“This is the only country in South America where you can win elections by saying that you’re for the United States,” Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s dynamic and impressive president told us.
“I stand up and say that I’m for the United States, no matter whether I’m here in Colombia, in Havana, Cuba or Caracas, Venezuela.”
This was an eye-opening start to a February visit to Colombia during which we met with President Uribe; members of his cabinet and military, U.S. and Colombian business leaders and officials at the U.S. Embassy and Drug Enforcement Agency.
Colombia has changed dramatically since the days when a guerrilla group took the Supreme Court hostage, eventually killing 11 of 24 members; when drug lords assassinated presidential candidate Luis Galán and later blew up an Avianca plane, killing 110 people; and guerrilla movements like the FARC and the ELN controlled much of the country.
This is good news for Colombians, who have suffered enormously in the last two decades. It is also invaluable for us to have a strong ally in a region where our prestige has declined so rapidly. In 2006 alone, Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s virulently anti-American and oil-rich president helped elect other anti-Americans like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Correa in Ecuador. In fact, if he hadn’t overplayed his hand, his favored candidates might have won in Peru and Mexico as well.
Uribe has gone after the two guerrilla movements (the FARC, who assassinated his father in 1983, and the ELN) and the paramilitaries with a dedication far exceeding his predecessors. Kidnappings have been reduced by two-thirds, thousands of paramilitaries have demobilized, negotiations are about to begin to disarm the ELN, billions of dollars of cocaine have been seized, a record number of drug dealers have been extradited to the United States, and heroin production has been largely eliminated. The beautiful city of Cartagena has been featured in The New York Times and Condé Nast. Tthe economy has grown by 5 percent in each of the last two years.
Urribe stressed that much more needs to be done. Can he re-integrate the thousands of unskilled paramilitaries who have demobilized back into society so that they don’t turn to crime? How does he hold and “stabilize” the territory he has taken back from the guerrilla movements? (That’s something we have been unable to accomplish in Iraq.) Can he bring security to areas of this huge country (four times the size of Colorado) where the jungle is so thick that there are essentially no roads? What to do about the 45 percent of his people who live in deep poverty?
Although he won the 2006 election with 62 percent of the vote, his opponents are determined to bring him down, some by assassination or some by attempting to link his government to drug activities or human rights violations. How do we show our support for the only South American leader who openly supports us?
First, President Bush now has to convince all of Latin America – not just Colombia – that he is dedicated to helping alleviate the problems of security, immigration and poverty.
Second, until we Americans recognize that our “war on drugs” is not working and is, in fact, destabilizing other countries, we have to continue helping Colombia wage its own internal drug war.
Colombia has borne most of this cost. For example, Colombians recently enacted a “wealth tax” whereby wealthier Colombians would bear an increased share of the cost of upgrading Colombia’s military (unlike the United States, where wealthy Americans have gotten tax breaks while the cost of the Iraq war has soared).
The third issue is the pending free-trade agreement with Colombia. Uribe needs this agreement as evidence of his strong relationship with the United States. He has supported us in this region where our prestige is low and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is an increasing threat. Now our Congress must in turn show its support for him and approve this agreement.
Morgan Smith was the director of the Colorado International Trade Office from 1989 to 1999. He visited Colombia in February with the Defense Orientation Conference Association, and education group on security issues.
