Risking Change

At first glance, the Colombian presidential election of 2010 seemed a great deal like a turning point in the nation’s politics. The election featured new issues, new parties, and, most important, a field of candidates that did not include Álvaro Uribe. Without the presence of the country’s extremely popular president, debates were contentions and the election hard fought, concluding only after two rounds of voting. The differences nonetheless belie important similarities. In particular, the winning party, informally labeled the “Party of the U,” dedicated itself to electing a chief executive sympathetic to the policies of the outgoing President Uribe. This newly elected president, Juan Manuel Santos, executed Uribe’s effective and controversial security policy as Defense Minister, announcing his candidacy only after Uribe’s failed bid to change Colombia’s constitution to allow him to serve a third consecutive term.
Despite his status as the natural successor to Uribe, Santos has been more surprising and far less conventional than had been expected. Through the first eight months of his presidency, Santos seems to have been willing to break from the approach of his predecessor to combat Colombia’s most pressing problems. While elected as a warrior, Santos’ approach has been as much domestic as it has been militaristic. On security, drug trade, and human rights President Santos appears ready to sound a new tone.
Down the Same Path?
During the campaign of 2010, both supporters and opponents labeled Santos the candidate of the establishment and an Uribista dedicated to his predecessor’s strategy of “democratic security.” An Uribista watchword, “democratic security” means encouraging all parts of Colombian society to help address internal violence, one of the country’s most intractable problems. As Garry Leech, author of Beyond Bogotá: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia and professor of international politics at Cape Breton University, told the HPR, however, security has its drawbacks. Leech describes democratic security as a militant policy, involving expansion of “the presence and operations of the military…throughout the country.” Although successful at improving certain indicators of violence, the vastly expanded police force and government presence have done little to combat poverty and inequality, Leech asserts.
Before his election, however, Santos enjoyed more experience directing military strikes against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the most notorious anti-government guerrilla group, than he did implementing social policy. As Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told the HPR, “[Santos] was Minister of Defense at the time of [Operación Jaque and Operación Fénix], two of the most spectacular successes against the FARC.” Both operations, a hostage rescue and an airstrike, respectively, exemplify the Uribe administration’s daring, aggressive military approach to addressing internal violence. Thus, in Colombia’s 2010 presidential election, according to Dr. Arnson, “Santos was seen as a candidate of continuity with regards to security policy.”
A Surprising Shift
Santos campaigned relatively little during the election, asserting his credentials as an Uribista and attempting to capitalize on his predecessor’s enormous popularity. Since his inauguration, however, Santos has begun to depart from the mold he fit so well as Defense Minister. “President Santos,” said Aldo Civico, professor of anthropology at Rutgers University and director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, “marks a change from Uribe, and he was a surprise to many.” Civico praises Santos for adopting a different tone, avoiding the divisive language used by his predecessor.
Beyond rhetoric, noted Civico, Santos is also “trying to tackle some very important issues that address the underlying causes of the conflict in Colombia, one being land reform, and another the law for the rights of victims.” Amanda Lyons, legal adviser and researcher at the International Center for Transitional Justice in Colombia lauds Santos’ efforts, asserting that the measures will reduce income inequality in one of the most economically stratified countries in the region. As Lyons explains, land reform would address Colombia’s inequality by providing land titles to previously deedless peasants, who have often been forced off their land by armed groups. Victims’ rights legislation would aid internally displaced peasants by offering governmental benefits, regardless of the group by which they were targeted. Lyons called previous Uribe administration attempts at such legislation “slaps on the wrist.” In particular, Uribe’s proposals placed undue weight on extradition of criminals to the United States for trial and comparatively less emphasis on assisting victims, Civico maintained. By contrast, Santos’ stated dedication to land reform and victims’ rights legislation, said Civico, indicates that “Santos understands the kind of structural change that is needed to move Colombia into the 21st century.”
Change in Colombia
Santos’ apparent shift in strategy may also be due in part to a realization of some of the failures of the old, military-focused approach. The success of the Uribe administration’s policies in addressing internal violence and the intimately associated drug trade have been far from total, despite Uribe’s consistently high approval ratings and congressional support. Arlene Tickner, professor of political science at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, told the HPR how certain “indicators of security,” most notably the homicide and kidnapping rates, have improved substantially under Uribe, although she also acknowledged that “undoubtedly the FARC has been weakened.” Nonetheless, Tickner points to mixed results from Uribe’s attempts to demobilize the equally problematic paramilitaries. These groups emerged in the 1960s to fight leftist guerrilla groups like the FARC and today remain major forces in the Colombian drug trade. Tickner blames paramilitaries for the fact that Colombia is now the country with the world’s highest number of internally displaced people, and primary target of victims’ rights laws. In the past, politicians had ignored the atrocities of paramilitary organizations as they provided support against FARC. However, victims’ rights laws would ensure that there is equal protection regardless of perpetrator.
As such, Santos’ shift is apparently meant to address the full scope of Colombia’s problems of internal violence and human rights. While the Santos administration is less than a year old, many believe that Santos understands that change cannot be accomplished with rhetoric alone. Although Santos remains closely associated with controversial actions of the Colombian military during the Uribe administration, it appears he is willing to look beyond the strategy that inspired them for new ways of dealing with internal violence, the drug trade, and the social conditions that create both. President Santos may have inherited a winnable war from his predecessor. Yet it is the president’s choice, and the president’s duty, to win the peace.
Matt Bewley ‘14 is a Staff Writer