For the past year, every time you turn around there is a story about the success the Colombian Government is having against the FARC. It has lost three top commanders with a fourth allegedly sick and on the run. Authorities now say they have a computer, a number of private dairies and databases giving detailed information about FARC members, movements and operations and the latest news is that roughly 559 FARC fighters voluntarily laid down their arms in the first three months of this year.
This of course is all great news, unless you are in favor of the great Marxist revolution, but there is now an increasing number of calls to abandon this successful strategy.
According to Colombia's left it is now time for Uribe to sit down with the FARC for talks. After all, he has them on the run and practically cornered, hasn't he?
Forcing themselves into the virtual center of the polarized conflict, the moderate left blasts Uribe for his continued refusal to hold talks and repeatedly remind Colombians (and U.S. Democrat congressmen while they're at it) of the crimes committed by the State and by State-friendly paramilitary forces and the impunity they both enjoy.
So, why is it such a bad idea to talk? Doesn't it make sense to find a peaceful solution after nearly 45 years of fighting have brought no more to the country than 45 years of suffering? Isn't Senator Piedad Córdoba and her group 'Colombians for Peace' simply right about the need for an immediate prisoner swap and peace talks? And isn't uribe becoming a part of the problem as much as the FARC always have been?
No.
Uribe should be applauded for his decision to say no to talks and to continue fighting instead. His policies, with all its imperfections and even criminal acts, so far worked better than the peace-talks held before he came into office or any policy tried before he took office.
According to Uribe, the FARC's call to sit down is just a ploy to try and regroup, just like they did in 1999 and he is right on that point.
Colombia's President has called on the guerrillas to release all those they hold, and to cease fire before he will even consider sitting down with them. He says the snake is wounded, but not killed and reminds us constantly of the threat the FARC pose when given the possibility to attack.
Uribe, whether you like him or not, couldn't be more right what this is concerned and 'Colombians for Peace', intentionally or not, are doing the FARC a favor by making the President appear to be as radical as the guerrillas, less willing for a peaceful solution than the guerrillas and thus basically an obstacle for peace.
So far, the FARC have shown to also understand politics and not just be gun-toting, land-mine planting, indian-killing monsters. They released just the right amount of hostages to make it look like a serious gesture and in their letters to Córdoba they seem reasonable enough to talk and to seek a political solution to the conflict. They even apologized for the massacre of eight indigenous Awá people.
But at the same time the FARC deny having kidnapped the hundreds of people still missing, they still kidnap people, enslave peasants -- even children -- to work in their drug trade or fight in their ranks. There is more than enough to be suspicious about the political face they put up while writing nice letters to 'Colombians for Peace.'
Things may be even worse. The FARC may not just be continuing their terrorist activities, but may even be making them nastier, allegedly outsourcing urban guerrilla activities and bombings, using snipers and increasing the use of anti-personnel mines.
If this is true, it would be foolish to now allow the rebels the space to prepare or even execute these strategies. It would even be foolish to risk allowing the FARC to do these things.
It is uncertain if 'Colombians for Peace' are just naive, trying to simply demonize Uribe for their own political gain or purposely helping the FARC, but any clever thinking human being would see that now simply is not the time to sit down with the FARC. Yet.
Author Michael Curtin is a U.S. citizen who lived in Medellín until recently
