The Nobel Tosses Santos a Lifeline

Juan Manuel Santos, defense minister,
president and now Nobel peace prize winner.

"Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins." -- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in despair after Hitler invaded Poland, despite Chamberlain's appeasement efforts.

Pres. Santos might have felt the same way after voters rejected his peace deal with the FARC last Sunday, destroying the project on which he planned to build his legacy.

Suddenly, however, his hopes might be resuscitated by an unlikely ally: The Nobel Prize committee, which awarded him this year's peace prize.

I wonder whether the Nobel committee made their choice before the vote, and now perhaps regret it, as Santos' effort flounders.

But Santos' new stature, as only the second Colombian (along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez) to win a Nobel Prize, might just give him the moral weight to convince voters, the FARC and ex-Pres. Uribe to moderate their positions.

Ironically, Santos was minister of defense for Pres. Uribe, when he led a harsh militery offensive against the same FARC guerrillas whove now become his political allies.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Can Opposites Meet?

On Monday, a woman reads a newspaper
headlining the NO vote.

Should FARC leaders do prison time for their crimes?

Should land be redistributed to landless farmers?

Should ex-FARC leaders guilty of serious crimes be eligible for public office?

Unless the FARC guerrillas and ex-Pres. Uribe's supporters can agree on these issues, a lasting peace deal appears impossible.

Sunday's vote, in which Colombians rejected the deal by a tiny margin and with high abstention, left Pres. Santos severely weakened, and ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, who led the opposition to the deal, strengthened. Any new deal will have to satisfy the Uribistas. But Uribe made his reputation killing FARC guerrillas during his presidency from 2002 to 2010, and the FARC murdered his father. Uribe does not seem likely to compromise.

FARC leaders have said they won't return to war.

The FARC, on ther other hand, have insisted they are unwilling to go to prison, despite the
innumerable murders, kidnappings, recruitment of children and forced displacements they have committed. And Santos has also said this is not an option.

Uribe also comes from a family of landowners, who aren't likely to look kindly on others losing their land to campesinos, even tho Santos insists that owners' rights will be respected. Unequal distribution of land and resources has often been called the root cause of Colombia's conflicts, so leaving this unfixed might plunge Colombia into more conflict.

A demonstration Wednesday in favor of the peace agreement.

It's clear that FARC leaders' first priority in the negotiations was protecting their own freedom and comfort during the post-conflict period. Will they make concessions on those points at the behest of their sworn enemy? The FARC guerrillas have already vowed not to accept changes in the peace agreement.

Colombia's stability depends on whether these two enemies can find common ground - and quickly. Guerrilla leaders say they won't return to war. Nevertheless, while politicians talk, thousands of armed FARC guerrillas are sitting in jungle camps, growing frustrated and restless. What will they live off of, if they can no longer traffick drugs and extort ranchers?

Peace remains frustratingly far away.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Injustice, Recycled

Extradited paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso.

The New York Times has this long and detailed piece about the light punishments received by many of the far-right paramilitary leaders who demobilized in the mid-2000s and were extradited to United States prisons.

The story makes a strong point: these guys, who may have smuggled tons of cocaine - not to mention ordering massacres, rapes, kidnappings and forced displacements - have gotten shorter sentences than some streetcorner pushers. (Here's ex-Pres. Uribe's response to the story.)

The story, however, is a bit narrow. While the paras' sentences are scandalously short, in the U.S. they did more time on drug charges than they would have back in Colombia for crimes, including crimes against humanity, under the infamous Justice and Peace Law. And, in theory, the death squad leaders are supposed to be returned to Colombia to be prosecuted for their non-drug crimes, altho the Times reports that many have obtained residency in the U.S., apparently as payback for revealing their cocaine smuggling secrets.

As a result, crimes such as massacres, kidnapping, rape and forced displacement, may never be punished at all.

A paragraph from the New York Times story listing some of Mancuso's alleged crimes.

Impunity? Aftermath of the massacre of Bojayá, in which a
FARC missile  landed on the town's church, klling more than
a hundred women and children hiding inside.

But the biggest scandal here, in the eyes of many, is that Colombia is about to do it all over again with the FARC guerrillas. The FARC have also committed horrendous crimes and human rights abuses, if perhaps not on the same scale as the paramilitaries', and under the peace agreement their leaders can not be extradited and will not even go to prison, as long as they confess what they've done. Instead, they'll get 'special detention,' a vague term likely to mean restricting them to a specific municipality.

And FARC members guilty of crimes against humanity, as long as they have confessed, will even be eligible to serve in Congress in one of the FARC's ten guaranteed seats.

None of which is to say that the FARC-government peace deal is not a good thing. However, political leaders should be careful that the FARC deal does not follow the paramilitaries down a path of injustice.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Question

On October 2, Colombians will vote up or down on the peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas.

However, the question on the ballot will ask something a bit different.

"Do you support the final agreement to terminate the conflict and build a stable and durable peace?"

Marching for the SI vote on Carrera Septima in Bogotá.

The referendum question doesn't mention the guerrillas, because the government know that would generate lots of public rejection. And, whether the deal will really end the conflict is very dubious. The smaller ELN guerrilla group has not entered negotiations, and a grab-bag of criminal groups and right-wing paramilitaries are still out there, eager to swoop in and occupy the FARC's territories and take over their drug trafficking, illegal mines and other businesses. In fact, El Tiempo reports that the ELN and criminal bands are already moving in.

Colombia, sadly, has structural problems which have scarred its history with violence and won't likely go away thanks to a few signatures and FARC guerrillas' turning in their weapons. The country has huge areas with little government presence and fortunes in illegal money waiting to be scooped up. And its high poverty rate and lack of good jobs - particularly in rural areas - supplies many unemployed young men willing to risk their lives and freedom by joining violent, illegal organizations.

But the government is determined to see the peace deal approved, in part because Pres. Santos' legacy is riding on it. Thus, the 'biased referendum question,' as La Silla Vacia suggests. Most of the rest of the Colombian media, which is cheering for a SI vote, naturally ignores this issue.

La Silla Vacia also points out that the election's rules are tilted in favor of the government and the SI vote. In particular, government resources such as telephones and vehicles can be used to campaign, and since the Santos administration favors the SI, they'll be used mostly that way.

The peace deal also has severe flaws, to which the government and media has given little attention. The most glaring of these are the human rights issues. FARC members who've committed grave crimes will have undergo only a mostly symbolic punishment just as long as they confess their crimes. These people will even be eligible to serve in parliament, where the FARC will have ten guaranteed seats.

Despite the flaws and the biased question, the peace deal may be a good thing for Colombia, if it at least reduces levels of violence. But nobody should expect it to cure all the nation's ills. Colombia still has lots of work to do.

While the biased question may help SI win, it also undermines the referendum's legitimacy and may make the outcome less legitimate in the eyes of Colombians and international observers.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Inevitableness of Impunity

Pres. Santos and FARC leader Timochenko make a historic handshake in Havana, Cuba, with a little help from friend Raul Castro.

'Nobody will sign a peace deal if it means they're going to jail,' Pres. Santos told the nation a few months ago.

He was right, and now he's put his words into action with the signing of a landmark, and perhaps feckless, peace deal with the FARC in Havana.

After the signing, Santos promised the nation that 'the worst crimes' would not be left without punishment. However, by my admittedly superficial understanding of the agreement, it leaves huge openings for only symbolic punishments, such as education and restoration work, as well as near impunity for politically motivated crimes and for those wrongdoers who confess all of their crimes. Following the agreement, media analysts agreed that the great majority of FARC fighters will receive symbolic punishment or none at all.

Who will pay? The FARC destroyed the Iglesia de Bojaá in
2002, massacring as many as 120 civilians hiding inside. 

The agreement stipulates the vague 'restriction of liberty' under 'special conditions' for some guilty of even crimes against humanity. That might mean probation within the limits of the Department of Cundinamarca.

This agreement is probably necessary and perhaps the least-bad deal attainable, at least during Santos's presidency - which is what matters to him. However, it will undoubtedly leave the guerrillas' countless victims feeling raw and violated.

"The dea won't please everybody," Santos said this week.

The agreement's advocates will point out that it doesn't include impunity for war crimes such as rape, massacres forced disappearance and forced displacement. However, the FARC are a main reason why Colombia has one of the world's largest number of internally displaced, commonly estimated at between 4 and 6 million people. Inevitably, the great majority of FARC fighters are responsible for such crimes against humanity, particularly the FARC leaders who set policies and tolerated such atrocities.

But if these men confess their crimes, no matter how terrible, they will be subject only to the vague and malleable 'restrictions of liberty under special circumstances.'

"Impunity sends a very bad message," said Senator Paloma Susana Valencia, a supporter of ex-Pres. Uribe. She asked what effect this would have on other criminals.

"So that there's no repetion, there must be real sanctions," said ex-minister of defense Marta Lucia Ramirez, who also served under Uribe.

The agreement still must pass several hurdles, including being found constitutional, as well as approval in a national referendum. Uribe and his supporters will ferociously and unceasingly denounce the accord, but they don't control the government. However, further guerrilla atrocities or a steep drop in Pres. Santos' popularity could still sink the accord.

And nobody should believe that this agreement will end drug-fueled violence. As long as there's a market for drugs, somebody will provide them, whether they call themselves guerrillas or just plain narcos.

The guerrillas now intend to convert themselves into a political party. How will Colombians respond to the spectacle of guerrillas, fresh from committing war crimes, legislating in Congress? Might this agreement undermine the government's own legitimacy?

Nevertheless, this flawed agreement creates Colombia's best chance in more than a half century to end its conflict, if not to find justice.

The agreement does little for the peace of mind of Colombia's millions of victims. But it will mean fewer future victims, which is most fundamental.

"What's important is that we escape from a violence of more than a half century," said Senator Armando Benedetti, "and that these outrages are not repeated."

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The FARC: Never to Blame

Bojayá townspeople walk thru their church,
destroyed by a FARC bomb.

When the FARC guerrillas apologized late last year for their 2002 massacre of 117 civilians in the town of Bojayá, some thot it marked a milestone in efforts to make peace.

Sure, Bojayá was one of the most terrible single acts in Colombia's half-century of conflict. In May, 2002, guerrillas and paramilitaries were fighting over this small, impoverished town of indigenous people and Afro-Colombians. The guerrillas fired one of their notoriously innaccurate homemade mortars at the paramilitaries, only to have it land on the church, where civilians had taken refuge. More than 10% of the town's residents died.

But if many hoped that the guerrillas' grudging acceptance of responsibility marked a shift in which the guerrillas would admit their innumerable crimes against civilians and accept punishment, permitting the healing of Colombia's war wounds, we've been disappointed.

The best proof is the guerrillas' response to their own bombing on the 22nd of a oil pipeline near

A giant turtle killed by oil spilled by the FARC guerrillas.
(Photo: Noticias RCN)

Tumaco. Presumably, the guerrillas thot of it as an attack on big business and the government. But hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil poured across biodiverse jungle, into the Mira River and along the coastline. More than 100,000 residents of Tumaco, a mostly poor city, were left without drinking water.

What's been the guerrillas' response? Apologies? Offers to aid the long-suffering residents of Tumaco, who only days before were left without electricity after the FARC blew up an electricity transmission tower? The most the FARC would say was that the environmental destruction and poisoning of Tumaco's water were a "non-desired result" of their attack. Their statement quickly shifted blame onto the government for "escalating the confrontation."

(Some observers pointed out that, only days before, the FARC had praised Pope Francis's encyclical about protecting the environment.)

This is only the latest in a long series of FARC crimes against civilians, which include massacres, forced displacement, kidnappings, recruitment of children, rape and the planting of landmines.

In Colombia's long conflict, all sides have committed gross human rights violations. But the fundamental difference between state forces and the guerrillas is that the government has held its own people and and institutions to some degree of responsibility. Not enough, certainly, but some degree.

Two army officers are doing long prison terms for killings, tortures and disappearances committed during the 1985 retaking of the Palace of Justice from the M-19 Guerrillas (several of whose ex-leaders, in contrast, are now in government).

Soldiers and officers are being prosecuted and doing prison terms for participating in the False Positive killings, in which military units kidnapped and killed young men and disguised them as guerrillas in order to win bonuses and time off. And now, higher army officials may be charged because they set general policies which made the False Positive killings possible.

And, the inspector general is considering charges against 9 military officers in relation to a FARC ambush of a military unit in El Cauca on April 15, in which 10 soldiers were killed. The officers may have been drunk the night of the massacre and ordered the soldiers to sleep in an unsafe location.

But if the FARC punished their fighters who launched the bomb onto the church in Bojayá or who bombed the pipeline near Tumaco, they haven't said so.

Until the FARC acknowledge their crimes and accept responsibility - and punishment - for their actions, Colombia is not likely to reach a peace agreement, much less any lasting peace.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Back to the Bad Old Times?

In yesterday's El Tiempo, the coincidence of two headlines sent a disturbing message about the danger of bad old times returning.

In the upper left-hand corner, a report about the end of the informal truce between the government and the FARC guerrillas. The peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba look to be in danger of breaking down, in the wake of a FARC ambush which killed 10 soldiers and military bombardments in which the government claims to have killed two dozen guerrilla fighters.

The peace talks have bogged down over the past year, primarily over what the guerrilla leaders' fate

Free man: Para leader Julian Bolivar.

would be after a peace deal. The guerrillas want to become politicians, but the overwhelming majority of Colombians wants to see them in prison.

In the lower right corner, the paper reports the release from prison of Julian Bolivar, the first major paramilitary leader to win his freedom after serving the 8-year prison term stipulated by the controversial Law of Peace and Justice. Under the law, paramilitaries who confessed to their crimes and ceased committing crimes receive maximum 8-year prison terms. Bolivar, whose real name is Rodrigo Pérez Alzate, had confessed to responsibility for or been convicted of crimes including massacres, recruiting children, driving peasants off their land, torture, narcotrafficking, assassinating union leaders, money laundering and 'barbarous acts' as head of a paramilitary group in the Antioquia and Magdalena Medio regions.

The crimes were committed as head of the Bloque Central Bolívar, under the pretense of battling leftist guerrillas.

The succession of paramilitary leaders being released has victims worried that they will return to crime and terrorism and take vengeance on those who denounced them. And the ohe ongoing resurgence of the conflict with the guerrillas makes that seem all the more possible.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Breaking Point for Peace?

Semana magazine reports a plummeting support for the peace process.

Suddenly, the peace process doesn't look so strong.

For the past year, the government-FARC negotiations in Havana have barely advanced - and then came the FARC's massacre of 10 soldiers in El Cauca.

Pessimism surges.

Now, public support for the talks, as well as Santos' presidency, has tumbled. From about 70% public support in March, today only 55% of Colombians support the talks, while opposition has surged from 31% to 44%. Perhaps even more worrying for the talks, almost 90% of Colombians believe that the guerrillas should go to prison for their crimes, something which the FARC leaders oppose. Nearly two-thirds of people want deadlines, something which appears untenable for the drawn-out talks.

Altogether 69% of Colombians now feel pessimistic about the negotiations, while only 29% express optimism.

Undoubtedly, Santos will persevere with the negotiations. After all, they got him reelected and will define his legacy (and even his family's).

While Santos' support falls, that of ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, leader of the opposition in Congress and fervent critic of the negotiations, has surged to 57%.

However, if opposition keeps rising, will the results have any legitimacy? Can the resulting agreement be ratified by Congress, a referendum or even a Constitutional Convention?

Support drops.

Two-thirds of Colombians want deadlines on the negotiations.

Almost 90% want the guerrillas to go to prison.

Tough times for Santos.

References:

Gran Encuesta Colombia Opina: favorabilidad de Santos cayó al 29%

Radiografía colombiana
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Are the FARC Capable of Peace?

Soldiers carry the corpse of one of their companions killed by the FARC in El Cauca this week.
(Photo: BBC)

The FARC's killing 11 soldiers in El Cauca this week makes little sense strategically, and none politically.

The soldiers, part of anti-drug trafficking unit, were resting at the time and killed using long-range weapons.

The FARC leaders clearly want the peace talks in Havana to succeed, which is one reason why they declared a unilateral cease fire last December. But this apparently unprovoked ambush imperils the talks' progress. Pres. Santos already ordered a resumption of air attacks on the guerrillas, altho, surprisingly, he did not suspend the peace talks.

Buenos Aires, in El Cauca Department.
(Image from Wikipedia)

But the soldiers' killings will harden public sentiment against the guerrillas, including that of hard-liners within the military, and will give ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe and other right-wingers more ammunition against the peace talks. And the guerrilla leaders' number one goal doesn't appear to be social justice or land redistribution, but soft terms for themselves in any peace deal, despite their innumerable human rights violation. This latest massacre puts that further out of reach.

I can think of only two possible reasons for this action:

One, that the FARC disastrously misread national sentiment following the April 9 pro-peace marches, in which some guerrilla sympathizers called for a bilateral ceasefire. Perhaps the guerrillas hoped that committing an atrocity like this one would motivate more Colombians to support the ceasefire to stop the killing.

Instead, in the same way that Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor even while Japanese-U.S. negotiations were being held rallied Americans behind FDR's declaration of war, these latest killings seems to have only generated more anti-guerrilla anger.

Could the guerrilla leadership have read public sentiment so incorrectly? I doubt it.

The more likely and even more worrying explanation is that the guerrillas have lost control of some of their 'fronts,' whose leaders may aim to sabotage the peace talks. The attack occurred in the municipality of Buenos Aires, in El Cauca Department, located near the Pacific coast and the Ecuadorean border. The region is valuable because of illegal mining and cocaine exportation routes.

Could it be that local FARC leaders, aware that a peace deal would extinguish their huge illicit incomes, have made this their way of trying to kill the talks - in defiance of the guerrillas' top leadership?

If my second hypothesis is correct, it bodes badly for the negotiations, since many local guerrilla leaders have their own motives for wanting to preserve the conflict and its illegal incomes.

If the guerrilla leadership cannot pull those far-flung units into line, then a peace deal may not be merely far away, but impossible.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Lessons of the EPL

An EPL fighter. (Photo: Semana)

When someone calling themselves the EPL issued a communique a few days ago expressing its interest in joining the FARC-government peace talks in Havana, many Colombia observers probably scratched their heads.

After all, Colombia is only supposed to have two guerrilla groups: the Revolutionary Armed Forces

'Combating, we will win.' The EPL's logo.

of Colombia, or FARC, who recently commemorated their 50th anniversary, and the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, which is in talks about peace talks. But the EPL, or Popular Liberation Army? Didn't they disappear years ago?

In fact, Colombia did once have an EPL guerrilla group, but whether it still does is controversial. And that story illustrates the troubles of negotiating with and demobilizing guerrilla groups.

The EPL was founded in 1967, and grew to have some 4,000 fighters. It specialized in extortion, kidnapping, cattle rustling and money laundering. In its formal philosophy, the EPL adhered to the ultra-Stalinist ideas of Albania's brutal communist dictator Enver Hoxha. In 1991, weakened by attacks from the military and right-wing paramilitaries, some 2,500 EPL fighters demobilized, handing over 850 rifles and founding a political party named Hope, Peace and Liberty, or EPL by its Spanish initials.

'Megateo' in front of an EPL banner.

But the EPL's troubles weren't over. It now became the target of both the left and right. The FARC, calling the demobilized EPL fighters traitors to the revolutionary cause, deliberately murdered several hundred of them. (Ironically, at the same time, members of the FARC-associated Patriotic Union party were being murdered by right-wing forces. The U.P. martyrs have been memorialized, the EPL victims forgotten.) Then, in 1993, EPL defiant leader Francisco Caraballo was captured by the military, and in 1996 one of the group's few remaining fronts turned itself in to the military, while another joined a paramilitary group, supposedly the guerrillas' sworn enemies.

After that, the EPL mostly evaporated, except for a few clashes with the military and the 2006 kidnapping of a businessman and politician's son by people claiming to be EPL members.

However, in 2013 Víctor Ramón Navarro, or Megateo, presented himself to reporters in Catatumbo as head of the EPL's Libardo Toro's front.

To United States and Colombian authorities, however, know Navarro basically as a drug trafficker, Semana magazing wearing gold rings encrusted with diamonds and emeralds.

Want an easy 9 billion pesos?
A wanted poster for 'Alias Megateo.'

for whom they offer millions of dollars in rewards. And his sincerity as a communist revolutionary was called into question when a photo appeared of him wearing a thick gold necklace and he showed up for an interview with

And reporters with Semana magazine also wondered about Navarro's guerrilla legits when his 50 fighting men appeared wearing new uniforms similar to the Colombian military's and carrying brand new Israeli-made Galil rifles. Who or what was sponsoring these people?

Now, the EPL guerrillas want to join the peace talks. But do they still exist, and are they really guerrillas, or a criminal band calling themselves guerrillas?

Some say that the trouble started back in 1991, when the EPL only partially demobilized. And that may have been in part due to the violent hostility from the FARC, who evidently didn't want to lose a guerrilla ally.

With the government-FARC peace negotiations advancing in Havana, the EPL's story illustrates the many ways which a peace deal can go wrong. Does the FARC's central command really control all of its units? Might some guerrilla fronts refuse the peace deal, or morph into violent criminal bands stripped of ideology? Could a guerrilla demobilization trigger another episode of murderous revenge taking?

Meanwhile, someone will have to decide whether the so-called EPL guerrillas deserve the amnesty offered to political groups which have resorted to violence, or should be fought and incarcerated as simple drug traffickers.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Attacking the Peace Talks from the Left

'A peace as an excuse for perpetuating inequality.'

Pro-rebellion posters cover a mural showing
a land-mine victim. Land mines, which
kill and maim many civilians, are
planted by Colombia's guerrillas.  

'And the solution is -rebellion.' These posters appeared today in Bogotá's Teusaquillo district denouncing the FARC.-government peace negotiations going on now in Habana, Cuba.

Until now, most criticisms of the negotiations haves come from the right, which labels them give-aways to the guerrillas and charges that violators of human rights will get off with only symbolic punishments.

In contrast, these anonymous posters, with their calls for 'liberation' and denunciations of inequality, are attacking the talks from the far left, as failing to solve society's ills. Their view seems to be that the solution is rebellion - a new 'revolution'. Does Colombia really want to rewind itself to the 1960s?

'In rebellion, LatinAmerica recovers its existence.'

'A same past, a same enemy, a same possibility: Liberation.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Good-bye Land Mines?

A campesino who lost his right leg to a land mine.
(Photo: Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas)

The other morning, Edilberto and Marlon Alexis González Mina, ages 9 and 10, were walking to school near the village of Tandil Alto Mira in Nariño Department, when they stepped on a land mine.

The explosion killed the two boys, making them the latest of the 11,000 people injured and killed by mines since 1990 in Colombia, the only nation in the Western Hemisphere where land mines are still being planted. Colombia is the world's third-most mined nation, behind only Afghanistan and Cambodia.

Colombia's guerrillas plant home-made land mines to protect themselves from pursuing soldiers and to guard coca leaf fields. But they don't return to remove the devices, so the mines remain waiting silently to kill or maim the unfortunate person (or animal) who steps on them.

So it was positive news ten days ago that the military and FARC guerrilla negotiators agreed to work together to find and remove the thousands of land mines after they sign a peace treaty.

A mural on an abandoned Bogotá building
memorializes land mine victims.

More than a few 'ifs' and 'buts' remain, however. The peace agreement looks likely, but is no sure thing. And neither is the obedience of the many guerrilla units to directives from their leaders. Meanwhile, the ELN guerrillas, who are not in the peace negotiations, presumably continue planting land mines. And, in any case, the guerrillas can't possibly know the locations of all of their mines, which a government official estimates are distributed across 688 municipalities.

The guerrillas fashion their mines using explosives sometimes laced with screws and feces in order to maximize the injuries and infection. These artesanal mines can wait underground for 50 years for someone to tragically step on the wrong spot.

Colombia may finally free itself of the nightmare of land-mines, but not for a while yet.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mockus's March for Life

March for Life volunteers recently in Bogotá's Parque Nacional.

Antanas Mockus lobbies for his March for Life.

Antanas Mockus, the widely-admired ex-mayor of Bogotá, is organizing a 'March for Life' in Bogotá for Sunday, March 8.

What's there to criticize about that?

Plenty, it turns out, from the perspective of ex-President Alvaro Uribe.

Last month, now-Senator Uribe made known to the world that Mockus's foundation 'Visionarios por March for Life, therefore, was a thinly disguised march in favor of those peace talks.
Colombia' had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts from the government. That meant, Uribe insinuated, that Mockus was in cahoots with Pres. Santos - Uribe's political enemy - in support of the FARC-government peace talks going on in Havana, Cuba.

'They seem to be visionaries, but for the money, someone wrote on Twitter feed.

Uribe is a furious critic of the talks, which he charges will mean impunity for guerrilla leaders.

But what should it matter whether a man organizing a march for life actually supports a peace process? Mockus has never hidden his support for the negotiations, which appear on track to end Colombia's 50-year-old civil conflict.

And Mockus is suffering from Parkinson's disease, which could cut his life short. It would make no sense for him to throw his reputation for honesty and uncorruptibility into the trash for the sake of a single contract.

If you can, join Mockus's March for Life. It can only help.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Forget the Peace Dividend?

No budget worries in peacetime? Colombian soldiers in training.

In yet another move to buy the military's support for a likely peace deal with the guerrillas, Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas tells the Wall Street Journal that post-peace treaty Colombia will not cut defense spending.

That makes no strategic sense, of course, since Colombia faces no significant foreign threats (and less than ever, with Venezuela's soldiers patrolling supermarkets). But it does make sense for a government determined to keep military leaders backing the peace negotiations which would make them less relevant. Colombia has already been criticized by human rights advocates for broadening military courts' jurisdiction for crimes committed by soldiers.

No new hi-tech toys, please.

Not cutting back South America's second-largest military budget (after only that of the much-larger Brazil) also makes no sense when Colombia is scrambling to stretch its budget in the face of plummeting world oil prices. Does it really make sense to pay soldiers rather than, say, doctors, schoolteachers or construction workers on Bogotá's much-dreamed-of metro system?

Besides all of that, peace will bring tens of billions of dollars of its own costs, including rural investment and integrating ex-fighters into society.

Last year, Colombia spent 3.4% of its gross domestic product on the military, actually an increase from the previous year. That's apparently not including the huge police force, which often carries out military-like functions. In contrast, Venezuela spent 1.2% of its GDP on its military, Brazil 1.4% and Ecuador 3%. Argentina spent 0.7% and tiny Uruguay 1.9%. None of those nations got invaded, so what's Colombia worried about? (All numbers come from The World Bank.)

The $15 billion which Colombia budgets for defense is about the same that it spends on its educational system, which badly needs a boost.

Of course, Colombia will get other important benefits from any peace deal, including reduced violence, expanded government control of remote parts of the country, a better international image and an estimated 2% increase in economic growth. Pres. Santos has also said that he will end obligatory military service for young men. That would end a patently unjust system, since the wealth pay their way out of service.

But if Colombia intends to maintain its military budget after the armed conflict ends, please God don't let them blow the money on useless hi-tech toys like fighter jets and submarines. In peacetime, Colombian soldiers can play a useful role patrolling against illegal mining and logging, not to mention protecting neighborhoods from the criminal gangs which will continue trafficking Colombian cocaine.

In the same WSJ interview, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said as much. Hopefully, the government will match its words with pesos.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Narcotrafficking: A Political Act?

Pablo Escobar: Political actor?

Pablo Escobar would have loved it: Narcotrafficking, one of the world's greediest, most violent industries, may be designated a 'political crime' in Colombia - labeling it, in a sense, an altruistic act.

Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez has, predictably - and accurately - condemned the idea as a gift to criminals. "It's intended to legally protect the FARC's cocaine capos," he said, and would allow the guerrillas to legalize their drug wealth.

But Pres. Santos will push forward with it, as another maneuver to motivate the FARC to continue with the peace negotiations in Havana. The rub with the peace talks, of course, is that few guerrillas will be willing to sign a treaty if it means trading comfortable lives in Havana for a prison cell.

The United States government, which has publicly backed the negotiations, won't support this sort of

Escobar cuonts his loot in a Caracol TV miniseries.

impunity, since it considers narcotrafficking an international crime committed within U.S. borders. But Colombia has given monsters, such as paramilitary leaders who have confessed to thousands of murders, short prison sentences. So, why exclude drug trafficking guerrillas, who, after all, were supposedly financing a political agenda?

The impunity for drug traffickers is only the latest political gymnastics intended to keep the peace talks moving. Santos also seems to be forgiving the FARC in record time for the kidnapping of Gen. Alzate, and he barely blinked a few weeks ago at the guerrillas' murders of two NASA indigenous people. To keep the military in his camp, he wants to broaden the jurisdiction of military courts - even tho many human rights organizations warn that this could mean impunity for atrocities committed by soldiers.

A political act? Wreckage of the 1989 Avianca
bombing planned by Escobar.

Pablo Escobar himself tried to disguise his narcotrafficking empire up as a principled enterprise opposed to U.S. 'imperialism' and in favor of humble Colombians. And Escobar was briefly elected to Congress. In fact, Escobar's aims were to enrich himself at the cost of massacres and tearing apart Colombian government and society.

The political cover given to the FARC guerrillas is mostly a charade, but perhaps a necessary one if Colombians want them to turn in their arms and sign a peace treaty.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Best Frenemies?

'There's already a path to resolve the crisis and renew the peace process,' announces today's El Tiempo.

A victory for the peace process?

'The people have the key to peace,' says a sign at a
demonstration today against the suspension of the peace talks.

Judging from today's press headlines, that's what this Sunday's kidnapping of a general by the FARC amounted to.

El Tiempo, Colombia's leading newspaper, headlined 'Advances in moves to achieve general's liberation.'

Remember that the FARC, who had promised to stop kidnapping, grabbed a general and his assistants while he traveled in civilian clothes without bodyguards no apparent hostile intent.

The FARC want find a fast
solution to the crisis they
caused themselves, they say.

But Colombia's  El Tiempo, historically owned by the family of Pres. Santos and an active backer of the peace talks, is not denouncing the guerrillas for breaking their promise or violating human rights abuses, but rather interprets the FARC's actions as an advance, as its subheadline today announced: 'The solution to the crisis could allow a deescalation of the conflict.' Perhaps the guerrillas should kidnap more military officials to advance the peace talks even further?

The contrast with the episode a few weeks ago when the guerrillas murdered several NASA indigenous guards for removing a banner which the guerrillas had hung on indigenous territory could hardly be greater.

That time, government officials denounced the killings, but continued talking peace with the FARC. This time, the government suspended negotiations, but seems to be trying to put a positive spin on the guerrillas' crime. Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre termed the kidnapping an 'improper retention' - using what is traditionally the guerrillas' own euphemism for kidnapping.

Pres. Santos won reelection primarily thanks to support for the peace talks, and he's determined not to let anything, even murder or kidnapping, derail them.

For their part, FARC leaders in Havana said they wanted to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and find "a fast, tranquil and just solution to this problem." Strange comments coming from the organization which caused the crisis in the first place and presumably could end it at any moment by freeing the general and other kidnappees.

Students on the National University campus in Bogotá
walk past a mural celebrating the FARC guerrillas.

But the contradiction between the guerrillas' actions and statements also suggests that the FARC leadership cannot control some of its 'fronts'. That's a worrisome reality for any post-peace treaty situation, in which some guerrilla units might defy their leaders and turn into straight-out narcotrafficking groups, as some ex-paramilitary groups have done.

This evening, the FARC promised to free the general, his two assistants and two other soldiers held by the guerrillas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Not all Victims are Equal

'General kidnapped in El Chocó' reports El Tiempo.

About two weeks ago, FARC guerrillas hung banners commemorating the death three years ago of a murderous guerrilla leader on territory belonging to the NASA indigenous people. NASA indigenous guards pulled the banners down. Furious at being defied, the guerrillas murdered two of the NASA people.

In response, the NASA captured eight guerrillas, two of whom were teenagers. After a trial in front of thousands of NASA people, two of the guerrillas were sentenced to 60 and 40-year prison terms and the teenage boys to being whipped.

Colombian leaders denounced the FARC for the killings and for employing child soldiers, but continued negotiating peace with them in Havana, Cuba.

Two days ago, a Colombian general disappeared in Chocó Department, allegedly kidnapped by the
FARC. In response, the government suspended the peace negotiations.

Caracol TV reports the suspension of the peace talks in Havana.

This is far from the first time that some victims have turned out to be more important than others.

In 1928, Colombian soldiers, defending the interests of the United Fruit Company, massacred hundreds or thousands of striking workers in the town of Cienaga near Santa Marta. Soon afterwards, the general in charge, Carlos Cortés Vargas, was promoted to chief of police of Bogotá.

But the next year during students protests Bogotá police shot and killed a young man. who turned out to be the son of a friend of the president. Murdering hundreds of plantation laborers was apparently acceptable, but killing a member of the elite crossed the line. Both Gen. Cortés and Minister of Defense Ignacio Rengifo were fired.

The NASA present Captured FARC guerrillas to the public.

And don't get me started on the Caso Colmenares, the sad story of a student from an elite private university who either died or was murdered in a north Bogotá ravine while partying with friends. The media never stop telling us about the Colmenares trial, while countless humble Bogotanos die tragically and unnoticed.

The drama of the many victims of Colombia's long civil war is in the news these days because of the debate about how - and whether - to compensate them. A recent study by Harvard University found that, including displaced people, some 6.9 million Colombians qualify as victims. That's 14% of Colombia's population, whereas most other nations have compensated about 1%. The FARC, for their part, deny that they have victimized civilians at all - something nobody believes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The FARC's Latest Lie

Worth murdering for? The polemical banner, featuring Alfonso Cano.
(Photo: Defensoria del Pueblo via Semana Magazine)

Just days after FARC negotiators in La Habana asserted that the guerrillas have "never perpetrated attacks against the civil population," the terrorist group exposed their own lie.

Recently, FARC guerrillas hung huge banners on indigenous territory commemorating the anniversary of the killing by military bombing of FARC leader Alfonso Cano. Unable to tolerate such disrespect, the FARC killed two indigenous men and attacked a third.

Fortunately, the NASA's indigenous guard was able to capture eight guerrillas, whom they will put on trial and then hand over to Colombian authorities for imprisonment.

Which makes one ask whether the government should even be speaking with murdering, lying, hypocrites like these. But, unfortunately, there's nobody else to speak to to end Colombia's conflict.

Update: The NASA 'court' (a public assembly of hundreds of people) sentenced two of the guerrillas to 40- and 60-year prison terms. Two of the guerrillas captured by the NASA were minors, and were sentenced to being whipped. The FARC issued a statement in which they seemed to blame the NASA for the murders for pursuing the guerrillas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Tanja's Visa Troubles

The FARC negotiating team. Tanya is on the right,
holding a sheet of paper.

Tanja is a young Dutch woman who joined the FARC guerrillas in 2002 and is now a part of their bargaining team in Havana, Cuba.

As the only foreigner and one of few women among the negotiaters, Tanja is something of a star - and also a target. Members of ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe's right-wing Centro Democratico Party are attacking Tanja because, of all things, she doesn't have a valid Colombian residency visa.

Now, will someone please tell me what's surprising about this? After all, Tanja, who is 36 and whose last name is Nijmeijer, has spent the last dozen years living in Colombia's mountains and jungles - where the Foreign Ministry has no visa paperwork offices. And, during that time, she was on the run from Colombia's military, which was trying to kill her and her companions with bombs, M-16s and helicopter gunships. All that didn't leave much time for government paperwork.

Besides that, Tanja belongs to a terrorist organization which rejects the legitimacy of the Colombian government and wants to replace it with a socialist state. In the very best of circumstances, would she be likely to ask that government for a visa?

Getting my visa renewed was a tremendous headache, as it is for many foreigners in Colombia. (But, for whatever it's worth, Colombia's visa bureaucracy wasn't 1/100th as bad as Bolivia's.) Given a choice between repeated trips to the visa office - to endure long waits for surly service from bureaucrats who kept changing the rules on me and then charged me for that privilege - and fleeing from helicopter gunships in the jungle, I might very well choose the second. Well, not really. But I'd be tempted.

In any case, if Tanja DID have a visa, that'd be a real sign of trouble, because it would mean that some functionary was not doing their job by issuing visas to lawbreakers - probably in exchange for a nice bribe.

Uribe's Centro Democratico party is a harsh critic of the peace negotiations in Havana and they're wielding this visa issue as a new weapon. There are plenty of solid reasons to reject the FARC's legitimacy as a peace partner: the massacres, kidnappings, child recruitment, narcotrafficking, forced displacement and many other crimes they've committed. A government willing to look past terrorism shouldn't wory about a lapsed visa.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours