Pubdate: Mon, 27 May 2002
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2002 Cox Interactive Media.
Contact:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Susan Ferriss - Cox Washington Bureau

COLOMBIANS ELECT HARD-LINER

Vote Reflects Anti-Rebel Feelings

Bogota, Colombia --- Exhausted by 38 years of bloody war, voters in 
Colombia on Sunday decisively chose a new president, Alvaro Uribe, who 
promises to expand the country's army and police and seek more U.S. aid to 
defeat one of the world's oldest leftist insurgencies.

With more than 96 percent of precincts counted, Uribe had won about 53 
percent of the vote, with Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa --- 
considered more moderate --- a distant second with about 31 percent.

Uribe, 49, was an underdog who bolted from the Liberal Party and gained 
strength by promising a "firm hand" to combat the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia, the FARC.

The 17,000-strong FARC was born in the 1960s as an armed uprising against 
Colombia's glaring inequality and history of political oppression. The 
rebels are now widely viewed as criminals who recruit children to fight, 
commit assassinations, kidnap people for ransom and profit from Colombia's 
cocaine trafficking.

Uribe called on violent groups to heed his promise to begin, starting 
today, the pursuit of internationally mediated negotiations as long as 
armed groups abandon all terrorism.

Before Uribe offered his victory speech Sunday night, U.S. Ambassador Anne 
Patterson arrived at his headquarters to speak privately to the 
president-elect, who takes office in August.

The rebels had vowed to disrupt the election, blowing up bridges and energy 
towers and killing a woman Sunday by dynamiting an election headquarters in 
the northern city of San Luis.

Many Uribe supporters, weary of war and soaring unemployment, endorsed the 
possibility of a military buildup and a broader war if it means weakening 
the FARC.

In February, current President Andres Pastrana's 3-year-old attempt to 
negotiate a peace with the well-armed rebels collapsed. With U.S. aid, 
Pastrana also beefed up Colombia's military, especially to fight drug 
trafficking.

But many Colombians now believe he made a mistake to cede a 
Switzerland-sized piece of southern Colombia to rebels as a gesture to 
start talks.

Pastrana is constitutionally precluded from running for re-election.

Even during peace talks, the FARC engaged in almost daily bloody clashes 
with government soldiers.

To fight the FARC, Uribe has pledged to double the size of Colombia's army 
and national police, raising taxes on businesses if necessary.

More controversial is Uribe's proposal to create a 1 million-strong 
citizens' network of tipsters, who would assist the police and national 
police, who are also supposed to fight right-wing anti-FARC paramilitaries 
and cocaine traffickers.
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