Colombian Elections Marred by Paramilitary Violence.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
After six decades of uninterrupted violence during which gunfire provided the soundtrack for elections, Colombians were finally able to vote in peace following an agreement signed by the government and guerrilla fighters. They went to the polls March 11 for parliamentary elections and will return for the presidential vote on May 27. No forecast of the presidential race is possible, however, because pollsters can't be believed. Ever since 1998, they have been "creating" winners that end up being the losers when the real ballots are counted.
While the government and armed rebel groups respected both the peace agreement signed with the now dissolved Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the truce agreed to by the still-rebellious Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN), other actors took center stage. They achieved their mission of dirtying the democratic process by killings dozens of social activists and former combatants, and by attacking candidates who had once been guerrilla fighters. As a result, the new, legal FARC, which is no longer a rebel force but a political party called Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Comun (Common Alternative Revolutionary Force) suspended its legislative campaign on Feb. 9. The party's presidential candidate also dropped out of the race (NotiSur, Feb. 2, 2018).
Coinciding with the political FARC's double announcement, The New York Times quoted the UN Verification Mission--the multinational body to which the guerrillas turned in their rifles, howitzers, and missiles at the time of their final disarmament--to point out that since early January, two candidates have been assassinated and the incidents of harassment by mobs organized to take action against FARC militants have multiplied. According to that source, between 39 and 50 former guerrillas have been assassinated and dozens wounded or mutilated along with family members in attacks since December 2016 when the agreements began to be implemented.
The FARC's leaders and the spokespersons for the top Colombian humanitarian groups accused Sen. Alvaro Uribe, a far-right politician who was president of Colombia between 2002 and 2010, as well as his Centro Democratico (Democratic Center, CD) party, of the "attacks by these gangs of lumpen and henchmen." Uribe has publicly proclaimed himself the greatest enemy of the peace accords and promoted the No vote in last year's plebiscite on the accords. Those denouncing him showed videos and other images...
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