Labor strikes, indigenous protests, a slowing economy — these are some of the dark clouds looming over the last two years of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s second term in office that threaten to eclipse his sky-high approval ratings.
Uribe, a conservative first elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, has a 78 percent approval rating according to a Gallup poll last month. He remains the most popular head of state in Latin America — though his popularity appears to be slipping.
The government’s woes have been multiple: truckers on strike in August, and a six-week strike of court workers that ended this month. Even sugar cane cutters went on strike in the middle of last month.
PHOTO: EPA
And since Oct. 10 thousands of indigenous Colombians — representing about 3.2 percent of the population — have been holding protest marches demanding the government fulfill a promise to hand over land. They are also angry at what they say are abuses on their community carried out by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and army soldiers.
Uribe faces a potentially major headache as political egos begin to sharpen ahead of the 2010 presidential election. One outcome was Congress’ refusal to approve an Uribe-supported reform of the judiciary.
Abroad the president also faces the possibility of losing his main benefactor, as US President George W. Bush, a staunch Colombia supporter, is less likely to be replaced in the upcoming election by fellow Republican Senator John McCain — who visited Colombia in July — than by Democrat Senator Barack Obama, who leads in US opinion polls.
Bush and McCain are strong supporters of a US free trade agreement with Colombia, while Obama and the Democrats want the agreement delayed to obtain more human rights protections, especially for Colombian labor leaders.
In December the UN Commission on Human Rights is to look closely at human rights in Colombia, including studying a report from non-governmental organizations charging that the Colombian state “tolerates” and even “supports” thousands of crimes carried out by right-wing paramilitary forces.
Uribe “is at a crossroads,” said a foreign diplomat stationed in Bogota who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“There is a multiplication of protest marches, often turning violent, and the government seems to be on the defensive with sometimes aggressive reactions,” the diplomat said.
Early this month Uribe issued an emergency decree granting officials extra authority to handle the court employee strike. They went back to work, but the decree remains in effect.
Over the last week and with the indigenous protest gaining strength, the government charged that the group had been infiltrated by leftist rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It then charged union leaders plotting a general strike with maneuvering the workers to destabilize his government.
“President Uribe should now show his leadership capability, because he’s always had everything in his favor,” said Leon Valencia, a political analyst and former guerrilla fighter.
“One doesn’t live off of ‘Democratic Security’ alone, and the government must understand that,” Valencia said, referring to the name of Uribe’s policy of keeping rebels far from the large cities that has allowed many Colombians to resume normal lives.
Out of a population of 42 million, about half of all Colombians live below the poverty line — and they want answers to “a series of unfulfilled promises concerning salaries and other benefits,” Valencia said.
Uribe must make an effort to overcome this difficult juncture at a time when the state, economically strapped because of the global financial crisis, will have increasingly fewer instruments to use to calm the unrest, Valencia said.
Colombia’s economic growth, which reached 7.5 percent last month, is forecast to be below 3 percent this year. One sign of the coming slump is that industrial production dropped 0.6 percent last month, the first drop in nine years, one business survey showed.
“The government is strong and will remain strong,” said a business leader with close ties to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity and hinting darkly that the current unrest is being “financed from abroad.”
In one sign of flexibility Uribe has agreed to meet with indigenous protesters today on a march towards Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city.
The indigenous leaders, heading a column of some 30,000 protesters, said they want the president to deliver 200,000 hectares of promised land and negotiate peace with the FARC guerrillas.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RSS