Álvaro Uribe's administration has gotten a lot right over the last few years - but recent studies show that his victories against the FARC have come at a high price. I've posted some thoughts over at Comment is free:
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is on something of a roll. He's managed to engineer the all-but-final collapse of his country's Farc rebels. He's humiliated his rambunctious neighbour, Hugo Chávez, by capturing and publishing documents detailing the depth of the Venezuelan leader's ties to the guerrilla group. He even managed to secure the release of 15 prize hostages, including star secuestrada Ingrid Betancourt, without agreeing to any of the rebel army's demands. Unsurprisingly, his approval ratings are sky high: with upwards of 90% of the population behind him, Uribe's only real concern is whether to relinquish power when his term ends in 2010 or try to leverage his achievements to extend his constitutional term limits and keep Colombia's top job.
But while Uribe's achievements are real and impressive, they've come at considerable moral cost. His victories have been underpinned, after all, by a fervent militarism, and in Colombia such militarism comes at a price. In 2007 alone, according to a recent report by a coalition of Colombian human rights organisations, the country's military and police carried out 329 extrajudicial killings, a 48% increase from 2006. And last year was no anomaly. According to another report published last year, the five-year period ending June 2006 saw 50% more extrajudicial killings than the preceding half-decade.
Read the rest here.
