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OVERVIEW
The first hundred days have come and gone, and Colombians
continue to hold high hopes that President Álvaro Uribe will lead the country
out of its entrenched crisis by strengthening security and resolving the
decades-long civil war. This is underscored by an approval rating that has
risen during his first four months in office from 69 per cent to 75 per cent.
Despite the all-too-usual bombings, kidnappings and firefights, a majority of
respondents say things are getting better, a decided reversal from earlier
polls. For the first time in recent memory, Colombians said their "government
was governing".
The new government's agenda has three pillars:
Each is a stern test in its own right; achieving all three
simultaneously will require a Herculean effort, expenditure of sizeable
political capital and a sure sense of priorities and timing.
President Uribe, who ran on a security platform, has
appointed a team that is generally technocratic and has received high marks
from domestic and international observers. He has begun with some sweeping
steps that, although they have not yet changed the fundamental balance of power
vis-à-vis the rebels, have improved the sense of public safety. By pushing for
increased war taxes and a major mobilisation against insurgents, he has
embraced the strategy that advances on the battlefield can produce advances at
the negotiating table.
Most Colombians continue to demand that the government use
its legitimate powers to counter daily threats of abduction, extortion and
death at the hands of the irregular armed groups, drug mafia and organised
crime. However, Colombia's
crisis runs far deeper than the battlefield. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per
capita fell by 5.8 per cent in 1999, increased by a meagre 0.9 per cent in 2000
and fell again by 0.3 per cent in 2001. Half the economically active population
is either unemployed or underemployed, and more than 54 per cent – close to 80
per cent in rural areas – are below the poverty line. More than two million
remain internally displaced, 200,000 more during the first six months of this
year alone.
These circumstances confront the Uribe administration with
competing pressures. The economic and social crisis puts pressure on the
government to act decisively to create jobs and provide services. However, only
significantly greater tax revenues and external aid will permit needed public
investment in social, humanitarian and economic programs, without restricting
the government’s ability to build its security forces. While it is impossible
to achieve greater security and state presence across the country without
sufficient funds, it is equally unwise to reduce social spending in the face of
economic and social misery. The administration’s economic reform plans have
already lagged somewhat, and they will be implemented more slowly because of
both their complexity and resistance from influential players such as the trade
unions.
Colombia's
future will rest on the ability of the Uribe administration to balance security
progress, substantial political reform and at least moderate economic growth
that also improves the social safety net. Security and peace must come first on
the agenda but how that is done — whether human rights are respected – is
crucial. Domestic and international human rights groups maintain a drumbeat of
criticism, particularly against the initial emergency orders giving the
military powers to detain without court order in selected regions and creating
a network of citizen informants, and the alleged climb-down on paramilitary
prosecutions by the independent attorney general. The basic rationale for
national sacrifice could well be lost if short-term military concerns dominate
decision-making to the exclusion of competing priorities like visibly extending
state services in rural Colombia.
Bogotá/Brussels, 19 December 2002