Álvaro Uribe Vélez – President of the Republic of Colombia (2002 - 2010)
On the 7th of August 2010, Álvaro Uribe Vélez handed the keys of the casa de narino to his successor, President Juan Manuel Santos. The cloudy Bogotá day was in all aspects a burst of sunshine on Colombia’s troubled past. From Uribe’s inauguration for his first term in 2002 where the domestic terrorist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fired rocket launchers on the event, killing 15 people, Colombia had taken monumental strides on the road to peace, stability and prosperity. Described as a “failed state” and “South America’s Bosnia”, where the government’s hold on power was tenuous, Uribe’s government had achieved what was unthinkable less than a decade before. Colombia’s major guerrilla groups, the FARC, ELN and EPL had been pushed deep into the Colombian jungle, the economy was growing from record foreign investment, and the thought of peace for the first time in fifty years was a distinct possibility. Uribe was elected with a 53% majority, and ended his second term with over 70% approval.
His success was rooted in character traits developed during his formative years; his hard-line views on the guerrillas, his prodigious and confrontational work ethic, and his near manic attention to detail, as his presidential focus narrowed on human security. Since his presidency, Uribe has retained a vast group of followers, or Uribistas, and an increasing number of detractors. His own support has shifted from alignment with President Santos to outspoken criticism of the government’s strategy with the FARC. This culminated in the formation of a new political party under Uribe, the Centro Democratico, and his announcement to run for a senate position in the coming March 2014 senate elections.
Uribe remains controversial and divisive. He has been accused by some as having connections to right wing paramilitary groups, and even Pablo Escobar’s Medillín Cartel from his term as a regional governor. Regardless, Uribe’s place in Colombia’s modern history is by any measure substantial, and to understand the influence of Alvaro Uribe is to understand Colombia’s trajectory of the past decade, irrespective of one’s political view. This essay seeks to understand Uribe as a political leader, by exploring Uribe’s leadership style and what shaped it; how he influenced the balance of power in Colombia, the Andean Region and more broadly; and his ongoing legacy.
The Formation of Uribe’s Views
Uribe’s political views and leadership style were formed by two primary sources, his family, particularly his father Alberto Uribe Sierra, and his region’s growing political violence. Álvaro Roldan-Borde Uribe Vélez was born in Medellin, the capital of the department Antioquia. His father was a prominent rancher and land-owner in the area, and his mother was active in local politics.
Confrontation and Bravado
Uribe’s father, and his tragic death deeply affected Uribe’s character as a courageous, fastidious and confrontational operator. In his autobiography “No Lost Causes”, Uribe describes his father as charismatic and brave. “Despite the threats, or, more likely, because of them – my father never backed down. Even as the FARC consolidated itself as Colombia’s most powerful armed group and began engaging in ever-bolder extortion of land and factory owners and ordinary Colombians alike, he refused to make concessions. (…) When the FARC arrived in a new area, they would typically demand two things: money and silence. My father’s reaction? ‘No camino un paso, y no doy un peso,’ he said. ‘I won’t walk a step, and I won’t give them a cent.’”
Uribe’s father pressed this bravado directly on his son on their family ranches, and as a young matador.
“’Stay down on your knees, Alvaro!’ my father yelled above the roar of the crowd. ‘Stay down!’ In the years since, my mind has occasionally drifted back to that day, back to that moment between father and son, and what it all meant. Perhaps it was simply bravado. (…) But I have always suspected that there was something much larger, much more important at work.”
Uribe generalizes this analogy, in a view that is indicative of his personality.
“Danger was a part of everyday life in Colombia. (…) He believed that you could account for it. (…) You could even retreat, to come back and fight another day. But you could never, ever let the danger intimidate you.” Uribe’s father was ultimately killed at their family ranch, when he and his siblings were ambushed by guerrillas. If anything, this family tragedy appeared to bolster Uribe’s resolve to follow his father’s courageous and confrontational attitude.
Uribe displayed this attitude several times early in his political career, including his time as the governor of Antioquia, where he directly baited himself to capture a band of EPL guerrillas. Furious at being threatened, Uribe informed the local police of their intention to kidnap him. Refusing to have an intelligence officer pose as him, he presented himself to the EPL, allowing the police to ambush his aspiring kidnappers in the act. Uribe’s book retells several other close encounters, including him firing a machine gun from a helicopter as his group came under fire from the FARC whilst leaving a town, and a narrow escape from death as he left his hotel bathroom in Bogotá before a bomb detonated. According to Uribe, he details these encounters not to dramatize or glorify them, but to “help explain who I am and why I governed Colombia the way I did.”
Uribe’s fastidious work ethic also appears to be genetic. His description of working life on the family ranch could pass for his work habits whilst in political office.
“You could not possibly manage such an operation without constantly overseeing every little detail, and also performing a great deal of the work yourself. To succeed, you had to know everyone else’s job even better than they did. You had to teach by setting a good example, and by being a good and industrious member of the team. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, you had to be on guard and ready to act. (…) Managing a large and complex system such as this, and doing it well, made my head hum with the purest sort of pleasure. It was absolutely instrumental in forming who I am.”
Throughout his time in office, Uribe was known for his intent on immersing himself in every detail of his government, and being seen to lead from the front. Several times in his autobiography, he details instances of him and his team flying to towns and countryside where a crisis was developing. To some, this was micromanagement, to Uribe, it was leading from the front by inserting himself in the situation to grasp every detail.
Hard-line Attitude towards the Guerrillas
Finally, Uribe’s personal experiences with the guerrillas during these years served to harden his opinion that these groups were irrational, untrustworthy and cold blooded. The opening chapter of Uribe’s autobiography begins with an account of the FARC betraying protestors marching for peace, by kidnapping them kilometres from their destination, after allowing them safe passage for the previous three days. His university years further solidified his belief that the guerrilla groups had lost all sense of their original revolutionary Marxist tendencies, as they profited from increasingly frequent kidnappings and narcotrafficking. This distrust still holds forth in Uribe’s outspoken views on the ongoing peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government in Havana.
These formative experiences from his father and the Antioquia region shaped his early views as a local politician in Medellín. Several years later, it was this hard-line reputation that landed him the presidency, as a relative outsider assuming his country’s responsibility at one of its darkest hours.
Uribe’s Influence on Power
Uribe was elected as an outsider having ran on an independent ticket, and achieved over 50% of the vote largely for his doctrine of “Democratic Security”. His popularity and control of congress gave Uribe a mandate to influence power largely to his views, as he pursued the FARC and other terrorist groups with an almost single minded focus. This focus had a tremendous domestic impact, strained relations with neighbouring countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, and strengthened Colombia’s ties to the United States through the Plan Colombia aid agreement.
Whilst in power, Uribe took full advantage of “Plan Colombia” to fulfil his vision. An enormous aid package from the United States, Plan Colombia took effect in 2000, after lobbying from former President Andres Pastrana Arango to President Bill Clinton7. In the preceding years, international attention had increasingly focused on Colombia’s growing conflict. With Peru declaring victory over the “Shining Path” insurgents in 1992, and peace accords signed in El Salvador in 1993 and Guatemala in 1996, Colombia was becoming more of an anomaly. Furthermore, Pastrana’s peace plan centred on a de-militarized zone in the south-east of the country, which was proving a strategic disaster, and a political drain. Extended by the government as a sign of good faith in negotiations, the FARC were using this zone to stockpile weapons, and consolidate their territory8. This was drew increased concern in the United States, as Pastrana lobbied to secure aid funding. Plan Colombia was approved in the final days of Clinton’s presidency, as a $1.35 billion aid package, turning Colombia into the third largest recipient of US aid over night, after Israel and Egypt.
For two years after the introduction of Plan Colombia, Pastrana persisted with his demilitarized zone, before capitulating and redeploying the military in February 2002. President Uribe immediately changed course upon assuming office, using these funds to press his “Democratic Security” doctrine, underpinned by his hard-line views, and confrontational attitude. Over the next three years, Colombia’s military began to have greater success, capturing top guerrilla leaders, and pushing their reach further into the jungle. Uribe’s popularity soared, as he presented himself as a tireless leader, placing their military forces on the offensive, after years of the government being perceived as reactionary and defensive.
Uribe’s stubborn pursuit of the guerrilla groups escalated tension between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, to the brink of war. Determined to pursue FARC’s top leaders, Colombian forces staged an armed incursion into Ecuador in 2008, killing FARC’s second in command, Raúl Reyes. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez quickly moved forces to the Colombian border in support of Ecuador’s leftist president Rafael Correa. Although tension was high, a regional war was averted. Colombia’s relationship with their neighbours only improved in 2010 after Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe’s successor restored diplomatic ties.
Uribe and U.S. president George Bush developed a close alliance during their terms, underpinned by their common rural and ranching roots. Through this relationship, military aid continued to flow to Colombia, as Colombia positioned itself as the U.S.’s major regional ally. Uribe’s distrust and hard-line beliefs in defeating the FARC, ELN, EPL and paramilitary groups paired well with Bush’s post 9/11 focus on the war on terrorism, as many of these groups were placed on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list. Uribe also complied, referring to these groups as terrorists.
After Uribe successfully amended the constitution to allow for a second term, increasingly publicised human rights abuses and military scandals didn’t reflect well internationally. The condemnation of these acts lead to the delay of the United State’s free trade agreement with Colombia, which was agreed upon between Bush and Uribe in 2006, but delayed for another 5 years. This delay was largely attributed to opposition from the U.S Democratic Party at losing high paying U.S. jobs, and Colombia’s human rights record, particularly the exceptionally high murder rate of Colombian union leaders since the mid-1980s.
Uribe left office as perhaps the most popular president in Colombian history. His legacy is mixed, and is somewhat symbolic of the complexity of Colombia’s troubles. On one hand, Uribe’s legacy is the profound change in momentum in Colombia’s hope for the future. He did this by improving human security, building strength and respect for the Colombian army through a series of victories, and promoting a hopeful narrative of Colombia abroad. However, Uribe’s detractors also point to a darker legacy, of accusations regarding his relationship to the Medellín Cartel, and paramilitary groups.
Uribe’s presidency largely transcended traditional political divisions. As human security improved, Colombian’s began to see the possibility of life beyond violence and division. Kidnapping began to decline from a high of over 3,000 in 2001. Highways and roads began to open up, allowing Colombians to travel from Bogotá and other major cities without the fear of guerrilla road blocks, kidnapping and extortion. Pride and popular support grew for Colombia’s military, as they succeeded in capturing or killing the majority of the guerrilla forces leaders. Passing through the Colombian countryside today, roadside soldiers are typically greeted with gratitude; a thumbs-up and a tooting horn as motorists travel by.
However, accompanying this positive legacy are darker accusations against Uribe and several other politicians for their alleged ties to various right wing paramilitary groups. Originally assembled to combat the leftist guerillas, some of these groups morphed into hit squads, targeting union leaders, sympathetic journalists, politicians and the general public. Uribe’s second term was partially marred with “parapolitics”, as a number of convictions to politicians harboring ties to paramilitary groups occured. These accusations have remained against Uribe, with the chief prosecutor’s office opening a preliminary criminal investigation in January after a leftist congressman claimed that a paramilitary group conducted operations from a ranch owned by Uribe and his brother Santiago.
Continuing Involvement in Politics
Since leaving office, Uribe has remained active and vocal in politics, emerging as Juan Manuel Santos’ leading critic. Now living in Bogotá, he has taken to criticizing Santos at every opportunity over Twitter to a growing list of 2.4 million followers. His newly formed Centro Democratico party has also announced a presidential candidate for next year’s elections. Uribe himself is favored to win a senate seat, and early polling suggests his party could win a substantial number of senate seats. This would completely disrupt current liberal and conservative party dynamics in congress. Before Uribe’s presidency, presidents were restricted to a single term, to deter leaders from consolidating and retaining power, in the mold of numerous other Latin American leaders. Uribe successfully lobbied to change the constitution to allow a second term. After his request for a third term was denied by Colombia’s highest court, he gave his blessing in support of Santos, his former defense minister as his successor. To many, the prospect of an individual re-consolidating power is discomforting, and begs the question of why.
Uribe’s motivation stems from four reasons. First, Uribe is a proud statesman, and is eager to defend and protect his presidential legacy. Second, he is yearning for attention, as he risks slowly fading into irrelevance out of office. Third, the same independent “no compromise” nature that drove his hard-line pursuit of the guerrilla and paramilitary forces has driven him not to side with the established parties. Finally, Uribe is seeking to clear his name against accusations for his ties with narcotraffickers and paramilitary groups. As discussed earlier, Uribe left office on a wave of popularity. However numerous scandals in his second term had begun to eat at the blanket popularity he enjoyed through his first term. Many of these issues, particularly allegations of his ties to paramilitary groups and narcotraffickers have persisted. Without a platform outside of politics to use to defend himself and maintain public relevance, he knows no other way. Uribe is a politician, and like most, he did not lose this ambition upon leaving office. The United States has established a custom of presidential libraries and foundations in which their ex-presidents promote and defend their legacies, and leverage their experience towards various objectives. In Colombia, this tradition does not exist.
Furthermore, as he grew increasingly disgruntled with the current administration’s policies, particularly the 12 month-old peace talks with FARC, Uribe refused to modify his views to align with his successor. With a hint of déjà vu from his 2002 presidential campaign as an independent, Uribe formed an independent party to promote his vision, rather than seek compromise with established parties. Uribe’s single-minded pursuit of his vision was highly successful, and even necessary at the height of Colombia’s violence in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However these same character traits may now tarnish his monumental presidential legacy as a politician, and potentially disrupt the status quo in Colombian politics for better or worse, should his party win a substantial number of seats at the expense of established parties.
Regardless of one’s opinion of Alvaro Uribe, he has been the dominant political force in Colombia for the past decade. His success in office stemmed from his personal qualities as a man with a confrontational attitude and bravado, a prodigious, detail oriented work ethic, and a hard-line view towards guerrilla and paramilitary forces. These traits drove his near single-minded focus on democratic security, with substantial results. Uribe’s two terms categorically altered Colombia’s trajectory from one of a collapsing state, to an emergent one, with optimism for the future. However, he appears intent on not resting on this legacy. He remains politically driven, out of a desire to clear his name, defend his presidential legacy and push an agenda that he believes is best. Thus Uribe’s legacy remains open ended. The outcome of which remains unclear, but if history has anything to show, it will not be without drama.
