By Nathaniel Foote, Latin America Contributor
Despite the revelation that the military is deeply involved in a phenomenon know as “false positives”, Uribe is expected to serve another term as president.
On Christmas Day, 2008, 18-year-old student Arnobis Negrete Villadiego disappeared from the streets of his hometown of Cordoba, Colombia. The next day, he was found dead, apparently killed in a gun battle with security forces. The Army claimed Villadiego to be a drug trafficker and tallied another successful kill to their body count. To the casual observer, this was another day in the life of South America’s most violent nation.
The name Colombia has become synonymous with drugs, violence, and crime. Civil conflict has ravaged the country for half a century. Cocaine is the largest export. Until 2005, Colombia was the kidnapping capital of the world. For decades, left wing guerillas, drug traffickers, and right wing paramilitaries have controlled large swaths of its territory. Corruption remains endemic. Things got so bad during the 1990’s that some academics published work predicting the disintegration of the Colombian state.
Today, however, the light at the end of the tunnel glows brighter. Since President Alvaro Uribe assumed office in 2002, the murder rate has been cut in half. Thirty thousand paramilitaries have demobilized and returned to civilian life. His administration has taken a hard line against the guerillas, and the FARC is running scared; its morale is low, communications in disarray, its highest profile hostages free, and its leader dead. Mr. Uribe seems to have delivered Colombia from the forces that once appeared destined to destroy it.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Colombian Senate recently authorized a referendum that, if successful, would permit Mr. Uribe to run for a third time. The Senate backed a similar measure to amend the constitution to allow the popular president to run for a second term in 2006, and given the President's very high approval ratings—71 percent according to a recent Gallup poll—it is likely he’ll win again.
He is not without his critics, however. His detractors have accused the President, at the very least, of complacency, and more sinisterly, complicity in human rights abuses perpetrated by paramilitary groups that operated in the state of Antioquia during his time as a Senator representing it. In 2007, the accusations even prompted then U.S. Vice President Al Gore to cancel an appearance in Miami that Uribe was scheduled to attend. At the time, Gore’s spokeswoman explained that, “until this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close, Mr. Gore did not feel it was appropriate to appear at the event. . . .” The former Vice President may have to wait even longer than he expected.
1,100 members of the military are currently under investigation, linked with a peculiarly Colombian phenomenon known as “false positives”. Sixty-seven soldiers are already serving lengthy prison terms for their involvement, while roughly 400 have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The scandal has not spared higher ups either. In November 2008, army General Mario Montoya was forced to resign for his connection to “false positives.” Mr. Montoya received much of the credit for the July 2008 rescue of Colombian politician and French citizen Ingrid Betancourt, who had been held by the FARC for nearly eight years, and had served as their principal bargaining chip.
The death of Villadiego was a “false positive.” Human rights groups estimate that there have been thousands of these killings across Colombia. Young men, usually poor, and often homeless, are abducted or promised high paying jobs far away from their homes, only to wind up dead hundreds of miles away. The military dresses them in uniforms, plants machine guns, and presents their corpses as guerrillas or narcos killed in combat, in order to inflate its body count.
Evidence also suggests, at least in some cases, that the army cooperates closely with right-wing paramilitaries, groups such as the Autodefensas Campesinas de Cordoba y Uruba (ACCU,) which are known for their brutality. For example, in a declassified U.S. Embassy cable on the matter from 2000, signed by former Ambassador Curtis Kamman, reported one such case involving two young men:
“The ACCU (which witnesses say kidnapped the two) claims its forces executed them, while the Army’s Fourth Brigade (which released the bodies the next day) presented the dead as ELN guerrillas killed in combat with the Army. After these competing claims sparked localized fear and confusion, armed men stole the cadavers from the morgue. . . .”
The government denies that the problem is as prevalent as NGOs and the media suggest. Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos explained, "[w]e have discovered that there are many false denunciations, many people that want to present legitimate killings in combat, terrorists, guerrillas, as extrajudicial executions, in order to stain the good name of our military institutions." Mr. Uribe echoed the Minister’s statements, saying “there is a group of lawyers paid by international organizations, with ideological slants that hamper an impartial examination of the conducts and the mandamus, and they do it with hate and ideological tendencies. A group of lawyers with the task of making false charges against our Armed Forces." Despite the President’s support, Mr. Santos was forced to resign this past May 18th. The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Judicial Council has also asked Mr. Uribe to appear, ready to provide evidence to support his claim.
The scandal has hurt the administration in international circles. The British diverted aid meant for the Colombian military out of fears that the money could end up in the hands of the culpable. During his campaign for president, Barack Obama expressed misgivings about a U.S.-Colombian trade deal in view of allegations of human rights abuses.
So far, however, scandal has not stopped Mr. Uribe’s progress, nor has it lessened his historic approval ratings. Also, despite the most recent revelations, Mr. Obama has asked U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to work towards brokering a trade agreement with Colombia.
The blame cannot be placed squarely on Mr. Uribe’s shoulders. Documents declassified in January of this year by the National Security Archive show that the CIA and U.S. diplomats were aware of “false positives” and the Colombian military’s “body count mentality” as early as 1994, nearly a decade before Mr. Uribe assumed the presidency.
The majority of Colombians recognize that Mr. Uribe made the hard decisions necessary to bring his country back from the brink. He is the overwhelming favorite for the 2010 presidential election, despite a string of scandals to which he is at least indirectly linked, not only the problem of “false positives,” but also for congressional ties to paramilitary death squads, as well as illicit wire-tapping. Clearly, Colombians believe that Mr. Uribe’s gains are worth it.
The very fact that his administration has been marred by scandal, however, may be a sign that it is growing dark before the dawn. Increased transparency and a sense of security have induced Colombians to speak out as never before. The “false positives” carve deep scars in an otherwise glowing record, but as is common in nation’s emergence from periods of tumult and bloodshed, crimes on both sides are exposed and magnified. That is not to say the crimes of the military, or their paramilitary counterparts should be minimized, but Mr. Uribe should be applauded, cautiously, but applauded nonetheless.
