice for peace “JEP” agreed during the dialogues for punishing less heavily the crimes. Underfunding the JEP as well as other programs for the reinsertion of the ex guerrilla fighters in society. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. It has named a denialist of the conflict as the head of an entity created to gather the testimonies of the victims and ensure reparation and no repetition. One of its MP’s is proposing a reform that would seriously weaken the law for the restitution of land to the victims. Not to mention the fact that social leaders from remote communities who fight for land, truth or protection of the environment are being systematically assassinated.
In a rare case of international consensus, all foreign powers sitting in the UN’s Security Council, the US, Germany, France, Great Britain, China and Russia, expressed their support to the JEP and demanded its immediate approval. And what is most ironic of the whole situation is that the leading figure of the campaign against the treaty is ex president Alvaro Uribe Velez. Uribe’s first mandate (2002–2006) forged the turnaround in the balance of military power between the army and the guerrillas, which was the cornerstone for the FARC to accept discussing peace with his successor in 2012. Once heralded as the statesman who rescued the country from becoming a failed state, Uribe is now leading the country back into the abyss.
His motivations to undermine the agreement appear related to the risk he confronts that additional accusations of his links with paramilitary groups emerge during the hearings of the JEP. Because all parties involved in the conflict, including army members and paramilitary leaders, are welcome to submit themselves to its special jurisdiction. Uribe and other members of his family have been for a long time accused of ties with paramilitary groups. In addition to several members of his government and close collaborators having been prosecuted and condemned for corruption and drug traffic.
As many other leaders around the world, Uribe has cunningly played the cultural wars. Members of evangelical churches, a core constituency of Uribe, are against the peace treaty because it threatens the traditional family structure — the document of the treaty explicitly states that its benefits should apply equally to men, women and homosexuals — . Now, to support the objections to the JEP, his party argues that FARC members accused of raping children will be lightly punished. While paramilitary leaders proven to be serial child rapists were sentenced to only 8 years of jail thanks to Uribe’s peace agreement with these illegal armies.
Although not the elected president, Uribe is unmistakably the acting one. And like so many politicians whose first years in power were promising, (remember Erdogan or even Putin) his incapability to abandon power has turned him into a hindrance for the country’s progress.
You can add one more to the list of countries where civil rights and democracy are under threat.
@davidabuchar
