Recently, President Alvaro Uribe mentioned the
necessity of turning a temporary tax for the “Democratic
Security” into a permanent tax to be paid by all Colombians. This tax, which originally applied to 7,400 contributors with
assets over USD 1.5 billion, was introduced in 2006 for a period of
four years in order to increase the number of armed forces and to
update their combat equipment. Therefore, it seems that the Colombian government wants to foment the
war instead of tackling the structural problems that fuel such war.
This
announcement is not surprising given the United Kingdom’s cut
on military aid to the armed forces and the United States’ drop in this year’s economic package . More interestingly, however, is
that Uribe’s announcement followed a statement made by
Colombia’s richest person, Luis Carlos Sarmiento. He is an
enthusiastic supporter of Uribe’s new re-election –
incidentally, it is not the first time Uribe acts on Sarmiento’s
public recommendations.
Naturally, there has been widespread opposition by politicians and different
sectors in society. Although, the objections are being directed at
the inconvenience of increasing taxes during this economic downturn
rather than the retrogress to real peace that this would have.
It is
shameless for the government to ask for a permanent flow of funds in
light of the extra-judicial killings, which skyrocketed under Alvaro Uribe’s watch and have already been called
“state crimes” by an ex-president. There are currently
1,296 investigations of extra-judicial killings
since 2002 with 426 militaries –
almost a full battalion – detained. However, the government limits
itself to deemphasize the extent of the murders by calling them
“isolated cases” and argues that most of them are false accusations seeking to discredit the government.
It is
outrageous, to say the least, to ask all Colombians to pay this tax
when the most benefited are the wealthiest nationals and the
international firms in the country, while the poorest in society
continue being killed by all sides in the war. Moreover, the
intensification of this war would only lead to the increment of
internally displaced. Last year there were 380,000 displaced, out of over four million.
After all, their
ethics appear to be
only based on “the ends justify the means”. Funds should, instead,
be spent on training all the servicemen, including the president, on
international war conventions, which attempts to “humanize” the war by decreasing the effect on
civilians.
Social
programs should always be at the forefront of government’s policies and
in Colombia’s case this is essential. Most insurgents in the guerrillas
and the paramilitaries are lured by the better economic prospects.
Therefore, offering tangible opportunities for the poorest in society
would disincentive their integration to either faction.
There are other ways to raise funds other than
introducing a permanent war-tax. Recently a congressman stated that
there are more than USD 150 billion in uncollected taxes. Moreover, the inevitable transfer of the US
soon-to-be-closed military base in Ecuador to Colombia should not be
gratis.
This permanent war-tax serves to intensify the war
that only addresses the symptoms of the structural social problems, but
strengthens the government’s war discourse for remaining in power.
Author Sebastian Castaneda is Colombian and studies psychology and political economy at the University of Hong Kong