Bogotá

Eternal War?

The US strategy has little regional support. "Panama does not want to get involved in the internal problems of Colombia. We've been shying away from that in every way," Panama's Ambassador to the United States, Guillermo Ford, told the press. Nor are Europeans enamored of Plan Colombia. In early February the European Parliament, concerned about human rights and the rise of the paramilitaries, voted 474 to 1 to oppose it.

Unfortunately, there's little echo of that peace constituency in the US Congress. Senator Paul Wellstone has waged an unsuccessful battle to redirect US policy toward domestic drug treatment programs. But, he says, "I have hope, because across the country I see people more engaged in this issue."

Only a comprehensive and negotiated settlement can stop the cycle of violence in Colombia. Such a settlement would include a program of manual eradication bolstered by deep reform that would incorporate and demilitarize the armed actors. The peace process undertaken by Pastrana and the FARC--and recently joined by the ELN--is the first step in that process.

But for now, the staccato crackling of automatic weapons and the beating of chopper blades are still louder than the voices of dialogue and reconciliation. "If you pick your head up against the military, you can get it blown off by the paramilitaries," says a discouraged Mauricio Vargas. "And if you are on the left, where can you go? You are squeezed between a government and a guerrilla army, neither of which you can support. All the conditions here are ripe for eternal war."

And yet at times an astounding number of Colombians--as many as 10 million on one occasion in 1999--have rallied for peace. On the evening of January 25, as talks between the government and the FARC seemed hopelessly stalled and the pundits were preparing the peace movement's obituary, some 10,000 to 15,000 Colombians once again came out to defy the odds. Brought together by the umbrella group Paz Colombia, they gathered in front of the Bogotá bullring to stage a lantern-lit march. The procession snaked its way through downtown, led by a contingent of jugglers, leaping acrobats and costumed stilt walkers passing out candies and candles to onlookers. From human rights activists to striking trade unionists, from students to well-dressed middle-class professionals, the crowd was a mix not only of class but of ideology. Internal refugees displaced by the death squads marched alongside those pushed from their homes by the guerrillas. The wives of slain and kidnapped policemen locked arms with the mothers of young men "disappeared" by the security forces. The crowd sang out its chants, "Plan Colombia--Plan for War" and "Not one more body, not one more peso for war!"

No one in that demonstration better embodied the complex forces that underlie war--and peace--in Colombia than 45-year-old Nubia Sanchez. Originally from San Vicente de Caguan, Sanchez said she fled the area after it was ceded to guerrillas in the peace talks and the FARC began forced recruitment of 13- and 14-year-olds. And yet she marched that night to demand not only that the peace talks continue but that the government renew the agreement to let the guerrillas continue to control the area from where she fled. "My personal situation is not important," she said as she held the candle lantern to her chest. "Dialogue is the only way to get to peace."

At Simon Bolivar Plaza, as mounted police and a helmeted riot squad gazed on from the shadows cast by colonial-era lamps, the marchers swarmed around a statue honoring the "Liberator of the Americas." When the organizers set free a barrage of white helium-filled balloons, the marchers lifted their lanterns and cheered. One could imagine that someone standing on one of the mountain peaks behind the city and peering down into the dark Andean night would discern a distant flicker of light--and of hope.

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