Learning about Terrorism in Colombia
Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín, Researcher, Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

The day the Twin Towers were destroyed, several Colombians were killed in various incidents. Indeed, though death and war are our old acquaintances, for Colombians the September 11th terrorist attack was a spectacular and surprising event. The rhythm of our own domestic bloodletting is much slower, with ups and downs that average out to about 10-15 killed daily,¹ though this is probably a low estimate.

The Colombian Civil war has four protagonists: the official Army, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). The first protagonist represents the State. FARC and ELN appeared as leftist guerrillas in the 60´s, and currently express a complicated blend of greed and grievance (to use Collier´s jargon): they are certainly the embodiment of massive State and market failures in Colombia, but at the same time they are part of the illegal economy and act as a mafia-type provider of security in territories with a great deal of bribery (via coca crops, petroleum, nickel or gold) coupled with little State control.²

Finally, the early autodefensas, immediate predecessors of the AUC, appeared as a relatively autonomous force promoted by local and regional elites, mainly ranchers, mafiosi who had been victims of the guerrillas' kidnapping industry, politicians and the military. After a decade of official impunity, complicity or - to look at it optimistically - impotence, the autodefensas became a very big antisubversive force, whose basic strategy is the systematic use of massacres to create a social void around the guerrillas.³ 

If you add to this landscape the fact that the army not infrequently behaves as another irregular force, then the overall picture will appear very similar to hell. It is. However, the reader should not yield to the temptation of believing that Colombians have nothing to lose. There is a Congress, a political system, markets, institutions, a judiciary and democratic traditions-all of them very imperfect, but not pure window dressing either. For United States citizens it is easier to understand today that democratic goods are not wiped out but rather enhanced, in the presence of horror. In this regard, a reflection on the consequences of the war against terrorism in Colombia (and in Latin America) gives reason for serious concerns. Will it promote or degrade democracy? How will it affect the behavior of the United States in Colombia´s conflict? How will it affect different sectors of Colombian society?

The evidence to date does not give us much cause for optimism. Two basic changes in the US-Colombia democratic agenda can be identified. First, while until September 11th the United States government combined its support to antiguerrilla military operations with indifference (at worst) or benevolent neutrality (at best) toward President Pastrana's peace efforts, since the attack it has pressured Colombia to convert (in both senses) the country into a good and brave soldier of the antiterrorist crusade. In this regard, the recent official statements of the US ambassador in Colombia are both telling and ominous: a comparison of FARC-ELN-AUC with Osama Bin Laden which, while preposterous, should be taken extremely seriously (does the comparison entail analogous treatment?); and a (purely rhetorical so far) request for extradition from Colombia to stand trial in the US of some of the imprisoned FARC leaders (and perhaps of AUC leaders as well). Both declarations provoked quite a stir in Colombia, and even a minister of the very pro-US Pastrana administration reacted with something just short of open anger.

This is easy to understand. The peace process in Colombia is dying a slow death, in part due to its lack of results, and in part due to the FARC´s extreme provocations. At the same time, the process is the only possible source of political oxygen for the Pastrana administration, which in turn is the surest ally of the US in the country. More important than these political calculations, though, many Colombians of all persuasions consider the peace talks-for all their limitations-, the last chance to save thousands of lives that would be lost if open war breaks out again. Indeed, adequate pressure might force the FARC to take a more reasonable stance, but the request for extradition of its leaders if insisted upon will simply block any remaining perspectives of negotiation. Furthermore, the very notion that the timing of the Colombian talks should follow the rhythms of the US "crusade" appears extremely noxious (and costly in terms of the lives of thousands of innocent Colombian civilians).

At the same time, there is a real danger in acting the bully in the peace talks: if US government activity goes beyond a threshold of "nationalist tolerance," it might give the FARC both the rationale and the legitimacy that it desperately needs to continue its war. Currently, all the armed actors are very poorly regarded by Colombians, as opinion surveys consistently show, but this need not be permanent.

The second change is related to the expectations of an important sector of the Colombian elite. The day after the Twin Towers fell they started to openly voice the hope that the United States might now show a more "realistic" appraisal of the Colombian war. Now that you know what terrorism is, goes the argument, you will have to weaken, or lift altogether, the restrictions you have imposed on us in our war-specifically those regarding human rights. It must be emphatically noted that this hoped-for realism has not appeared...yet. Though the official US position regarding rights violations remains relatively firm, I believe there is a very real danger that it will evolve in the wrong direction. There are at least three good reasons for this pessimistic prognosis. First, the US government is getting involved in a long, fuzzy and ugly war, and will not have much latitude with which to choose its allies; nor can it be too particular about their behavior. Take for example the government of Pakistan: a non-elected, very repressive and nuclear-armed clique (and pro-Taliban in the immediate past), hardly a suitable player on the good-guys team. It is very clear to me that local actors all around the world will try to force concessions as a price for entering the antiterrorist alliance. Occasionally, such a bargain will produce positive outcomes. In Colombia, several very influential groups feel that the main concession to be wrested from the US is free rein to develop a scorched earth policy toward insurgent groups. At the very least, many US officials would feel that this is a low price to pay for a really staunch ally.

Now, this highlights the strong continuity between past and present policies. During the 90´s, for example, democracy was considered important, but subordinate to strategic objectives like the antinarcotics war and liberal adjustment. In the 70´s and 80´s, the main goal of US policy was anti-communist containment. In each phase, democracy was considered more or less as a constraint in a classical optimization operation: solve the problem subject to.... If the problem turned out to be unsolvable, then the constraint- democracy-was dropped (indeed, sometimes overthrown), or graciously allowed to fall (as in Fujimori´s Perú). By no means am I implying that social wrongs in Colombia or Latin America are exclusively the result of US activity. Actually, in Colombia that activity has had some clearly positive implications.⁴  What I am saying is that: a) without an endogenous agenda, our political regimes have oscillated between anticommunist, antinarco and (now) antiterrorist models of governance, with all the costs of instability and forced homogenization; and b) the ugly result of subordinating democracy to strategic objectives, given the extreme power asymmetry between our countries, is that nondemocratic endogenous forces will always find resources and justifications in US policy, even in its most benevolent guises. For example, in the Andean area, local elites´ temptation to bypass congresses in an effort to squeeze out legislation adequate for liberal adjustment or antinarco activity have not been opposed (to say the least). As I have noted, in Colombia the antiterrorist alliance will foster discourses and activities adverse to human rights. Will such an alliance be successful? We can´t know yet.

Second, the war is also taking place in the United States. The terrorist threat, and the continuous flow of scary events -anthrax, general alerts, etc.-have created a state of fear. The escalation of retaliatory activities by a practically unknown enemy will provoke a wave of blind fear, the worst possible milieu for democracy. Thus, a certain deterioration of democracy is a real possibility in the US (to what extent we also do not know). It can take place at two levels: institutional (legislation, etc.) and public opinion (a strong swing toward the right, at least in foreign affairs). The negative impact of such a development on Colombia´s human rights agenda is evident (and enormous).

Last but not least, conflicts are also learning systems. Actors pick from others' (allies, adversaries and leaders) examples, arguments and behaviors to justify their own activities. Once again: I am not speaking of naive and decent people corrupted by the US´s bad example, but rather of actors who wish to obtain strategic advantages in very complex environments and will take all possible opportunities to do so. Everybody is now learning that bombing errors are tolerable, and that legislation against civil liberties may be necessary. Certainly, several Colombian actors started to produce (at the speed of light) new legislation tending in this direction as soon as they felt that the gates were open. For the US government, criticizing and restricting such actions by others will become increasingly difficult.

The dismal perspective is one of strengthening military and repressive intervention, and a weakening of humanitarian and pro-democratic intervention.

The September 11th terrorist attack was incredibly threatening and cruel. It is fairly evident that any government would have reacted energetically to this challenge. But the Bush administration has failed to draw some fundamental lessons from past US policy. In particular, it has not grasped that the horrors of tomorrow are hatched by the clients and allies of today. It is not reasonable to foster antidemocratic forces worldwide and expect no consequences. It is not only about Osama Bin Laden; it is also about Pinochet, and Noriega, and Fujimori and so many others. The quip that expressed the old "realistic" logic and part of the historical core of the US Latin American policy ( "He's an SOB, but he's our SOB") has proven extremely unrealistic in a very specific sense: the SOBs had much more autonomy than the Americans thought, so they were much more "our" problem than "our" people. Both left and right tended to think of them as puppets, and both were proven wrong. But the why and how of this story can only be understood by taking into account longer time horizons than those that are currently being considered. If global security-and not sheer vengeance- is being pursued, democratic considerations should be a central concern and should tame the fury of the antiterrorist drive.

Footnotes

¹ These figures refer to politically-motivated homicides.

² There are differences between FARC and ELN, but they are not relevant for the purposes of this discussion.

³ In the parlance of the Maoist military theory used by the AUC, they want to withdraw the water from the fish ("quitar el agua al pez"), an allusion to Mao´s dictum that revolutionaries should move among the masses like a fish in the water. The majority of AUC´s victims have no relation whatsoever with an armed group, but then random terror functions as a powerful mechanism for getting rid of uncomfortable populations.

⁴ For example, using official figures it appears clear that the combat against the paramilitary was more or less a direct result of US pressure.

⁵ Already some pretty ugly bills have been approved, and for sure there will be new developments in this direction.