It is important to continue improving security in Colombia, but more is needed than the government of Alvaro Uribe currently provides, presidential candidate Rafael Pardo told Colombia Reports. “We have to do more about prevention and resocialization. More policemen is not enough.”
A few weeks ago, alleged guerrillas of the FARC attacked the community of Sumapaz, just south of Bogotá and killed two of its councilors. The rural municipality is supposedly under army control and the death of the local politicians is considered a setback for President Alvaro Uribe’s ‘Democratic Security’. “The FARC are very weakened”, Rafael Pardo states. “Although they still have the capacity to do things. Sumapaz is historically a zone where they operate. But yes, it was a surprise.”
According to the Liberal candidate, the attack happened because of “lack of intelligence” of the army and police. “It was an unforeseen operation of the guerrilla.”
Security has increased in the country compared to 2002, even though in cities like Medellín and Bogotá the murder rate has been going up again this year. “More policemen is not enough”, Rafael Pardo states. The former Defense Minister (during the presidency of César Gaviria, from 1990 to 1994) and former senator thinks that more should be done in prevention and resocialization.
“We have to change school hours. There are two timetables and at noon the children are in the streets. I want to carry out an education reform with one timetable, where the children pass more time in school. There is no supervision now, because there are many one-parent families, especially with only the mother, who works. These children are vulnerable to the phenomenon of gangs.”
“We also have to resocialize former criminals and former paramilitaries and guerrillas in particular. The reintegration program for former fighters, led by High Commisioner for Peace Frank Pearl, “is a failure”, Pardo states. The budget for the reintegration programs was not well distributed, he says. “Bogotá and Medellín could reasonably manage the problem, although in Medellin the violence increased significantly lately. But places like Barranquilla, Monteria and Villavicencio simply didn’t have money.”
Because especially in Colombia’s rural areas young people hardly have possibilities to make a decent living, they are easily recruited by armed groups which is decreasing chances for a successful security policy, says Pardo. “In the rural areas about 400,000 youngsters turn 18 every year. Thirty percent of them will have finished secondary school, so there are about 200,000 – 300,000 without any expectations. We need a program for rural development.”
In his election program the presidential candidate proposes a change of use of three million hectares of land and increase productivity through the redistribution of land. According to Pardo, one of the problems in Colombia is that a few very rich landowners have thousands of hectares that are hardly or not productive. “We have to impose a minimum of productivity”, the Liberal explains. “If a landowner doesn’t use his land, he should pay taxes. If he doesn’t do that, his land is put in a ‘landbank’. Other farmers who don’t have land can use it.”
This ambitious plan can be financed, the always serious Pardo says. “The money is avaible but it is badly used.”
During his campaign for the Liberal primaries, Pardo traveled a lot through the rural areas of his country. “What struck me was the exclusion and the inequality, people in circumstances of submission. In the government program Familias en Acción (which financially supports poor peasants) they have to line up every month to get their money. They have to support the government. They are not forced directly, but it is a subtle political mechanism. People are being told that the support they get only will be continued if Uribe is re-elected.”
According to Pardo, the current government’s foreign policy, especially towards its neighbors, is worsening the possibilities for the economic growth needed to finance a security policy. Especially Colombian accusations made about venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s support for the FARC are sounterproductive, says the Liberal. “You cannot discredit your neighbor saying that he is a friend of the guerrilla. 22 percent of our employment depends on the export to Venezuela. These jobs are at stake. We have to defend business.”
Uribe 2010
Pardo doesn’t think that a second re-election for Álvaro Uribe is possible. The Liberal believes that the Constitutional Court will disapprove the referendum needed to change the constitution. “But also if Uribe doesn’t run, we will need a New Majority. We have to form a coalition. No one in the opposition is big enough to get enough votes to win. We have to come to an agreement about a program and in March, after the Congress elections, a coalition candidate has to be chosen.”
The opposition in Colombia is accused of only acting against the government and not having its own ideas, as for example senator Armando Benedetti told Colombia Reports two weeks ago. “It is the government that doesn’t present ideas,” Pardo says with a grin. “It is only about re-election and democratic security. If someone tells me what democratic security really means, he will get a prize.”