The Drug War's Southern Front

Colombia, cocaine, and U.S. foreign policy.

Timothy Pratt from the April 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

In the days after the kidnapping, the children who give the mass its name were released. By the end of last year, the rest of the hostages, including Dueñas, were also free. The first few groups of hostages were released under the glare of television news cameras. From across the nation, reporters had rumbled along mountain back roads, at times under nightfall, racing to be the first to stick a microphone in a victim's face and ask, "How do you feel?"

That display was the last straw in a growing movement in Colombian newsrooms to tone down sensationalism, increase discretion, and look more closely at the media's role in helping or harming peace efforts. A few television stations briefly ran violent news in black and white--in protest, and as "an invitation to reflection." There was also a "treaty for discretion." Readers began writing to newspapers, begging for less coverage of the guerrillas--and the paramilitary groups that combat them--and more coverage of people working toward peace.

The 5,000-strong ELN had first claimed political motives for the kidnapping. Then it reversed its position, seeking ransom for the remaining hostages. The hostages' families responded by drafting and signing an unprecedented pact. It said: We refuse to pay a dime.

The families also staged a permanent encampment--a Liberated Zone, they called it--outside Cali's bullfighting ring, vowing to become the nucleus for a movement to end the longest-running civil war in this hemisphere. One of their first measures was to spread the "Don't Pay" pacts, in hopes of shutting down one of the guerrillas'--and, to a lesser degree, the paramilitaries'--favored means of funding their armies (along with extortion, cattle rustling, and taxing illicit crops). According to the Bogota-based anti-kidnapping group Pais Libre, there are more abductions per year in Colombia than in any other country in the world, with nearly 3,000 reported in 1999. Even President Pastrana was held hostage a decade ago, during the heyday of the notorious drug capo Pablo Escobar.

Before the last churchgoers were finally freed, some released hostages said that those still arriba, or "up there," included a mid-level cocaine trafficker. Rumors spread that the so-called traqueto--a local term for a mid-level cocaine trafficker derived from the sound of a submachine gun--was arming a battalion to go into the mountains and rescue him. Others whispered that some families had broken the pact, even paying on three-year "installment plans."

"It has been a difficult year," Pastrana recently told The New York Times. That's for sure. Aside from the kidnapping at La Maria, the war left at least 500 massacres in its wake in 1999--one, sometimes two, each day. Each massacre meant another ghost town, as Colombia rose toward the top of another cheerless list, with an estimated 1.5 million internal refugees. About 95 percent of all criminal cases are unsolved, and around 16,000 public employees are under investigation for corruption. Naturally, much of the latter is a direct product of the drug trade and the drug war, as when drug bosses bribe their way out of prison or evidence mysteriously "disappears" from prosecutors' offices. Under all this murky mess, the economy is barely moving, with one out of five Colombians unemployed.

Guerrillas, paramilitaries, drugs, kidnappings, rumors, mistrust, fear: All mix together in a pot that just barely avoids boiling over. In Colombia, they call this la situacion --"the situation."

No wonder, then, that Dr. Dueñas has abandoned ship, along with several hundred thousand fellow citizens who fled their homeland. In Cali, at the government office that issues passports, a harried official named Colombia Medina reports, "Until recently, we had the parking lot attendants help people waiting in line outside. Now, we've called in the police."

Colombians are applying for passports and visas in record numbers--in some cities, nearly twice as many as in previous years. Bribes are rampant, and so are false documents. "If you have a good life here," says Medina, "you leave because they might kidnap or rob you. And if you don't have a good life here, you leave in order to find a better life somewhere else."

Among those who stay, however, thousands are working to restore peace and hope to their country. In one of the world's most violent countries--with an urban homicide rate 10 to 25 times the global average, depending on the city--some people are trying to start a peace movement. Its most visible display took place on Sunday, October 24, when more than 100 local, national, and international groups staged a massive march down Colombia's streets. Five to 10 million citizens--up to a quarter of the country--joined the parade.

The anti-kidnapping group Pais Libre was a key player in organizing the march, and "No More Kidnapping!" was one of the most popular slogans shouted on that drizzly Sunday. Journalist Francisco Santos founded the group nine years ago, after surviving his own kidnapping. Santos belongs to the family dynasty behind El Tiempo, Colombia's leading daily; both the paper in general and his weekly column have helped mobilize different sectors of society fed up with the violence. Last May's abduction at La Maria gave the movement more urgency. In all the years of kidnappings, the country had never seen so many hostages taken at once--and never, in this devoutly Catholic country, from a church. On the heels of that crime, from June 1 to October 24, Pais Libre led 44 marches in towns and cities across the nation.

But the headlines on October 25, the day after the biggest march of all, had to account for two events. Pastrana's peace talks with FARC had picked up that same Sunday, after nine months of stalls. In a show of piggybacking on public opinion--which could only come across as strange, since his group had sparked part of the mass outrage--FARC leader Raul Reyes unfurled his own list of "No Mores." First up: "No more State terrorism in its paramilitary expression." Then: "No more increases in defense spending; no more Gringo military aid...no more impositions from the International Monetary Fund; no more foreign debts; no more interference from the United States in the internal affairs of Colombia ...no more peasants without land or credits..." The list reeled on.

FARC adopted its name in 1966, with campesino militant Pedro Antonio Marin--a.k.a. Tirofijo, or "Sureshot" --at the helm. But its genesis dates back to 1949, when Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated in Bogota. Rioting followed in the streets, and a bloody war, known simply as la violencia, flared between left and right. Two hundred thousand died.

In 1953, the government offered amnesty to the rebels. The Liberals accepted and laid down their arms; the Communists took to the hills. In 1960, after six years of building support in the countryside, the Communist Party officially declared the need for an armed movement; this soon became FARC. The government stepped up its attacks.

From the '60s to the '90s, FARC never had more than 6,000 soldiers; it was just one more problem in a country with plenty of troubles to contend with. But in the last 10 years, between the economic downturn and the government's failure to enact serious agrarian reform, life for a farmer's son or daughter began to look less promising than ever. Colombia has an old-fashioned Latin American economy: Corruption is rampant, business and government are closely entwined, and wealth and land are concentrated in the hands of a few. The guerrillas at least offer food, pay a salary (about $100 a month more than the Colombian army), and lend some purpose to thousands of young campesinos' lives.