BY ALLEN JENNINGS
Early on February 21, Colombia's 38-year civil conflict exploded into full-fledged war when President Andres Pastrana unilaterally broke off peace talks with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and ordered his air force to bomb their strongholds.
Pastrana announced that three-year-old peace talks with the FARC were over and the Colombian military would take back the 42,000 square kilometre demilitarised zone established specifically for the talks.
The bombing has caused forest fires, destroyed highways, bridges, community centres and peasants' homes throughout the region, which has a population of some 100,000.
Over the past three years, more than 1000 kilometres of roads, with bridges and drainage systems, were built with community support in the FARC administered region. Most of the streets in the main town of San Vicente del Caguan were paved.
On March 7, Colombian armed forces chief General Fernando Tapias claimed that since the bombing began, 96 people had been killed, including 68 FARC "loyalists".
According to complaints filed with Colombia's human rights prosecutor, air force bombs have killed at least three civilians, including two children in the village of La Y. Residents said there were no rebel camps near the town.
On February 23, Pastrana arrived in San Vicente del Caguan wearing a black cap bearing Colombian army insignia. He was accompanied by several heavily guarded military attaches from the US embassy.
Candidate kidnapped
On that same day, presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC — an incident which, even more than the bombing, has brought the country's dire situation to world attention.
Betancourt, the candidate for the Green Oxygen Party in the May 26 presidential election, drove into the war zone, ignoring government warnings that it was unsafe. She hoped "to demand guarantees for the civilian population of the zone and to say to the people of San Vicente that I am fulfilling my commitment to be with them in good times and bad". Betancourt and her campaign director Clara Rojas were taken hostage by FARC. Others with them were released.
In a CNN interview on February 25, FARC deputy commander Fabian Ramirez indicated that Betancourt and five other hostages would be held until 200 FARC prisoners were released by the government. FARC has given the government one year to meet the demand.
A global campaign for Betancourt's release has been launched, supported by Green parties around the world. A middle-class Colombian who speaks several languages and has recently published a book in the United States, Betancourt is known beyond the country's borders.
Green parties and supporters throughout the world are calling on the Colombian government to return to negotiating table and on FARC to release Betancourt immediately. The call has been joined by the left-wing Brazilian Workers Party, which noted that she and her party had nothing to do with the breakdown of the peace talks.
'Philippines strategy'
The resumption of the Colombian government's war is being carried out with US-made weapons supplied under Washington's "Plan Colombia", the US$1.3 billion aid package that makes Colombia the third-largest recipient of US military aid.
US secretary of state Colin Powell said on February 22 that the US government would share intelligence with the Colombian government. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher also hinted that Washington hopes to convince Congress to lift restrictions that bar US "anti-drug" military aid from being used for the counterinsurgency war.
"While US officials say that US troops will not be drawn into combat in Colombia, the Bush administration may soon issue a 'national security directive' expanding the nature of US military aid to Colombia", wrote columnist Andres Oppenheimer in the February 24 Miami Herald.
Oppenheimer, known for having an inside track on US Latin America policy, said there is "growing support in Washington" for a "Philippines strategy" in Colombia. Some 800 US troops are now in the Philippines, officially providing "training" and "advice" to government troops, battling the terrorist Abu Sayyaf group.
According to US ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson, "the issue of oil security has become a priority for the United States... After Mexico and Venezuela, Colombia is the most important oil country in the region".
Also under the guise of the "war on terrorism", US President Bush has requested an additional US$500 million in military aid for Colombia. Its allocations include US$98 million to protect the Cano Limon oil pipeline in northeast Colombia, which belongs to US-based Occidental Petroleum. FARC succeeded in shutting it down for most of last year.
Presidential elections
Pastrana, who has staked his presidency on bringing an end to Colombia's war, is desperate to demonstrate to the Colombian people that he can be as belligerent as the right-wing presidential candidate, Alvaro Uribe Velez.
He has repeatedly scorned dialogue with the rebels, promising to defeat them militarily. A patron of the country's right-wing paramilitary death squads, he promises "the return of state authority" and a "public relations campaign to sway the US Congress to provide massive counter-insurgency aid".
Recent parliamentary elections, held on March 10, dealt a blow to the Colombia's two traditional parties, the Conservative and the Liberal parties. While the Uribe-endorsed Liberals won 23 of the 102 Senate seats, Uribe's chances in the May presidential poll were boosted when Conservative candidate Camilo Restrepo withdrew from the presidential race, after his party's poor results, and endorsed Uribe.
In a sign of the disillusionment, 58% of eligible voters did not vote in the March election, even though voting is compulsory.
Thanks to funding provided by Plan Colombia, the military now has 50,000 paid soldiers, up from 10,000. This includes a 5000-member rapid response force. In addition, the right-wing paramilitaries, who are responsible for most of the country's human rights violations and are supported by the military, are similarly flourishing.
For years, the Colombian military, its paramilitary allies and 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the US rulers have wanted to destroy Colombia's revolutionary groups. In cahoots with a Colombian government that thinks it can defeat these groups militarily, they now believe their time has come.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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