Plan Colombia and Beyond

About two weeks ago, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe announced his intention to free hundreds of FARC members from Colombian jails. This proposal is now moving very quickly.

Government representatives have met with dozens or hundreds of FARC members in jails throughout the country. Space is being cleared in the prison in Chiquinquirá, Boyacá, to concentrate guerrillas about to be freed. A presidential decree is forthcoming. It is strongly rumored that one of the first guerrillas to be freed will be Rodrigo Granda, the so-called “foreign minister of the FARC” whom Colombian authorities abducted from Caracas, Venezuela in late 2004. Uribe has set June 7 as the target date for starting the prisoner-release process.

Why is this happening? I wish I could provide an explanation, but I’m as confused as anyone. President Uribe merely cites “reasons of state” that will be revealed soon. “At an opportune moment, within not too many days, the country will know all of that,” Uribe cryptically told reporters on Wednesday. “I’m only waiting for the right date and opportunity for the country to know everything.”

After combing Colombia’s press and having a number of conversations, I’ve heard four theories that might explain what is going on.

1. Uribe is truly convinced that the mass prisoner release will help move forward a “prisoner exchange” deal in which the FARC releases some or all of the 55 hostages they are holding. The guerrillas have been demanding the demilitarization of two small municipalities (counties) in order to negotiate such an exchange. Uribe could be sending a message that he’d rather just let the prisoners go now than hand the FARC a political victory by agreeing to their troop pullout demand. The FARC has already rejected Uribe’s move, and relatives of their hostages worry that the government may in fact be delaying their loved ones’ release. So in this scenario, Uribe’s initiative is guided mainly by wishful thinking.
   • An El Tiempo editorial Wednesday remarked, “It is worth being skeptical about the possibility that the FARC will respond to a unilateral liberation of guerrillas with a unilateral liberation of hostages. It is more likely that they would consider it to be a provocation, among other reasons because the freed guerrillas would not be able to return to the jungle, and would have to embark on a reinsertion process that the FARC has repeatedly rejected. … Not to mention that taking guerrillas out of jail to carry out supposed “peace processes” could lead the security forces and the judicial system to ask themselves, “we captured and sentenced them for this?”

2. The prisoner release is part of a secret deal in the works to release some or all of the FARC hostages, and we’re all about to get a pleasant surprise. Liberal Party Senator Piedad Córdoba said yesterday that the release of the FARC’s most prominent hostage, former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, is “imminent” – an assertion that the Colombian government quickly denied. Betancourt is a dual citizen of Colombia and France; Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s new president, hinted yesterday that something may be happening, adding that all involved must be “patient, vigilant, and fast.”
   • In a very lucid column in yesterday’s El Tiempo, Liberal Party politician and former Defense Minister Rafael Pardo wrote, “Either this is part of a secret agreement that will deserve applause when it is known, or – if not that – it could be the biggest stupidity ever committed with the FARC.”
   • “What is behind this proposal? I don’t know,” says Bishop Luis Augusto Castro, president of Colombia’s Episcopal Conference.
     “But I would be pleased if
     it were part of an accord that had to do with the liberation of the 56 hostages, because the mere liberation of guerrillas, on its own, would be very frustrating for the [hostages'] families.”
3. The prisoner release is a cynical ploy; Uribe is trying to appear evenhanded as he seeks to win freedom for political allies who collaborated with paramilitaries. A week ago Thursday, President Uribe proposed waiving jail terms for politicians who worked with paramilitaries but weren’t involved in serious crimes. Many Colombian observers see a linkage between this proposal and the accelerated FARC prisoner release. Some even think that Uribe, spooked by paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso’s recent “confession” that high-ranking officials helped his organization for years, is in a hurry to find a way to put a lid on things before even more alarming revelations emerge.
   • FARC prisoners in several jails have employed this argument in public statements refusing to be released under these circumstances, calling Uribe’s proposal a “smokescreen.”
   • Writes center-left El Tiempo columnist Daniel Samper, “The general feeling is that in the best case, [Uribe's proposal] is a senseless chaos – but in the worst case, it is a chaos of distraction that seeks to hide even worse issues.”
4. President Uribe is simply losing his marbles. Unlikely, but Colombians are wondering.

1. • The normally very pro-Uribe editorial board of Cali’s El País newspaper wrote Wednesday, “Amid so much uncertainty, the country is asking for explanations about what is happening, both inside the head of the Chief of State and within the National Government.”
   • Uribe’s first “super-minister” of interior and justice, the ultra-conservative Fernando Londoño, published a column in Medellín’s El Colombiano entitled “President: where are you?” He tosses off an analogy from Homer’s Odyssey: “The president we elected with the certainty that he was the man for Peace through Law, today allows himself to hallucinate from the sirens’ song, and none of his friends – like the ones Ulysses had – is keeping him tied to the mast of reason and duty.”
   • José Obdulio Gaviria, a close advisor and ideologist to the president, certainly supported the “lost marbles” thesis when he told the Associated Press this week, “Though many haven’t noticed, we have entered a second phase of [the Uribe government's signature] Democratic Security policy. … The principal sign of the first stage was imprisonment, [now we are moving toward] processes of clemency.”

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