PERU: Politics and the FARC

Tom Marks has returned briefly from Colombia, where he spends most of his time studying the military problem. Here is the essential part of a long message:

"At the heart of the problems for the government is the near-total lack of leadership by the president, Andres "Pastrami," who seems never to have encountered a FARC outrage or lie which he couldn't embrace. The profound demoralization amongst the civilian populace stems directly from this. Pastrana "popularity" hits new lows weekly, even as that of the security forces -- and virtually anyone else who is not connected with the president or his government -- hits new highs. The live coverage of the Congressional demands for action were something to behold, but Pastrana, as many times before, again demonstrated himself completely incapable of action, signing instead, a sham agreement with FARC, which was violated before the paper had even been placed back on the table.

Everyone is holding on. Horacio Serpa appears safely in the driver's seat in the polls for the next presidential election, now less than a year away. Yet one can never tell about these things. He leads precisely because he is not Pastrana and has impressive Liberal Party electoral machinery backing him and because the other candidates have been unable to capture the popular imagination to the extent necessary to overcome their organizational handicaps".

Ronald Hilton - 10/17/01