Pubdate: Sat, 25 May 2002
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author:  Tod Robberson, The Dallas Morning News

COLOMBIAN VOTE: BALLOTS FOR BULLETS?

If Hard-Liner Uribe Wins Presidency, Showdown With Rebels Is Likely

BOGOTA, Colombia - When President Andres Pastrana gambled his entire 
presidency four years ago on a peace process with Colombian rebels, Betty 
and Carlos Becerra gambled along with him. And they lost nearly everything.

Angry, frustrated and feeling betrayed by a peace process that went 
nowhere, the Becerras plan to cast their votes in presidential elections 
Sunday for the candidate who, they acknowledge, is most likely to put the 
country on a footing toward all-out war.

"Our country is being held hostage by the guerrillas," said Ms. Becerra, 
52, a retired government worker. "We've lost it all. What more can they do 
to us?"

Like millions of other Colombians, the Becerras say they will vote for 
Alvaro Uribe, a firebrand independent candidate who, according to the 
latest poll results, has a strong chance of winning the election in the 
first round.

The vote is crucial for the next phase in Washington's war on drugs, which 
at times has been stalled during Mr. Pastrana's presidency because of his 
reluctance to risk his peace process by unleashing U.S.-trained 
counternarcotics forces against rebels who support the drug trade.

Many in Washington are pushing to expand anti-drug and counter-insurgency 
efforts, but only if the next Colombian president is a willing partner.

Mr. Uribe, a 49-year-old former governor with a reputation for iron-fisted 
opposition to the guerrillas, says there will be no more talk of peace 
concessions to the rebels until government authority is restored across the 
country. He said he plans to double military spending until that objective 
is achieved.

Although Mr. Uribe says his prosecution of the war will include right-wing 
paramilitary groups, his history is one of a man hell-bent on defeating the 
rebels.

The nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC, killed Mr. Uribe's father during a botched kidnapping in 
1983. The FARC has tried to kill Mr. Uribe himself twice during the past 
year. For middle-class Colombians like the Becerras, Mr. Uribe's tough talk 
has resonated loud and clear. He heads into Sunday's election with a lead 
of more than 20 percentage points over his closest opponent. A major poll 
published Friday gives him as much as 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Pastrana 
cannot seek re-election. The popularity of his Conservative Party has 
dropped so steeply that its presidential candidate dropped out in March.

Mr. Becerra, 54, said he believes his anger is shared by millions of other 
Colombians who have shifted their support to Mr. Uribe.

The Becerras were impressed four years ago when Mr. Pastrana traveled as a 
candidate to the rebel heartland and shook hands with Manuel Marulanda, the 
FARC commander. They wholeheartedly endorsed Mr. Pastrana's promise to make 
peace his top priority.

They were so confident that he would succeed that the Becerras sank more 
than $70,000 of their life savings into buying a ranch in an area of 
eastern Colombia where rebels and paramilitary troops roamed freely.

Today, their 1,500-acre ranch and property - a house and all its 
furnishings, a truck and 80 head of cattle - have been seized by the FARC.

As a result of their financial losses, the couple has had to rent out the 
two lower floors of their house. Their bottom floor is now a bakery and 
butcher shop.

The couple still owns a late-model Ford Explorer, which stays locked up in 
their garage.

"We don't dare drive it outside the city. The guerrillas would steal it in 
an instant," Mr. Becerra explained. "We travel everywhere by bus."

Shortly after taking office, Mr. Pastrana granted the FARC a large haven in 
southern Colombia to enhance the prospects for peace.

But in February, under heavy pressure from Mr. Uribe and other critics, the 
president dismantled the safe haven and canceled all negotiations, citing a 
long series of FARC kidnappings, hijackings, bombings and other actions 
that he said made a mockery of the peace process.

Within days of that announcement, the FARC kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, a 
presidential candidate and former senator.

"There comes a certain point when the president starts to look like a 
clown," Mr. Becerra said. "He gave away too much to the guerrillas."

Although they emphasized that their anger is not directed at Mr. Pastrana, 
they said they are voting for Mr. Uribe to send a strong message to the 
FARC leadership that, unless the rebels get serious about peace, the nation 
is prepared to go to war.

"They made fools of the entire country. People started to make fun of the 
president," Ms. Becerra said. "We won't be fooled again."

Mr. Uribe is promising not only to increase military spending dramatically 
but also to boost funding for education, health care and other social 
programs that he said have been neglected for too long.

That neglect, he said in an interview, has only fueled guerrilla 
recruitment efforts.

Finding the necessary funds for both the military and social projects will 
be Mr. Uribe's biggest challenge.

Mr. Pastrana's $7 billion program, Plan Colombia, was made possible only 
with heavy international assistance, including more than $1.5 billion in 
mostly military funding from Washington.

"It is not a question of finding new funding; it is making better use of 
what we already have," Mr. Uribe said.

To raise revenue, he plans to shut down Colombian embassies in marginal 
countries, cut wasteful spending practices, prosecute tax evaders and make 
better use of government royalties from petroleum production.

To help the military and police track down insurgents, Mr. Uribe said, he 
will recruit 1 million informants nationwide to report on any suspicious 
activities they see. If necessary, he has said, the informants will be 
given sidearms for protection.

"You see this already across Colombia," Mr. Uribe said. "In every apartment 
building, every supermarket, every restaurant, there are armed men standing 
guard."

Mr. Uribe's primary opponent, Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa, says 
the front-runner's ideas are a formula for disaster.

The two candidates used to share the same party banner, but Mr. Uribe split 
last year when it became clear that he would not win the Liberal Party's 
presidential nomination. He now has pledged to uproot the traditional 
two-party political system that has kept the Liberal and Conservative 
parties alternately in power for nearly six decades.

Mr. Serpa has tried repeatedly throughout the campaign to link Mr. Uribe to 
right-wing paramilitary groups, citing their endorsement of the 
front-runner's candidacy and their reported use of arms to pressure rural 
voters into supporting Mr. Uribe.

"We have a country in which the paramilitaries have their own presidential 
candidate," Mr. Serpa said. His only hope in the election is to force Mr. 
Uribe into a runoff vote, which Mr. Serpa predicted he will achieve.

"I know that many Colombians are going to support me because Colombia is 
not going to commit suicide," he said. "They are going to analyze this 
situation, and they are not going to choose war."

Former President Ernesto Samper, the Liberal Party's elder statesman, said 
he is torn between the two candidates - and is worried about the direction 
the nation might be heading if Mr. Uribe is elected.

"We are at a turning point. ... I believe Colombia is only one step away 
from a total war," he said. Under an Uribe government, "You could see more 
suffering, but you could also be much closer to the reality of peace over 
the medium term" if Mr. Uribe brings the guerrillas under control.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom