Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Thursday that the Andean nation was nearing the final phase of nearly 50 years of war and his government would be willing to sit down and talk peace if the rebels were serious.
Latin America’s No. 4 oil producer has been wracked by bloodshed from guerrillas and cocaine barons for decades, but a 2002 security crackdown drastically cut violence and brought in billions of US dollars in foreign direct investment.
“The last phase of this almost 50-year-old conflict is nearing,” Santos said in a speech to the armed forces. “It’ll draw near if we persevere, it’ll draw near if we continue having the successes that we’ve been accumulating.”
The scion of a wealthy Bogota family, Santos came to power last year vowing to continue the hardline stance of his predecessor and former Colombian president -Alvaro Uribe.
He has been at the helm of some of the biggest blows against leftist guerrilla groups, first as Uribe’s defense minister and then as president.
His government hailed the killing of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader Alfonso Cano earlier this month as the most devastating strike yet to the rebels, and the death of the group’s main ideologue raised hopes of peace in Latin America’s fifth-largest economy.
However, the big steps Colombia has made on the security front mask deep-seated unresolved issues from unequal land distribution and rural poverty to flourishing criminal gangs and politicians corrupted by drug money — and the guerrilla war is by no means over.
Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, has vowed to fight on despite the death of its leader, naming a hardliner — who gets his war alias from a Soviet general during the brutal Stalin era of the Soviet Union — as their new top commander.
Timoleon Jimenez, or “Timochenko,” criticized Santos for showing the bodies of dead FARC leaders and said the rebels had thousands and thousands willing to fight for their cause.
Santos has told Timochenko to give up or die.
“Showing off power and behaving in a brutal, threatening way will not win anyone’s sympathy,” the new rebel boss replied this week in his first public message since being appointed.
Most Colombian leaders have tried peace talks, but the tide of the war changed in 2002 when US-funded Colombian troops drove rebels into remote jungle and mountain hideouts, opening up new areas to investment especially in oil and mining.
The conflict still damages the economy, though, costing the nation about 1 percent of its GDP each year, not to mention idle land from landmines and combat.
With more than 90 percent -support in the Colombian Congress, Santos has pushed through reforms designed to address the structural aspects of the conflict, including a law to give back land to displaced peasants — a mainstay of FARC discourse.
Santos has also greatly improved ties with regional neighbors, accused in the past of supporting the Marxist rebels.
Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will meet next week and likely discuss the new FARC leader, who is believed by analysts to move across the border shared by the two countries.
Santos reiterated his appeal to armed groups that the door to peace was not closed after coming back from a trip to Europe touting Colombia’s new attractiveness to investors.
“If tomorrow they realize this and give signals and concrete demonstrations to not deceive the Colombian people again, the Colombian state will have no problem sitting to look for an exit,” Santos said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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