Pubdate: Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source: Seattle Times (WA) 
Contact:  
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/
Author: Juanita Darling, Los Angeles Times

COLOMBIAN LEADER GOES FROM GOAT TO HERO

BOGOTA, Colombia - Politicians, like athletes, can change quickly from hero
to goat. But few have been transformed in the reverse as thoroughly as
Andres Pastrana, who was inaugurated yesterday as president of Colombia.

Four years ago, Pastrana was so unpopular that a group of Colombians who
spotted him changing planes in Miami booed him. That incident came a few
weeks after his first bid for the presidency, during which Pastrana offered
evidence that his opponent had received millions of dollars in campaign
donations from drug traffickers.

Pastrana's revelations embarrassed Colombians, who labeled him a tattletale
and traitor. But further investigation bolstered his evidence - taped
telephone conversations - with canceled checks and confessions from top
campaign officials. The resulting political scandal is still unraveling,
with the arrests of more than a dozen members of Congress and a Cabinet
minister.

Last month, outgoing President Ernesto Samper acknowledged that his 1994
campaign had received $6 million in drug money, although he denied having
known about the contributions. But by that time, Pastrana had already been
vindicated: In June, voters chose him over Samper's handpicked successor.

Off to running start

Even before taking office, Pastrana has met with President Clinton and the
two major Marxist rebel groups fighting in Colombia in Latin America's
longest guerrilla war. That's a departure from his predecessor: The United
States revoked Samper's visa because of the drug allegations, and the
insurgents refused to negotiate with Samper because they considered his
government illegitimate. In the last days of his term, in fact, the rebels
launched widespread attacks - with a death toll topping 100 - in an apparent
"farewell" gesture.

The meetings give the new president a good start on fulfilling his campaign
promises of making peace and improving relations with the United States. He
also has pledged to revive the economy, starting with a cut in the sales tax.

"The truth always triumphs," said longtime Pastrana friend and aide Mauricio
Suarez. "That is the beauty of this story."

But others who know Pastrana well, along with his detractors, say there is
more to the story that tells a lot about the character of the new president,
who will turn 44 later this month.

Setbacks taught lessons

Friends and opponents agree that Pastrana's character was strengthened
between his two campaigns, a time that political reporter Cesar Mauricio
Velasquez calls "his years in the desert."

"He is consistent, persistent and orderly," Velasquez said. "He knows how to
set priorities. And he learned those things after losing to Ernesto Samper."

Juan Guillermo Angel, a former senator who vigorously defended Samper
against Pastrana's accusations, acknowledged that "Mr. Pastrana has matured
a lot. . . . He is better-qualified to govern than he was four years ago."

Nevertheless, Pastrana risked the election - a close call decided by a
difference of 3 percentage points - because of a grudge against Noemi Sanin,
a member of his own Conservative Party who had deserted to run an
independent campaign. Even after she was eliminated in the first round,
Pastrana did not call off their longtime feud and enlist Sanin in his "Great
Alliance for Change," his campaign slogan.

That shows one of Pastrana's most crippling defects, said Roberto Posada,
columnist for the respected newspaper El Tiempo: "He is proud, and for that
reason he holds grudges."

His pride also led to inflating the resume handed out at campaign
headquarters that claims a master's degree from Harvard, which university
officials said is actually a certificate for a semester of courses in 1991.

Too jolly to govern?

Posada added another perceived flaw: "He is a little bit jolly for a country
with so many problems that needs a leader who is more aged, more of a veteran."

But Pastrana's supporters argue that his sense of humor and love of jokes
got him through the bad times - first, through his term as Bogota's first
elected mayor, from 1988 to '90, when the late drug lord Pablo Escobar was
regularly bombing public buildings and city landmarks to protest
extradition; and then through the 1994 election defeat.

They say his charm - his love of jokes, magic tricks and music - is what
persuades others to follow him. Pastrana's friends laugh tolerantly about
how impulsive the president-elect is, even when enjoying himself.

"He invites you over to hear music, and he only plays about two minutes of
each record," Suarez said. "He spends hours just listening to the parts he
likes of each record."

And everyone soon knows when Pastrana has learned to perform a new illusion.
"He loves magic tricks, and when he learns a new one, he shows everyone,
sometimes three times each," Suarez said.

Just like magic

The latest trick Pastrana has pulled off - becoming the embodiment of hope
in a country plagued by 80 percent of the world's cocaine production, a
prolonged guerrilla war and a miserable human-rights record - looks a lot
like magic.

But those closest to him say they are not surprised. He learned his way
around politics early and has long been able to take a calculated risk and
turn it to his advantage, they said.

Pastrana is the second of four children of the late President Misael Pastrana.

"He was always interested in politics," said his older brother, Juan Carlos.
"Even as a small child, he loved to travel with our father to events like
inaugurations and military parades. He loved uniforms. He would dress up for
plays as (Simon) Bolivar," the liberator of South America.

The atmosphere at home was politically charged - the children's maternal
grandfather was an unsuccessful presidential candidate - although politics
was seldom overtly discussed, recalled Juan Carlos Pastrana. As a
fast-rising political star, their father was often away from home, and the
Pastrana children grew up independent, he said.

"It wasn't `My Three Sons,' " he said, referring to a television show
popular during that era. "Each of us had his own personality and his own
friends. We are a family, not a herd."

During Pastrana's last two years of high school, his father was president.
The teenager did not have bodyguards, but he did have a chauffeur to drive
him from the downtown presidential palace to school in the northern part of
the capital. Classmates who missed the bus often called him for a ride.

Emergence as public figure

The senior Pastrana's presidential term coincided with his son's emergence
as a public figure. In 1973, his first year as an undergraduate law student
at Our Lady of the Rosary College in Bogota, Pastrana organized Colombia's
first walkathon, a fund-raiser to benefit child burn victims.

Many children in Bogota are burned by gas from stoves, like camp stoves,
that poor people use in their homes. Burn treatment often requires long
hospital stays, and charity hospitals did not have enough beds for all the
burn victims.

Pastrana was especially sympathetic to the problem because his father was
burned as a child when a plane at an air show crashed near him, Juan Carlos
Pastrana said. But organizing such an Americanized fund-raiser as a
walkathon was a huge risk.

"Traditionally, Bogota has been a very cold city where there are not
citywide events," Suarez recalled. "Everyone wondered what would happen. How
many people would walk?"

The night before the event, Suarez stayed over at the presidential palace, a
few blocks from where the walkathon would start. About 4:30 a.m., he and
Pastrana went down to the starting point, where athletes were warming up.

"By 8:30, there were people everywhere you looked," Suarez recalled. "Bogota
had never seen so many people walking." The walkathon raised enough money
for a new children's burn-treatment wing at one charity hospital.

"It was the first time he realized that he could do big things," Suarez said.

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Checked-by: Melodi Cornett