Colombia's Citizens Go to Polls
JONATHAN MANN, HOST: A referendum on the war's return. Colombia goes to the polls Sunday, moving towards a new president and a new approach to the guerrillas. The conflict isn't over. It may have barely begun. Hello. Welcome. The guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia used to have legal control over an area the size of Switzerland. When peace talks with the government broke off, they lost it. But now they want more talks and a slightly larger haven, something closer, say, to the size of England. The rebels, known as FARC, want to run all of Colombia, of course. They've been fighting to do it for decades. The country's incumbent president tried to make peace and he failed. Now, Colombia is to elect a new leader. One candidate was kidnapped. Another narrowly escaped assassination. But if polls are to be believed and the leading candidate lives long enough, Colombia will do more than pick a president. It will embark on a war to end the guerrilla movement entirely. On our program today, an election without optimism. First, though, a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this hour. Warning that additional terrorist attacks are very likely, the U.S. State Department Tuesday released its annual report on global terrorism. Among the findings, the seven countries listed as state sponsors of terror are the same as last year. They are, according to Washington, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Cuba. The report found that there were 346 terror attacks around the world in 2001 and there was a record number of deaths, 3,547. About 90 percent of those were caused September 11 in the attacks on New York and Washington. Security is being tightened around New York landmarks on this day, including the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. Citing, in its words, "an abundance of caution," the FBI has alerted city authorities that those sites might be targeted by terrorists. The FBI says the unspecified and uncorroborated information was obtained from terrorist detainees. The killing of a moderate separatist leader in Kashmir may fuel the already tense situation between India and Pakistan. The two nuclear powers have been trading fierce mortar and small arms fire across the line of control in Kashmir for the last several days. Abdul Ganilon (ph) was shot by two gunmen in police uniforms while he was addressing a rally in Shrienigar (ph), in the Indian controlled part of the disputed region. One of his security officers was also killed. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is showing no signs of backing down on his latest budget proposals ahead of a Wednesday vote. His coalition government went into crisis Monday when he ordered the dismissal of six ministers and deputy ministers who voted against him on emergency spending cuts. They came from the ultra Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism Parties and were objecting to cutbacks in benefit. Mr. Sharon says he won't talk to those parties about rejoining the government until after the new budget vote Wednesday. The crisis could leave Mr. Sharon's government with 60 seats in the 120 member parliament by Wednesday night, a weakened position that could conceivably lead to new elections. The European Union has finalized a deal for a group of Palestinian militants exiled to Europe. The men, who are staying on Cypress, were expelled from the West Bank as part of the negotiations to end the stand- off at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. On Wednesday, 12 of the 13 Palestinians are to leave for asylum destinations in six E.U. nations. One Palestinian is to remain in Cypress until another country can be found to take him in. There are places in Colombia where you wouldn't know that there's an election under way. There are no posters, no rallies, no public displays from the parties. It's not because people are apathetic, it is because they are so afraid. The leftist guerrillas of FARC, the right-wing paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC, have terrorized the country and even the candidates. The man widely expected to win the election was targeted for assassination by the rebels. Years earlier, his father was killed by them and when his mother died, threats on his life kept him from attending her funeral. Alvaro Uribe has become a symbol of widespread frustration with the country's failed efforts to make peace with the guerrillas. He pledges instead to make war. CNN's Harris Whitbeck has this profile.</s>HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A final touchup for Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe before he steps in front of the camera in a Bogota television studio. For the last several weeks, he has been doing just this countless times a day. Since the latest attempt on his life last April 14th, campaigning by television has become a leader's single strategy for becoming Colombia's next president and living to tell the story.</s>ALVARO URIBE, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In the last 20 years, I have suffered 15 attacks. In the last attempt, four people died and 12 were wounded. I have changed the style of my campaign.</s>WHITBECK: Fifteen attempts on his life really has this man angered. The answer lies here among the ruins of one of the main camps of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, or the FARC, Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla group days after an attack by the Colombian Army. And the answer lies here in this battlefield strewn with dozens of bodies of members of the AUC, the country's largest rightist paramilitary organization. (on camera): Years of civil war in Colombia have left countless dead and have contributed to the rise of politicians like Uribe, whose tough talk has struck a chord among a war weary population hungry for decisive action against the terrorism. (voice-over): That tough talk has also provoked the wrath of the guerrilla movement he vows to defeat. They do not dialogue with weak government. Finally, they dialogue with governments with enough strength in order to contain them.</s>WHITBECK: He wants to strengthen the armed forces and the police, step up the military campaign against insurgents and involve the people in the process. In the United States, you have community policing. There are many forms of inspiring people's cooperation with the police. We need to do the same in our country.</s>WHITBECK: But Uribe's tough talk comes as his past comes back to haunt him. In her most recent report on Colombia, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said she was concerned about what she called the leading candidate's alleged ties to rightist paramilitary organizations. And Colombia newspapers allege Uribe, while mayor of the coastal city of Medellin, had close connections to the infamous Medellin drug cartel. Uribe is categorical in denying the allegations, which he says were planted by his political adversaries.</s>URIBE: I haven't been in political during the last 30 years in Colombia</s>WHITBECK: Questions about Uribe's past do not seem to be damaging him according to the electoral polls. Voters apparently preferring to forget talk of the past if Uribe can bring them out of the horrific violence that has plagued them. Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Bogota.</s>MANN: There are other candidates running for Colombia's presidency, several of them. FARC rebels had kidnapped one of them and are holding her hostage. Of the others, only one, Horacio Serpa of the opposition Liberal Party, seems to have a chance of actually forcing a runoff with Uribe. CNN's Harris Whitbeck joins us now by video phone from Bogota. Why don't we start with Serpa? He was very popular just a few months ago. What happened to his campaign and why is Uribe considered such a shoe-in?</s>WHITBECK: Well, Jonathan, anything that seems to have to do with the strategies that both candidates have taken -- Serpa's campaign has centered on increasing the social situation and helping bring many people here out of poverty, improving human rights and basically giving people here more access to economic and social development. Meanwhile, Mr. Uribe has campaigned on a platform of providing security to the population. He has used the fact that Colombia has been at war for nearly four decades very well. He has also used the fact that he himself has been subject, the subject of assassination attempts to drum in or bring home the fact that Colombians need security. And from what the polls say, from what we've been hearing from people on the ground here for the last several days, that's what people seem to want. They seem to consider security the top issue of concern in their lives.</s>MANN: Security was probably on their minds a few hours ago when the United Nations Human Rights Commission released a report about one particularly terrible atrocity in the wars that happened pretty recently, but was mysterious. Can you tell us more about it?</s>WHITBECK: That's right. Well, the U.N. Commissioner looked into what happened in the town of Pocayo (ph), where more than a hundred people who had taken refuge in a church during the fight, during a battle between the rightist paramilitary and the FARC troops were themselves hit by a bomb, a gas cylinder that was thrown into the church, with exploded and caused many, many, many deaths. The U.N. High Commissioner's report basically concluded that all three warring parties -- the FARC, the paramilitary and the Colombian security forces -- were responsible for that. There are many questions about that. That incident really, really brought home the fact that this war in Colombia is not only affecting the warring parties, it's also affecting a great number, a great many of the civilian population.</s>MANN: It sounds terrifying and tragic. What's it like to actually be there?</s>WHITBECK: Well, you know, it really depends on where you are, Jonathan. If you're here in Bogota, it's, you know, you can go out at night. Restaurants are filled with people. People here in Colombia have been very good about going about their daily lives and about trying to lead as normal a life as possible given the conditions. But there's also always an undercurrent of tension here. There's obviously, you know, the presence of security forces on the streets. You go into shopping centers, many times there are police with bomb sniffing dogs. And if you go into the countryside, you also feel that. We were in the area, in, very close to Bogota, maybe 100 kilometers from Bogota yesterday, where people would say, you know, we see the FARC coming by our villages, we see the paramilitary troops coming by our villages. Sometimes they threaten us. Sometimes they don't. But all in all, you know, people try to go about their lives. They try to, you know, to cultivate their fields, if that's what they do, and try to survive, but always living with this very, very intense undercurrent of tension.</s>MANN: Harris Whitbeck in Bogota, thanks very much. We have to take a break. But when we come back, we'll follow Harris on his travels to quiet towns terrified. Stay with us.</s>MANN: Colombians have held regular elections even in the worst years of civil war. They cast secret ballots as individuals, but the results from each area are publicly known. That's a problem. Welcome back. The right-wing paramilitaries openly support Uribe. The FARC rebels oppose him. And any town that votes risks retribution no matter what. We turn to Harris Whitbeck once again for a look at how fear has been woven into the fabric of small town life.</s>WHITBECK (voice-over): The community of Chapayma (ph) is little more than a dirt road and scattered houses cutting into the mountain in central Colombia. It has a couple of hundred families, lots of children. The people here cultivate sugar cane. They turn it into sweet blocks of molasses that are sold in faraway markets. There is a small school in Chapayma. Rolanda Rodriguez de Garcia (ph) has been teaching here for 32 years, 32 of the 40 her country has been immersed in a bitter civil war between the army, leftist guerrilla forces and a rightist paramilitary self-defense organization. What part of Colombia hasn't been affected, she asks? Her pupils, she says, are bright. They show a keen interest in learning. But every now and then, she says, they also show deep fear. Sometimes those who have seen violence ask why they have to always be afraid, why they feel insecure, she says. Villagers say guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces regularly pass through here. Just across the valley in the town of Sasima (ph), the guerrillas' bitter enemies, the rightist paramilitaries, come and go as they please. They say they are paras, paramilitaries, says 71-year-old Arturo Ventrana (ph). He remembers being able to go to sleep at night without worrying about what might happen on the street outside his home. These days he says he rarely goes outside. Now, you can't even walk down the street in peace, he says. Ventrana is one of those who won't be voting in the upcoming election. What if you're at the voting booth and someone sets a bomb up, he says? I have to look after myself. (on camera): There are thousands of communities like this one throughout Colombia, communities that because of geography are caught between the warring parties. (voice-over): Jose Neone Cecil (ph) has the unenviable job of being one of the two human rights ombudsmen in these parts, often threatened by both sides. From his regional office in nearby Vieta (ph), his job is also to ensure the surrounding communities can vote freely. He says the climate of war could affect next weekend's presidential elections. The impact is psychological, he says. People might be afraid to come out and vote. He says the climate of war could affect next weekend's presidential elections. The impact is psychological, he says. People might be afraid to come out and vote. The Colombian Army is out on the roads. Twenty-seven-year-old Lieutenant Ricardos Laviqos (ph) says he is here to make it safe for voting. Guaranteeing that people exercise their right to vote is the principal element of democracy, he says. We have to guarantee that and prevent terrorists affecting the elections. He knows that for democracy to succeed, civilian fears will have to be overcome. Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Ladina Marca Province (ph), Colombia.</s>MANN: Joining us now to talk about politics and fear in Colombia is Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University. Thanks so much for being with us. Let me ask you, first of all, is this a conventional election or is it essentially just a referendum on the war?</s>EDUARDO GAMARRA, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: No, it's a very unusual election. It's really an election under siege, not only because of the kinds of things that we just saw illustrated in that story, but also because, in essence, all candidates have, in some measure, faced the kind of violence or the kinds of at least threats that, for example, candidate Uribe has been facing recently. There's one candidate, Betancourt, who has been kidnapped and, of course, all of the others have received threats of some kind or another. Now, this is not necessarily unusual in Colombia, where in the past at every election we've had at least one presidential candidate killed in the course of elections. At least this time we don't have a presidential candidate assassinated, but at least one is kidnapped.</s>MANN: Why is Uribe considered such a shoe-in? Is it just the simple idea that the country wants to fight and win this war now?</s>GAMARRA: Well, that's a little bit of it. I think that in some measure, what you have is a country that for four years has endured a peace process that didn't achieve the results that the people, in fact, thought it would achieve in 1998 when President Pastrana was elected on a large mandate to carry out, to pursue a peace process. He, in essence, presided over a four year period where the perception at least is that the state was very weak, that, in fact, the guerrillas gained the upper hand on top of a great chunk of national territory. And so, in essence, what was created was this huge power vacuum, a very, very violent process in which, of course, somebody like Uribe, who has basically promised a quick end to the violence, a quick end to the conflict, has achieved the majority of support.</s>MANN: Uribe has a very interesting past. He was the mayor of Medellin. When I hear the name of that place mentioned -- I don't mean to make a slight against it -- I, of course, think of the Medellin cartel. Could he have occupied that position without having some kind of relationship with the drug lords? Could he have risen to the prominence he has without having a relationship with the paramilitaries?</s>GAMARRA: Well, that, of course, has been at the center of a lot of the controversy surrounding this candidate. The fact of the matter is that he was the mayor of a very controversial city in the middle of the drug wars and the fact of the matter is also that he was governor of this, of the department or state of Antioca (ph) when a large expansion of the paramilitary groups occurred and in which he had a role at least in creating a militia group called La Condolua (ph). So there's a lot of speculation and I would say that it's probably, some of it is largely undocumented and it's mainly hearsay and rumor. Nevertheless, one of the things I've learned from years of looking at many countries in Latin America is that you should never jump to conclusions on one side or the other.</s>MANN: My last question for you, we heard in Harris Whitbeck's report from a man who said he was too afraid to go vote. He was afraid the polling place might be attacked. Uribe looks like he's going to win by a landslide. Do you think the guerrillas are going to let that happen or is this a dangerous time when they might try some spectacular effort to interrupt things?</s>GAMARRA: Well, it looks like Uribe is going to win. I don't think that he will win by the landslide that people think he's going to win. I think there will probably be a second round. And so the process will probably be interesting, nonetheless. It will be probably a violent election, but I think nevertheless what you're going to see is even in towns like the towns reflected in the story, you're going to see a large voter turnout and probably Uribe will win even in those controversial towns.</s>MANN: Eduardo Gamarra of Florida International University, thank you so much for talking with us.</s>GAMARRA: Thank you.</s>MANN: And a break now. When we come back, what would a new war in Colombia be like? Stay with us.</s>MANN: Colombia's civil war claims about 10 lives a day. Back in March, it claimed the Archbishop of Cali, a frequent critic of Colombia's rebels, its drug traffickers and corrupt politicians. Welcome back. How much worse could it get? Joining us now to talk about that is Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy in Washington. Let's assume that Uribe wins and that there is a renewed effort to truly defeat the guerrillas. What would it be like?</s>ADAM ISACSON, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY: Well, at first it probably wouldn't be much different. It's almost an insult to President Pastrana and his high command to say that they've been somehow holding back over the past three years, few years. And the reason why Uribe would not be able to suddenly, you know, reach in and pull out all these resources where Pastrana never did is because those resources simply don't exist. Colombia's military remains pretty small. You've got maybe 140,000 members of which perhaps 40,000 are actually available to be deployed to fight anywhere. All the rest are guarding power lines and pipelines or they're sitting at desk jobs. That against, you know, about 40,000 guerrillas and paramilitaries when you add everybody together, is not a recipe for anybody gaining ground any time fast. But I'm pretty pessimistic anyway. Because nobody has the upper hand, you're going to see, I'm almost definitely sure, unfortunately, a dramatic rise in the number of people being killed by the conflict. Estimates right now range 10 to actually as high as 20 people a day killed by the conflict, about three quarters of them civilians. I think that could go a lot higher in a country of 40 million people, twice the size of France, where the paramilitaries are promising to double in size within the next year, where the guerrillas are starting to operate more and more in cities and where all of these helicopters, about 75 in the past few years that the United States has promised Colombia are now arriving and their pilots are just about trained and ready to go. Every one of the combatants is increasing its capabilities.</s>MANN: Let me ask you about the U.S. role in all of this, because Colombia is one of the largest recipients now of U.S. aid because of its war on drugs. That's a little bit different, but not very different than its war against the guerrillas and any potential conflict with the paramilitaries. How involved could the U.S. become in this and how much could that change things?</s>ISACSON: I've been going all over Washington asking members of Congress and people in the government the same question, how far are we willing to go? Right now the Bush administration is proposing more than a quarter billion dollars in military and police assistance for Colombia for 2003. That's when you include the State and Defense Departments together. That sounds like a lot, but in a country twice the size of France, it won't go too far. There's a lot more that the United States could be doing. We could be aiding a lot more units in areas where there's not as much drug trafficking, for instance. We could be sending much, many, much more helicopters, providing a lot more intelligence. It could be a multiple of what we're giving right now before you even saw any difference in the overall momentum of the conflict. Nobody really has an answer for how far they're willing to go yet. So right now it seems like the sky is the limit.</s>MANN: Both the guerrillas and the paramilitaries are essentially funded by the drug trade.</s>ISACSON: Correct.</s>MANN: The United States is the biggest consumer of Colombian drugs. Is this actually a war between the state and the drug industry and wanting to be or not, is the United States essentially on the side of the drug industry?</s>ISACSON: The United States, well, we're probably on both sides because we're also the main funders of all the counter-narcotics forces in Colombia. But it's a question also of the strategy we've chosen in Colombia. We've chosen almost entirely to go to, so far the main purpose of our aid has been to create security conditions for counter-narcotics operations like fumigation, like raids on drug labs, to some extent, like busting some of the big drug kingpins. But we've done very little in terms of what goes on on our side, for instance, offering treatment to addicts in the United States or increasing drug education, trying to get folks off the drugs for good, which, according to most studies, is the most effective way to fight drugs. We've chosen this more warlike, if you will, strategy in Colombia because, well, Colombia is at war and we have declared that we have an interest in having Colombia's government come out the victor in that war. So hence all these helicopters, all these new combat units we're creating, all the intelligence we provide.</s>MANN: And the war, as you say, is about to get a whole lot worse. Adam Isacson, I'm afraid we have to end it there. Thank you so much for talking with us.</s>ISACSON: My pleasure.</s>MANN: That's "Insight" for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com