Colombia reaches out for help to end civil war

By John Otis
Special to the Chronicle

BOGOTA, Colombia After years of rejecting outside help, Colombians are
casting about for new ways to bring an end to the hemisphere's oldest civil
war.

The government is appealing to other countries for ideas, technical
assistance and moral support. At the same time, the growing rebel threat, a
sharp increase in human rights abuses and the fact the violence has spilled
across Colombia's borders have alarmed the international community, which
is lobbying for a more active role in stopping the bloodshed.

"For the first time ever, (the government) has agreed this year to seek
international participation," said Foreign Minister Maria Emma Mejia in an
interview. "It is a change in our foreign policy. There is an absolute
conviction that we must find peace."

To pursue the matter, President Ernesto Samper will meet Sunday in
Venezuela with the leaders of Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Spain to
discuss their recent offers to assist Colombia in an eventual peace
process. The leaders of 19 Latin American countries plus Spain and Portugal
are holding an IberoAmerican summit on Venezuela's resort island of
Margarita this weekend.

The U.S. Congress and the European Union have passed resolutions calling
for international involvement in the Colombian peace effort. And Nobel
Prizewinning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a native of Colombia, has
tried to recruit Felipe Gonzalez, the former Spanish prime minister, as a
peace broker.

It all represents a major shift for Colombia's government, which has long
preferred to manage its threedecadeold war on its own terms.

Hardline army officers, for example, were convinced that foreign observers
would tilt in favor of the insurgents and focus on human rights abuses
committed by the military and armylinked paramilitary squads.

Foreign scrutiny has a bad name in Colombia, partly because Washington has
declared the Samper government an untrustworthy ally in the war on drugs
for the past two years. What's more, U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette has
been highly critical of Samper, who was accused of accepting $6.6 million
from the Cali drug cartel for his 1994 campaign.

The leftist rebels, in turn, view the United Nations and the Organization
of American States as pawns of the United States. They have been especially
critical of U.N. accords that ended guerrilla wars in El Salvador in 1992
and Guatemala in 1996.

"Guatemala and El Salvador are seen by the Colombian guerrillas in a
negative way, that both rebel groups gave up and betrayed the cause," said
Daniel GarciaPena, the government's peace commissioner. "If you're up in
the mountains, it has to be disheartening that everyone else is quitting."

For policymakers in the United States and Europe, Colombia's civil war has
often been overshadowed by other foreign events, ranging from the breakup
of the Soviet Union to coups in Haiti to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

"Ten years ago, we were in the midst of the Cold War. But now, the
Colombian conflict is the only one left," said Eduardo Pizarro, a political
science professor at the National University in Bogota. "The international
community now recognizes that Colombian democracy is in danger of collapsing."

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the smaller
National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, have become too powerful to
ignore.

The rebels, who number between 10,000 and 15,000, have stepped up attacks
on the army and on Colombia's vital oil pipelines, drawing counterattacks
by the military and the paramilitaries. The violence has spawned hundreds
of thousands of refugees, some of whom have fled to neighboring Panama.

Along the Venezuelan frontier, the ELN has kidnapped dozens of ranchers
this year and clashed with Venezuelan soldiers. To repopulate the zone and
create a buffer from the rebels, Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera last
month inaugurated a border town called Ciudad Sucre and offered lowcost
housing to peasants brave enough to move there.

"Peace in Colombia is peace in Venezuela," said Fernando Gerbasi, the
Venezuela ambassador to Colombia, who said his nation spends $500 million
annually guarding the border.

European governments have refocused on Colombia as human rights violations
have increased. They no longer view the guerrillas as romantic, Che
Guevarainspired freedom fighters, Mejia said.

GarciaPena points out, however, that the rebels were far more radical in
the 1970s and '80s, when they were a weaker military force. Through
negotiations, the guerrillas could eventually attempt to secure land reform
and other social changes that they were unable to win on the battlefield.

"Military strength is like poker chips. In and of itself, it is worthless.
It only becomes political leverage at the bargaining table," GarciaPena
said. "The government needs to give the guerrillas' political ideas a
hearing, so they will cash in their chips."

The Samper administration is attempting to build a framework for
negotiations and has embraced the idea of a foreign role.

The United Nations has stationed an outspoken human rights monitor in
Bogota. In June, dozens of foreigners were invited to observe the release
of 70 soldiers who had been held hostage by the FARC for nine months. The
OAS provided 36 observers for the state and local elections held Oct. 26.
Two of those observers were held hostage for 10 days by the ELN.

As Colombia gears up for next year's presidential race, ending the civil
war has become the top political issue. Every major candidate has offered a
peace plan.

"I'm not very optimistic in the short term, But we don't have the luxury of
not trying (to make peace)" Mejia said. "Everyone has to try, because the
escalation of violence is getting worse everyday."

John Otis is a freelance journalist based in Bogota, Colombia.