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Viewing cable 06BOGOTA144, WHY JANUARY 2006 IS DIFFERENT FROM JANUARY 2005 IN
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| Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06BOGOTA144 | 2006-01-06 20:14 | 2011-02-23 06:30 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Bogota |
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 08 BOGOTA 000144
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR P AND INL FROM AMBASSADOR
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/06/2016
TAGS: PREL SNAR CO
SUBJECT: WHY JANUARY 2006 IS DIFFERENT FROM JANUARY 2005 IN
COLOMBIA
Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood.
Reason 1.4 b and d.
---------
Political
---------
¶1. (C) President Uribe broke the political custom of
decades by winning the right to run for re-election. But
campaign dynamics are complicating some of his policies.
Absent tragedy, we can look to four-and-a-half more years of
partnership like the last three-and-a-half years. In the
face of Uribe's more than 65 percent approval, opposition
presidential candidates have only a small chance. If Uribe
were not to win on the first round, as he did in 2002, it
would be seen as a defeat.
¶2. (C) Less certain are the congressional elections in
March, which will determine whether Uribe can push through
many of the reforms left hanging by the failed referendum in
¶2003. There is no established practice of coattails, several
different factions supporting Uribe oppose each other, and
the Liberal Party under ex-president Gaviria seems to be
focused more on an anti-Uribe campaign than a serious effort
to advance their own candidates. Relations between Uribe and
Gaviria have deteriorated dramatically. We can expect the
disarray and divisiveness attendant on any hotly contested
democratic election.
¶3. (C) One outcome may be a further weakening of the
Liberal and Conservative Parties, whose machines have
dominated Colombian politics since the mid-19th century, in
favor of a broad center-right coalition under Uribe and a
broad center-left coalition with the upstart Polo
Democratico, which is aiming primarily to weaken the Liberals
for the 2010 elections.
-----
Drugs
-----
¶4. (C) Drug eradication, seizures, air interdiction, arrest
of money launderers, and extraditions all continued to set
records.
¶5. (C) Aerial fumigation topped 140,000 hectares. We
lost one U.S. contractor pilot to FARC ground fire, and three
aircraft during the course of the year. The government
asserts that it has passed 30,000 additional hectares in
manual eradication, a high-cost, high-risk program that
combines drug eradication with job creation, and finesses the
bogus health and environmental controversies of aerial
fumigation.
¶6. (C) We topped 225 metric tons of finished drugs seized
in country. Much of this was attributable to a unique blend
of DEA, ORA, Colombian military, and Colombian police
cooperation.
¶7. (C) JIATF-South advises that the number of "suspicious"
flights into Colombia -- no flight plan, short hop across the
border, no clear departure or arrival point -- has been cut
in half, many of them displaced to Venezuelan airspace.
¶8. (C) The government took effective control of two major
money-laundering enterprises this year (Grajales and La
Rebaja). Now we have a better idea how to shut down money
laundering fronts, clean them out, and re-open them quickly
so that legitimate employees don't lose work and we don't
face the political costs of putting thousands of workers on
the street.
¶9. (C) The Uribe Administration extradited its 300th
Colombian national for narcotics trafficking this year,
outstripping any other country. Equally important, through
hard work here and by DOJ in Washington with local U.S.
Attorneys, our operational extradition relationship with the
MFA, the Ministry of Interior and Justice, and the Supreme
Court is better than ever. But high-profile extradition
cases arising out of the peace process will continue to test
that relationship (see below).
¶10. (C) For the first time, U.S. figures indicate that, at
a given level of purity, the street price of cocaine has
increased by 19 percent and heroin by 30 percent, in spite of
reduced demand. It is not clear how high the current
operational level can eventually drive the price. Continued
counter-drug efficiencies and accelerated shifting of
counter-drug costs to the Colombians will be a priority in
¶2006. Absent different instructions, we will seek to
maintain current level of effort, in order to find out just
how far we can reduce Colombian drug production and
trafficking at this level of resources, something not yet
known.
¶11. (C) We also will continue to focus on better metrics.
For interdiction, there is some double counting for both
in-country seizures and for transit zone seizures; both we
and the Colombians are trying to clean up those numbers. For
eradication, for years the flagship metric has been "number
of hectares eradicated," which has two problems: (1)
problems of terrain, cloud cover, and drugger
counter-measures make our measurements, the best in the
world, still very imprecise, and (2) the focus on number of
hectares diverts attention from the other production
variables, soil productivity, number of plants per hectare,
and productivity of each plant (i.e., the size and number of
harvests per year, which depend on the maturity of the
plants). The combination has led us at times to spray
re-plantings -- small plants where the hectarage is large but
the production small -- rather than smaller plots of mature
coca plants (plants three times the size, with four harvests
per year versus one or two). Better metrics would help us
target our efforts better, in an environment of short
resources, danger from ground fire, and political
controversy. For instance, spraying in the national parks
and other protected areas would attack areas with a higher
concentration of mature, high production plants.
----------
Terrorists
----------
¶12. (C) Although a separate sub-heading in this message,
for the FARC and the paramilitaries the distinction between
counter-drug and counter-terror in Colombia is a distinction
in name only. Counter-drug success hurts them as much as
counter-terror success. Explicitly in the case of the
paramilitaries, and substantively in the case of the FARC,
there is now talk here of the "third generation": a drugger
generation, following the early ideologues and the later
military organizers. This relates directly to the peace
process, which will be able to take older ideologues, current
foot soldiers, and at least some of the militarists off the
field. But many drugger-terrorists will try to use the
process only to camouflage their activities or reduce the
penalties they face, and will have to be rooted out by
military, judicial, and police action.
¶13. (C) Since 2002, the military has grown from 158,000 to
260,000 personnel, and the police from 104,000 to 134,000.
The combined Colombian military-police operating budget has
grown from USDOLS 2.6 billion to a budgeted USDOLS 4.5
billion in 2006, to which U.S. assistance will add almost 9
percent.
¶14. (C) Colombian counter-terror operations continued at an
unprecedented pace. The military and the police are going
all-out to: (1) maintain the Plan Patriota offensive in
south-central Colombia, (2) improve the defense of isolated
rural communities, (3) go after high value targets, (4) fill
in behind demobilizing paramilitaries, and (5) protect the
elections. Unrelenting pressure for results by Uribe and new
MOD Ospina on the police and military may be burning out the
uniformed services, or at least creating distance between
them and the senior civilian leadership. It is also putting
pressure on us to divert more helicopters from counter-drug
to counter-terror operations; shortage of Blackhawk
helicopters is a daily problem.
¶15. (C) The Plan Patriota offensive kept the FARC under
growing pressure. The FARC staged fewer attacks on
population centers, but doubled the number of electrical
towers blown up, increased the number of attacks on the oil
pipelines, and caused more casualties in 2005 than the
previous year, which may imply that government forces are
stretched thin or that the FARC is picking its targets more
carefully. Although there were better results against high
value targets from all terrorist organizations this year,
there continue to be serious problems with military
organization, operational security, and the
intelligence-planning-operation sequence. The government is
expanding still further the police and military to cover
demobilized areas. Although there have been a few attacks
against politicians, for the most part the election campaign
has been kept free of overt violence.
¶16. (C) The FARC, the only terrorist organization not
involved in at least some sort of peace process, is also
making a maximum terror effort, which can be expected to
continue through presidential elections. But they are weaker
than before and on the defensive in many areas. At the same
time, in spite of increased terrorist activity against rural
communities, high profile targets, and the police and
military, the FARC has been toying with the issue of
humanitarian exchange of hostages. On January 1, 2006, the
FARC published a declaration that they would not negotiate a
hostage exchange with President Uribe. This makes clear that
their interest in political maneuvers to complicate the
election year are more important than their desire to win
back some of their lost contact and prestige with
international audiences and civil society.
¶17. (C) The three U.S. hostages will complete three years
in captivity on February 13 and remain one of our highest
priorities. President Uribe has repeatedly reassured us that
there will be no deal for hostages that does not include our
citizens.
--------------------------------------------- --
Peace Process with Paramilitaries and Maybe ELN
--------------------------------------------- --
¶18. (C) At year-end, some 14,000 paramilitaries have
demobilized in the group demobilization program, in addition
to almost 8,000 demobilized deserters from all terrorist
organizations. The two-year debate on the Justice and Peace
law governing the disarmament, demobilization, and
reinsertion of the paramilitaries ended with signature of the
law in July. The government's decision to delay the
"justice" part of the law until after completion of the
"peace" part -- demobilizations -- has complicated the
picture. Demobilizations continued to produce reduced levels
of violence and crime against civilians in every zone where
they have occurred, but there is growing concern that FARC or
unredeemed "third generation" paramilitaries will move into
vacated drug fields.
¶19. (C) When, in August, the government transferred
paramilitary/drug lord Don Berna to prison, the
paramilitaries suspended demobilizations for two months.
Although demobilizations are now back on track, the delay set
back the deadline for all demobilizations until at least mid
February. The episode demonstrated: (1) that the
paramilitaries did not expect such harsh treatment under the
law, (2) that the law is close to the edge of the achievable
with the paramilitaries, and (3) that extradition to the U.S.
has become the principal issue in the process.
¶20. (C) Government preparations for prosecution,
reinsertion, and reparations remain embryonic. More than a
half-dozen other countries are lending at least some level of
assistance to the program, which enjoys endorsements of
varying intensity from the EU, the OAS, the South American
Council of Presidents, and others. Predictably, especially
in an election year, complaints are already surfacing in the
implementation of prosecution and reinsertion; we are raising
these issues with the government and expect them to be a key
theme in 2006.
¶21. (C) Starting in December, the government began direct
"pre-talks" with the 40-year old ELN in Havana. Another
round is scheduled for January 11. We are supporting the
talks, from a distance. A peace process with the ELN would
take another 4000 or so terrorists off the field, legitimize
the process with the far-right paramilitaries, put more
pressure on the hold-out FARC, and most importantly, end the
hundreds of kidnappings attributed to the organization.
Because the ELN has not traditionally been involved in
narcotics trafficking, their extradition situation is
different from that of the FARC or the paramilitaries,
although as the ELN has become more dependent on the FARC
they have also developed some drug activity. The FARC, which
does not want to be the lone hold out, does not want all the
government counter-terror effort focused exclusively on them,
and finds the ELN operationally useful from time to time, is
being unhelpful. Interestingly, violence between the ELN and
the FARC intensified in December in the northern section of
the country.
¶22. (C) The government is wary. The ELN has walked away
from several major peace initiatives, including a major
Mexican effort early in 2005. They profess to be in a hurry,
so they can come out of the jungle and begin to "consult"
with legitimate candidates during the elections, with an eye
toward direct participation in the 2007 local elections. But
they refuse to accept the Justice and Peace law that governs
paramilitary demobilization; we are concerned that any
further concession they get will have to be given to the
paramilitaries too. Although a difficult issue, we hope that
there will be major progress this year.
--------------------------------
Economics, Trade and Development
--------------------------------
¶23. (C) 2005 was a banner year. The government already is
revising growth figures to reflect higher than predicted
results in the second two quarters. Real GDP growth for the
year will likely top 5 percent (3.8 percent was predicted)
based on a wave of foreign and domestic investment, a
dramatic increase in exports, greater optimism, and a reduced
security threat and reduced related costs, all of which was
spurred still further by the possibility of Uribe's
re-election. Continued progress against terrorists would
generate further growth among small businesses, which still
face rampant extortion by one or another terror group.
Anecdotally, we know of no major non-traditional exporter
that is not expanding capacity.
¶24. (C) Rural development -- normal and alternative
development -- continued to lag, in spite of more than $68
million in U.S. aid, as a result of terrorism, confused and
in some cases illicit ownership patterns, and a weak
transportation infrastructure. But there were also bright
spots as rural development in formerly drug-ridden Putumayo
province made unexpected strides. For instance, a plant to
process hearts of palm has created hundreds of jobs, linked
this isolated region to the larger national market and,
starting in February, will begin exporting to Europe.
¶25. (C) Production increases not only were reflected in
improved profits, but also higher employment. Unemployment
may fall to near 10 percent in the last quarter of 2005,
compared to over 15 percent when Uribe took office. The drop
is due to job creation, rather than people leaving the formal
economy.
¶26. (C) All of this should have given Colombia a solid base
on which to build the compromises necessary for a free trade
agreement. But, as often occurs, potential losers complained
loudly and potential winners remained quiet, leading the
Uribe Administration to seek tailor-made concessions in
agriculture and intellectual property against our advice. As
the year closed with an agreement reached with Peru and none
with Colombia, we believe the Colombian team has finally
gotten the message and will resume talks in January ready to
reach agreement. We urge Washington to help pocket their
"yes" early. Once there is an agreed text, we expect the
"winners" to begin work on ratification even during the
election campaign.
----------------------------------
Judicial, Social, and Humanitarian
----------------------------------
¶27. (C) The first year of U.S.-style oral accusatory
criminal trials was a resounding success. The process moves
on from Bogota in 2005 to Medellin, Cali, and other
jurisdictions in 2006, and then countrywide by 2008. There
is already talk of extending the oral accusatory system
beyond criminal cases. The Justice and Peace law for
demobilization operates in an oral accusatory framework.
¶28. (C) Colombia continued to have the largest displaced
population in the hemisphere and the third largest in the
world, after Sudan and the Democratic republic of the Congo.
In addition to the vast human suffering, displacement has put
a heavy burden on local government for public order and
social services, has left the rural areas largely in the
hands of terrorists and narcotics traffickers, and the troops
who fight them, and inhibits rural development and extension
of state authority countrywide. U.S. assistance programs
provided $31 to displaced families in 2005. Rising job
opportunities are absorbing many displaced into the urban
workforce, but has also put a heavy burden on urban police
and social services. Unemployment is approaching 10 percent,
from above 15 percent in 2002.
------------
Human Rights
------------
¶29. (C) According to the Gallup poll, 79 percent of
respondents replied that "the Uribe Administration respects
human rights," the highpoint for the administration. The
clamor, especially in rural districts, overwhelmingly is for
more government presence, not less. Nevertheless, building
on the four-decade-long, pervasive four-front conflict with
terrorists and narcotics traffickers, the tradition of
accommodation, lack of accountability, do-it-yourself
justice, and weak institutional presence by the government
persisted in some areas.
¶30. (C) Human rights questions have frequently been linked
to suspicions of government tolerance or collusion with
brutal paramilitary operations or, following the recent
massive demobilization of paramilitary "military"
organizations, with concerns that paramilitaries abandoning
the battlefield will be allowed to move into criminal
activities or dirty politics. Although the latter would
produce the reduction in violence against civilians we have
seen over the year or more, it also would spell continued
trouble for Colombian democracy. The AUC does not command
the national structure it once did, the government is keeping
the pressure on, and the parties are openly debating how best
to block paramilitary corruption in the elections. But we
believe that, on a local basis, individual paramilitary blocs
can influence individual elections. We are working the
problem with the government.
¶31. (C) We are also working the individual cases that
continue to complicate otherwise clear improvement in respect
for human rights here. Recent cases relating to Cajamarca,
Guitarilla, and Arauca are before the courts, and suspects
remain in confinement. The very recent assassination case of
Afro-Colombian activist Orlando Valencia is being
investigated, but no arrests have yet been made. The
recurring series of killings, accusations, and
counter-accusations related to the "peace community" of San
Jose de Apartado continues to defy all our efforts to get the
community and the government together to pin down the facts.
---------
Venezuela
---------
¶32. (C) The Uribe Administration has no illusions about the
Chavez Administration. It will continue to put
counter-terror, counter-drug, open borders, and bilateral
trade issues at the top of its list, and try to manage all
other aspects of the relationship. Uribe remains convinced
that Chavez came off second best in the confrontation over
the hand-over of FARC leader Granda, but he also remains
chastened by the success of Chavez' three-week border
closure. This will mean that Colombia, already nervous at
the perception that it is the "best" U.S. friend in the
region, will continue to try to finesse some issues it should
take head-on. It is not Uribe's style to publicly criticize
Chavez. But he will defend his interests, and our interests,
in private, and not shy away from difficult operational
decisions. Uribe believes that Chavez, too, would prefer to
work behind the scenes on areas of disagreement.
------
Others
------
¶33. (C) Uribe continues to believe in a constructive
approach to his other neighbors. By and large he has
confidence in their good intentions and he believes they are
facing big problems, which he does not want to aggravate. He
believes that Peru and Brazil (and Cuba) were helpful in
reining in Chavez during the Granda affair, and even helped
force stronger counter-terror promises from him. He will not
reject regional support for his peace initiative with the
ELN, even if from Cuba or Venezuela.
¶34. (C) Colombia is concerned by the election of Evo
Morales, especially by the perception that the hemisphere has
taken another step to the left. While recognizing Chavez'
mischief in Bolivia, Uribe is not yet convinced that Morales
will have the organization, will, or resources to create more
than a diplomatic problem. He will play Bolivia one step at
a time.
¶35. (C) Colombia is also concerned by apparent breakdown in
Ecuador, which borders on the principal FARC stronghold and a
key drug growing and transit corridor. He had a productive
relationship with Gutierrez and is trying to have one with
Palacio. Uribe doesn't want to rock the boat there, as
exemplified by his agreement temporarily to suspend drug
spray flights along the border and to consider the
possibility of a UN report on the health and environmental
effects of glyphosate, less than a month after he had ordered
a maximum effort against coca in Narino province, on the
border.
¶36. (C) With the departure of Toledo, Colombia fears that
it will lose its best ally in the region. In addition to
Peru's assistance as head of the Andean Group during the
Granda affair, Colombia believes that Peru shares the
experience of both a drug threat and a terror threat. They
will be watching Peruvian elections closely.
¶37. (C) Like everyone else, Colombia is disappointed that
Lula has not provided the rallying point for sensible reform
that was hoped. But Brazil is too big and too important to
Colombia to be dismissed. Although bilateral cooperation is
friendly, Brazil has frequently played to NGO and European
audiences to criticize Plan Colombia, Uribe's "Democratic
Security" policy, and the peace process with the
paramilitaries. The former ambassador here was identified
with the center-left opposition to Uribe; the new guy may
change that. Beyond that, the Mercosur vs. FTAA dynamic puts
Colombia in a difficult position; they have tried to finesse
the problem by being all things to all people but, in the
end, Uribe is staking Colombia's future on free trade with
the U.S.
¶38. (C) Colombia is pleased that, at last, Europe seems to
be listening. Led by the Dutch, Swedish, and British,
European political and practical support for the paramilitary
peace process is a breakthrough. The behavior of the
European "facilitators" in the peace process with the ELN and
in the budding discussions about humanitarian exchange of
prisoners with the FARC will be an important litmus test; if
the Europeans get ahead of the government here, there will be
fireworks. Much will also depend on whether the Europeans at
the Human Rights Commission in March listen to their
ambassadors in Bogota or not; last year they listened instead
to the head of the local UN Human Rights Office.
¶39. (C) Colombia has lost confidence in the UN, which it
finds to be disorganized and contrary here in country, and
unilateral in New York and Geneva. Colombia generally will
try to keep its head down in UN forums, causing us some
frustration. But Colombia has been of assistance regarding
Iran as a new member of the IAEA Board of Governors.
---------
Bilateral
---------
¶40. (C) Bilateral relations are strong, with an occasional
hiccup. As is often the case with others, the Colombians
believe that we want a lot in exchange for our approximately
USD 600 million in assistance. But they also believe that we
want the best for them and that our importunings are often
just "tough love." They have been frustrated in several
areas:
--- that our strategic alliance was unable to get them
special consideration in the free trade negotiations; they
understand our problems there, but only sort of;
--- that we have been unable to provide more assistance in
their most critical military need, Blackhawk helicopters;
again, they understand our needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, but
find it hard to believe that U.S. production capabilities are
limited;
--- that our law enforcement goals preclude any tactical
flexibility on extradition for those participating in the
peace process or for major narcotics traffickers who want to
turn themselves in; they want to use extradition as the
ultimate sanction for failure to comply with the peace
process, and help us get traffickers to the U.S. as part of a
negotiated deal for less than full prosecution; and
--- that we have been unable to provide more assistance to
the reinsertion program for paramilitaries, at a time when
even the Europeans are signing on.
¶41. (C) In addition to our overarching counter-drug and
counter-terror goals, we have a number of specific challenges
ahead: to free our hostages, to improve implementation of the
Justice and Peace demobilization law, to protect the
extradition relationship, to resolve the outstanding human
rights cases and fix the system so they don't recur, to agree
and then get ratified and implemented a free trade agreement,
to help address the tragic humanitarian situation, and to
support Colombia in a way that enhances its pro-U.S.
influence in the hemisphere. Stay tuned.
WOOD