Meanwhile, President Uribe is in town today and tomorrow - something having to do with a recent legislative election that I keep hearing about. Here's the memo to legislative staff that we threw together this morning.

More posts will be on their way shortly. It's good to be back.

One new development is that those polled now view Colombia's human-rights NGOs almost as favorably as the armed forces, 69 to 71 percent, respectively:

This is new, as of a few months ago. Since Gallup started asking opinions of human rights NGOs in October 2003, the military was usually about ten percentage points more popular. That ended in the middle of this year, with the two now running almost equal. The armed forces' unfavorability ratings, meanwhile, exceeded those of human-rights NGOs for the first time in June, and have stayed that way.

(I constructed this chart using Gallup's detailed poll results, which don't appear to be available online.)

While both are very popular among those polled, the drop in the military's ratings no doubt results from the series of scandals that have hit the army this year (torture of recruits, the Jamundí massacre, dressing up murdered civilians as guerrillas killed in combat, false car bombings). It is interesting, meanwhile, to see that Colombia's much-maligned human-rights groups are now one of the most favorably viewed entities in the country.

We have just released a new twenty-page "International Policy Report" on Colombia.

Plan Colombia - Six Years Later (1.3MB PDF file) gives a look at conditions in Putumayo and Medellín, Colombia, as we saw them last July, six years almost to the date after President Clinton signed into law the first "Plan Colombia" aid package.

Regular visitors to this weblog may recognize some of the report's pictures and prose. Four different blog entries in July and August served more or less as "beta versions" for this final product.

Here is the text of the release summarizing and announcing the new report.

October 31, 2006

Plan Colombia - Six Years Later: The Center for International Policy releases a new report on Putumayo and Medellín, Colombia

In July 2000, President Clinton signed into law a big aid package called "Plan Colombia," with the ambitious goal of helping Colombia to resolve its related problems of drug trafficking and violence. Since then, the United States has given Colombia $4.7 billion. No other country outside the Middle East comes close. Of that aid, 4 out of every 5 dollars - $1.5 million per day - has gone to Colombia's police and military.

Since 2002, meanwhile, Colombia's government has been led by a president, Álvaro Uribe, whose governance strategy - called "Democratic Security" - heavily favors military force.

Has this combination of two largely military strategies worked? After so much investment in weapons and offensives, is the country more secure, better governed, and out from under the illegal drug economy?

No, mostly not, finds Plan Colombia - Six Years Later, a new report from the Center for International Policy.

In July, exactly six years after Plan Colombia's inception, CIP Colombia Program Director Adam Isacson visited Putumayo, the southern jungle department where U.S.-funded Plan Colombia operations began. He also went to Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city which, due to its sharply reduced rates of violence, is often viewed as a showcase of the Uribe government's U.S.-backed security policies.

In Putumayo, where the United States has invested hundreds of millions, CIP found that conditions had improved only slightly. While massacres are less frequent and road travel is easier, guerrillas remain strong and active in the countryside, and supposedly demobilized paramilitaries continue to dominate the main towns. Cultivation of coca, which was reduced by an initial blitz of fumigation, is rebounding as the spray planes have followed the plant elsewhere in Colombia. And alternative-development programs have yielded mostly disappointing results. Putumayo, where Plan Colombia began, is still in crisis, and distrust of the Colombian government remains very strong.

In Medellín, the "miracle" of declining crime rates owes only partially to Uribe's "Democratic Security" strategy. Increased military and police presence have made some difference, but two other factors have been at least as important.

First, "the paramilitaries won." Though officially demobilized, local paramilitary leader "Don Berna" and his men now control much of Medellín's organized crime. Their dominion over the city's vast, historically conflictive slums is no longer disputed with guerrilla militias or other criminal gangs. As a result, they are killing far fewer people.

Second, Medellín's city government is investing its own resources in poor neighborhoods' governance, and in the reintegration of former rank-and-file paramilitary fighters and gang members. Medellín's government has filled much of the vacuum left by the central government's lack of a well-thought-out, well-financed strategy for assisting former combatants. In most Colombian cities and towns, though, this vacuum remains in place, leaving few options for thousands of unemployed men whose main skill is killing.

With twenty pages of narrative, graphics and photos, Plan Colombia - Six Years Later offers a rare, unvarnished view of conditions "on the ground" in Colombia and the impact of the United States' high-profile, high-cost strategy. The report is available free of charge, as a PDF file in English, at http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/0611ipr.pdf.

Arms transfers are a frequent topic in Latin America's news lately, much more than we've seen during the past ten years or so. The United States - which often gets accused, correctly, of being the world's arms supermarket - is only partially involved. A few examples that appeared in the press last week:

• Argentina may buy planes from Russia and ships from France.
• Venezuela may donate helicopters to Bolivia.
• Peru is concerned about Chile's purchases from the United States and elsewhere.
• Venezuela, barred from buying from Spain aircraft that have U.S. components in them, is about to buy twelve transport planes from Russia. Caracas' recent purchases from Russia include 53 helicopters, 100,000 AK-103 rifles, and 24 Sukhoi SU-30 fighter planes.
• A conservative Brazilian military strategist warns that the region's military balance has been upset, and urges the government to "revitalize our domestic armaments industry."

Meanwhile, the United States has been busy too. Whenever an arms sale exceeds $14 million, the Defense Department must notify Congress. The notifications page of the Defense Security Assistance Agency notes big sales to Chile (PDF), Colombia (PDF), and Brazil (PDF) since late September.

Most polls for Nicaragua's November 5 presidential elections put José Rizo in third or fourth place with less than 20 percent of the vote. Rizo is the candidate of the right-wing National Liberal Party, which is still controlled by Arnoldo Alemán, a disgraced former president. Alemán today is under house arrest for stealing large amounts of money from the national treasury.

In 1999 Alemán signed a power-sharing pact with Daniel Ortega, head of the leftist Sandinista Front that held power throughout the 1980s. Since then, Nicaragua's main right-wing party has been in what Reuters calls "a virtual power duopoly" with the Sandinistas - a party that the Reagan administration once went to great lengths to try to overthrow.

Montealegre is the Bush administration's clear choice over Rizo, who in their eyes is tainted by association with Ortega. According to Reuters, U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli "told reporters this week that voting for Rizo was practically the same as voting for the former guerrilla."

Most of right-wing Washington sees things the same way. Rizo "has no chance of being elected," notes a recent briefing paper from the American Enterprise Institute. "His singular role is to siphon anti-FSLN votes from fellow Liberal Eduardo Montealegre." Roger Noriega, a former Bush assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and now a fellow at AEI, wrote recently in the Washington Post that Rizo "appear[s] to be flush with cash thanks to donations from [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez."

A right-winger funded by Venezuela and splitting the opposition to Daniel Ortega? Sounds bizarre, but the likely reason is that if Ortega wins, Alemán will continue to enjoy immunity from prosecution for past corruption.

But it gets weirder. Oliver North, the far-right radio talk-show host who first made his name illegally running guns to the Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista rebels, paid a visit to Nicaragua last week. North - a controversial figure in Nicaragua - was not shy about endorsing a candidate.

In a public event before the country's media, North threw his enthusiastic support behind ... José Rizo.

"The U.S. embassy was said to be furious about his [North's] arrival, obliging him to call it a private visit," reported the Guardian. But North may not be an outlier. There apparently is a contingent of U.S. Sandinista-haters - perhaps even Florida Governor Jeb Bush - who are supporting Rizo.

Why are they backing a candidate who, according to the Bush administration and much of Washington's right wing, is essentially helping their nemesis Daniel Ortega win the election?

I have no idea. Anybody else have a guess?

[UPDATE 10/30: Robert Novak - who gets mentioned far too often on this blog - has a column today endorsing North and Rizo. For some reason it fails to mention the pact. Again, no idea why.]

Here, thanks to a FOIA request, is a list of US-funded base construction projects paid for in 2005 with Defense Department counternarcotics funds.

It comes from a report, required by Congress in the 2006 Defense Authorization law, that was supposed to total Defense-budget counter-drug aid to every country in the world. For some reason, the report only includes Defense-budget counter-drug construction aid, which is only a fraction of what most countries' militaries get through the Pentagon's budget.

Nonetheless, the Western Hemisphere section below is worth a look.

SOUTHCOM

Bahamas (Caribbean Region) ($2.213M)

Company Housing and Furnishings/Facility Maintenance. Funding provided for company housing and the furnishings on an operating base in Georgetown, Greater Exuma Island. Also included is the maintenance of the operating facility. On this operating base, US. Army helicopter operations are conducted in support of Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos Counter-drug. (PC2307) Total FY05 Funding: $2.213M Cost breakout is as follows:

• Base Construction funding ($1,400K)
• Operational funding ($312K)
• Furnishings ($441K)
• Facility maintenance/upkeep ($60K)

Bolivia ($0.590M)

Cochabamba Shoot House. Provided critical training facility for military and police CNT units undergoing U.S. training for operations. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.06M.

Caranavi Joint Task Force Base Camp. Project provided improved utilities, force protection, logistics support facilities and additional berthing to support establishment of a joint Bolivian CNT task force between national police, air force, and army engineer forces. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.45M.

Tocopilla Force Protection Improvements. Provided perimeter fence and lighting, guard posts, and other improvements to Bolivian navy outposts assigned riverine patrol missions. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.04M.

Colomi Army Camp Utilities Upgrade. Project provided water treatment and conditioning to domestic water supply to improve sanitation and health conditions at existing outpost. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.04M.

Colombia ($5.548M)

Training Facility located in San Andres, Colombia. Funding was provided to operate a training facility at the San Andres, Colombia radar site to train Colombian Air Force technicians in the skills needed to assume maintenance responsibilities for Hemispheric Radar System radar sites. FY05 funding supports English language training in Bogota and on-the-job training at each radar site and Bogota and associated force protection for supporting personnel. Funding also for the refinement of formal course training material, instructors, and development and implementation of on-job-training program. (PC4208) Total FY05 Funding: $1.08M

Puerto Leguizamo/La Tagua Road Improvements. Provided critical improvements to the only road link between these two forward outposts astride the Putumayo and Caqueta Rivers. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.800M.

Airfield Improvements to Tres Esquinas. Supported critical airfield used to support Plan Patriota operations. FY05 funds used to execute the design portion. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.150M.

Depot Level Maintenance Facility in Bogota. Supported establishment of a depot level riverine maintenance facility.
FY05 funds used to execute the design portion. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.080M.

Improvements to CACOM 3 Apron and Taxiways. Supported the primary reception and staging site for U.S. units providing critical training to COLMIL forces and COLAF units supporting Plan Patriota IIB operations. FY05 funds used to execute the design portion. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.4M.

Ammunition Storage Point at Larandia. Provided critical ammunition storage capability for units assigned to JTF-Omega and directly supporting Plan Patriota. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.6M.

Runway Improvements at Juanacho. Project supported needed taxiway and ramp upgrades. Juancacho provides forward staging and support facility for JTF-Omega. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.3M.

Combat Training Center at Larandia. Provided a national training center for COLAR forces supporting Plan Patriota IIB and IIC operations. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.9M.

Riverine Facilities at Puerto Carreno. Project provided for extensive upgrades to include barracks, walkways, electrical, ramps, fuel storage, and maintenance. Project provided needed sustainment for Battalion 40 and COLMAR support to JTF-Omega. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.2M.

Electrical Upgrades at Larandia. Project completed upgrades to the Larandia electrical grid required as a result of the rapid expansion/growth of Larandia as a major technical/operationa1 base for the COLMIL. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.5M.

Tumaco Pier. Project provided essential staging and fueling point for COLMAR forces operating on the Pacific Coast. Project was primarily focused on the interdiction of drugs/arms traffickers using the river systems on the Pacific Coast as a staging base for illegal drug/arms movement. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.12M.

Puerto Leguizamo Airfield. Provided for critical repairs to the Puerto Leguizamo airfield. Repairs included runway,
taxiway, and tamp improvements needed to sustain this key forward operating base along the southern border of
Colombia. Puerto Leguizamo is the primary training and staging base for COLMAR operations in the Pase IIB area
of operations. Completed design work in FY05. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.08M.

Tolemaida Force Protection Upgrades. Project provided for a perimeter fence to be constructed around the newly completed SF compound in Tolemaida. Project provided needed standoff distance and isolation from other facilities. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.2M.

4 Office Trailers/Facility Maintenance. Funding provided for 4 office trailers and the maintenance of the Forward Operating Site in Apiay, Colombia that conducts Joint ISR aircraft operations in support of Plan Colombia. (PC2416) Total FY05 Funding: $0.138M

Ecuador ($14.734M)

Forward Operating Location (FOL). Funding was provided to maintain and operate the FOL in Manta, which consists of 127 facilities of which 48 are buildings. FOL Manta provides a base of operations to facilitate counterdrug detection and monitoring operations within the USSOUTHCOM AOR. FOL Manta provides basing and logistical support for a steady state of six aircraft and 450 personnel with a capacity to surge to eight aircraft for two week periods. (PC9500) Total FY05 Funding: $14.134M. Cost breakout is as follows:

• Air Expeditionary Forces (Force Protection and Firemen) travel and per diem ($377K)
• Erosion project for runway required for CN missions ($607K)
• Supplies and equipment that can only be bought through the Standard Base Supply System ($233K)
• Communication personnel TDY from Headquarters ($54K)
• Procurement of AGE equipment ($142K)
• Base operating support contract ($12,721K)

Operational Support for the Northern Border. Project supported units assigned to Ecuadorian defense forces along the northern border with Colombia. Two projects programmed for design/construction in FY05. First project provided needed ammunition storage facility for the 39th Infantry Battalion in the Carchi Province. Second project provide critical force protection upgrades to the 55th Infantry Battalion assigned to the 19th Jungle Brigade. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.6M.

El Salvador ($0.925M)

Forward Operating Location (FOL). Funding was provided to maintain and operate the FOL in Comalapa. FY05 funding was provided for installation of water supply tank and fire pumps for autonomous fire suppression capability, procurement and installation of a generator and transfer switch for new warehouse/office building, electrical driveways to warehouse bays doors, upgrade pistol range, and lighting protection for the FOL. (PC9500) Total FY05 Funding: $0.925M.

Jamaica ($0.8M)

Pedro Cayes Water/Fuel Storage Facilities. Project provided for water/fuel storage facilities in support of Jamaican Coast Guard drug interdiction efforts against "go fast" targets. Supported both surface and helicopter assets directed against the "go-fast" threat. (PC9493) Total FY05 Funding: $0.8M.

Netherlands Antilles ($16.426M)

Forward Operating Location (FOL). Funding was provided to maintain and operate the FOL in Curacao. This FOL consists of 40 facilities of which 15 are buildings. FOL Curacao provides a base of operations to facilitate counterdrug detection and monitoring operations within the USSOUTHCOM AOR. FOL Curacao provides basing and logistical support for a steady state of six aircraft and 250 personnel with a capacity to surge to eight aircraft for two week periods. (PC9500) Total FY05 Funding: $14.892M. Cost breakout is as follows:

• Air Expeditionary Forces (Force Protection and Firemen) travel and per diem ($2,153K)
• Contract lodging permanent party ($266K)
• Supplies and equipment that can only be bought through the Standard Base Supply System ($220K)
• Engineering study for fire station shelter in Curacao ($77K)
• Contracting support for FOL oversight ($470K)
• Base Operating Support contract ($11,706K)

Forward Operating Location (FOL). Funding was provided to maintain and operate the FOL in Aruba. This FOL
consists of 1 facility which is a building. FOL Aruba provides an overflow capability to facilitate counterdrug detection and monitoring operations within the USSOUTHCOM AOR. FOL Aruba provides communication and contracting support to aircrews. (PC9500) Total FY05 Funding: $1.534M. Cost breakout is as follows:

• Bandwidth expense ($500K)
• Civil engineering/contracting support to building/ramp projects ($552K)
• Direct support to include Air Expeditionary Forces Communication person per diem and travel, lodging, environmental baseline study, and miscellaneous contracts ($430K)
• Air Combat Command Program Management System expense ($50K)
• Base operating support contract support ($2K)

Peru ($0.175M)

El Estrecho Navy Forward Operating Base. Project increased berthing and life support at remote outpost conducting riverine interdiction and joint operations with national police. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.1M.

Mazamari and Lima Small Arms Ranges. Project repaired and upgraded small arms ranges used to train counterdrug police conducting infiltration, interdiction, and associated counter-terrorism missions. (PC9201) Total FY05 Funding: $0.075M.

The report's statistics portray Colombia as the number one recipient of U.S. military training in the world. The report, however, severely under-reports training in Iraq and Afghanistan - either because training of those countries' security forces is classified, or because budgeting does not separate such training from the cost of U.S. military operations in those countries. So Colombia was, in fact, the second or third largest U.S. training recipient last year.

Nonetheless, the report makes clear that no other Latin American country came close to Colombia in 2005 (in fact, no other country in the hemisphere even exceeded 1,000 trainees).

A big PDF file identifying courses given and recipient military units is available here by clicking on "Western Hemisphere."

In a sit-down last week with reporters, the outgoing head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. John Craddock, said that reductions in aid to Colombia were on their way. Added the Associated Press, "Craddock said Colombia's defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, is in agreement with reductions in U.S. military funding."

This was the latest repetition of the idea that reductions in aid to Colombia - the first reductions in about fifteen years - would be forthcoming in the administration's 2008 budget request to Congress (which comes out next February). We have been told to expect less aid in the 2008 request during recent meetings with U.S. officials, and we have read it in recent press coverage, including a piece in Saturday's edition of El Tiempo:

An initial cut of a bit more than 50 million dollars is being discussed, which would go against accounts for the Police Carabineros program, the demobilizations and others. And while this is a small amount, compared to the annual total that is delivered (some 700 million dollars), it will increase with each passing year. In other words, from here to 2010 - the year in which Uribe will finish his second term - the country will be receiving a bit more than half of what it gets today.

And these are not speculations. The director of Narcotics Affairs at the Department of State, Anne Patterson, and the "drug czar," John Walters, said it in an interview with this newspaper. And the head of the Southern Command, John Craddock, repeated it this week.

The theory is that Colombia has begun "to turn the page," and that it is time for it to take on more responsibilities. "We have sustained aid levels for six years. It is logical to suppose, and this was the plan from the beginning, that we would arrive at a point where there would be reductions," says a source at the State Department.

Well, maybe not. It appears that plans to begin reducing U.S. aid next year have been shelved for now. That, at least, was the message of Nicholas Burns, the acting number-two official at the State Department, who is leading a seventeen-member delegation to Bogotá that arrived yesterday and leaves tomorrow. "'We intend to ask our Congress to maintain the current level of funding' for 2007 and 2008," Burns told reporters yesterday.

That apparent change of direction is the big story - so far - of the Burns visit, which is the biggest and highest-level U.S. delegation to visit Colombia in quite a while.

Also noteworthy are strong indications that Burns, Anne Patterson, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon, Drug Czar John Walters and others are not in Bogotá just to praise and celebrate Uribe and Plan Colombia. The U.S. officials also appear to be voicing some serious concerns about the policy's results, the human-rights climate, and the paramilitary process. Note these excerpts from a Reuters interview with Burns, which went on the wires a couple of hours ago.

"We think the counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics efforts have been very successful but there could be further progress."

"If the military is responsible for human rights violations then those people need to be held accountable, they need to be prosecuted."

"We think this [the "Justice and Peace" Law] is a necessary law ... we are in favor of the effort but there are some questions about whether some of sentences are too lenient, whether people who are responsible for horrible crimes are getting off too easily. ... It is up to Colombia to work through that but as we are funding some of these programs these questions are being asked."

Especially significant is that the U.S. officials did not come to Colombia bearing a new certification of improvements in the Colombian military's human-rights performance. By law, the State Department must issue two such certifications each year; 25 percent of that year's military aid remains frozen - it cannot be spent - until the certifications occur (each one frees up half of the frozen aid). No certification for any 2006 aid has yet been issued, largely due to concerns about military abuses and the inability to punish past cases.

It has been interesting to see much recent speculation about Paraguay, a country that usually gets absolutely no attention in Washington. A series of unusual facts and unsubstantiated rumors have many Latin America-watchers wondering what is going on:

• According to yesterday's Guardian (UK), Paraguay is swirling with rumors that President Bush has bought a 98,840-acre ranch in the arid, empty Chaco region of the country's northwest, not far from Bolivia. "Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia. He was, however, unable to prove this, he added."
  
  
• Earlier this month, Jenna Bush, one of the president's twin daughters, paid a ten-day visit to Paraguay to learn about UNICEF projects there. From the Associated Press report: "'The visit is strictly private in nature,' UNICEF announced in a one-page statement released by spokeswoman Natalie Echague. 'She will get to know the UNICEF activities in Paraguay and some of the programs it cooperates in.'"
  
  
• Since mid-2005, the U.S. Southern Command has been carrying out an unusual series of bilateral exercises in Paraguay. Some of these exercises have been humanitarian - building schools, providing health services - and others have been Special Forces Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) deployments for lethal combat and counter-terrorism training. (See a list of these exercises - and a transcript of the Paraguayan Congress's debate about whether to approve them - here as a Microsoft Word document in Spanish.)
  
  
• U.S. personnel are widely reported to have been using the Mariscal Estigarribia airstrip in the Chaco region, not far from Bolivia. In January, the State Department published a denial that the United States - as was widely rumored - planned to establish a military base there.
  
  
• Earlier this month, Paraguay's government surprisingly withdrew the immunity from prosecution that it had granted the U.S. soldiers present to carry out the exercises. As a result, the series of exercises begun in mid-2005 will end by December 1.

What does all of this mean? And why Paraguay?

I have no idea, and it may mean nothing at all. However, as part of another research trip to South America in early November, I will be spending 2 days in Asunción conducting interviews. (This will be my first-ever trip to Paraguay.) If I learn anything that helps to clarify things, I will post it.

If Spanish is your second language, President Uribe's recent rants against the FARC - who may or may not have planted a car bomb at a Bogotá military facility last Thursday, causing the president to break off all contact - included many unfamiliar new vocabulary words. Add these to your deck of flash cards:

• fantoche: "boastful nincompoop" - Yahoo Spanish dictionary. (Context: "What will the terrorist Raúl Reyes say - that fantoche terrorist of international appearances, vedette terrorist of the media, who hides, cowardly, in the Ecuadorian jungle, without Ecuador's consent?")
  
  
• vedette: "In the entertainment industry, vedette refers to a star performer of stage or screen." - Wikipedia. (Context: "Frontal struggle against the boastful nincompoop terrorist, vedette of the media, Raúl Reyes!")
  
  
• asepsia: state of being uninfected or uncontaminated - Google. (Context: "Soldiers and Police of my Fatherland, high commanders: asepsia within and effectiveness without!")
  
  
• mansalveros: I have no idea what this means. (It sounds bad, though.) Googling "mansalvero" and "mansalveros" only yields a handful of links, all of them referring to Colombia, and most of them quoting speeches from President Uribe. (Context: "These bandits should learn to be sincere. Because they are cold-blooded killers and they are liars, they do not look you in the eye, and they are boastful nincompoops and mansalveros.")

"I imagine this has to be the FARC. I don't see any other alternative," Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos told reporters shortly afterward. This morning, President Álvaro Uribe went still further. In response to the bombing, Uribe suspended contacts with the FARC, initiated weeks earlier, that were to lay the groundwork for a prisoner-exchange negotiation. The negotiations were to seek the release of sixty prominent individuals whom the guerrillas have held captive for several years. "The only way that now remains is to rescue the kidnapped people militarily," the president said.

But was the bomb truly the work of the FARC? It is certainly possible, but it doesn't make sense for the guerrillas to carry out such a high-profile act at this particular time. In fact, there are good arguments to back up either hypothesis:

Though either hypothesis is plausible at this point, the Colombian government is apparently certain that the FARC set off yesterday's bomb. It is so certain that President Uribe quickly ended this month's halting move toward dialogue, and used some of the strongest rhetoric we have heard from him in many months.

Did the FARC - against any possible conception of its own self-interest - set off yesterday's bomb? Or are the guerrillas being falsely accused, as happened in May 2000 when the government suspended peace talks after extortionists with no guerrilla ties killed a woman by placing a bomb around her neck?

It is imperative that an investigation of yesterday's incident move quickly to determine what really happened. It would be tragic to see hopes for dialogue dim for the wrong reasons.

It could happen so easily.

While in Medellín in July, I met with a representative of the ELN guerrillas. I also met with leaders of former paramilitaries, who may or may not have ceased to be members of what used to be called the AUC. Both groups are on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Suppose that, for some bizarre reason, I decided to give one of those individuals a twenty-dollar bill. For good measure, I had a picture taken of myself handing over the bill, and made that picture publicly available.

This would have been a strange thing to do, of course. But as of yesterday, it would also have given the U.S. government all the pretext it needs to lock me up indefinitely, subject me to mild torture, and secretly try me in a military court.

Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which President Bush signed into law yesterday, I could be considered an "unlawful enemy combatant" for giving that $20 - "material support" - to a known international terrorist. Actually, it's not even clear whether I would have to give that money; the law could be interpreted as empowering President Bush or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to apply the "unlawful enemy combatant" tag to anyone they don't like. The law defines an "unlawful enemy combatant" as, simply,

a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.

As an "unlawful enemy combatant," I could be arrested and held indefinitely in a military stockade or a civilian prison. The U.S. government would not need to inform me of the charges against me, or even to set a date for my trial. I could be held in conditions of extreme discomfort - loud music at all hours, kept unclothed in a 50-degree room with cold water thrown on me, anything that is not "a substantial risk of death," "extreme physical pain," "a burn or physical disfigurement of a serious nature (other than cuts, abrasions, or bruises)," or "significant loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty."

Eventually, I might be brought before a tribunal made up entirely of military officers. The prosecution can use secret evidence against me, which my appointed defense counsel might not be able to view. Only three-quarters of the officers need agree on my guilt in order to sentence me.

This sounds like a preposterous scenario, and hopefully it is. But it is now a perfectly legal scenario, thanks to this awful law.

Here's a translation of the editorial that El Tiempo - Colombia's most-circulated newspaper and one of the principal voices of that country's elite, mainstream opinion - published on October 1, after the U.S. Congress hurriedly approved the Military Commissions Act. Recall that while Colombia has its own severe human rights problems, its legislation is now much more progressive than our own.

A Shameful Law

September 28, 2006 will go down in history as a sad day for the United States and for democracy everywhere. It was last Thursday when the U.S. Senate approved the Bush Law, an extraordinary attack on human rights that the New York Times calls "the tyrannical anti-terrorist law." According to that newspaper, this episode is "one of the lowest" in that nation's history.

Democracy is the sum of many philosopical values inspired by liberty and human dignity, and many participative measures for achieving them. This time, the measures conspire against the principles, as the institutional formality of the Congress is employed to take an abrupt leap backward in history. The law approves the abuses committed by George Bush's government in the past few years against those accused of terrorism, and incorporates alarming restrictions on human rights: the government is authorized to detain in any country, any foreign citizen [note - and any U.S. citizen] suspected of collaborating with terrorism (as the U.S. government defines terrorism) and to classify anyone it wants as an "unlawful enemy combatant." This category is sufficient to submit this individual to the regime of denied rights that the Capitol just approved, which includes indefinite detention without appeal in jails that only the military knows of and administers, and suspension of habeas corpus (the statute that regulates privation of liberty). No civilian tribunal may intervene in these processes, except to review final verdicts. The President will define what tortures are acceptable and will unilaterally interpret the Geneva Conventions. The methods of extracting information from prisoners, as well as other elements of the trial, will be secret.

To approve such a code, which is more appropriate to military dictatorships, the White House used a contemptible strategy: to sow electoral panic among members of Congress. Six weeks before legislative elections, with Bush's approval at a low point, the government and the Republican majority played the fear card. Resorting to a Manichaean strategy, they proclaimed: "Whoever votes against this bill is with the terrorists." This is how they dismantled the indignant opposition to this initiative within the Republican Party itself, and how they intimidated more than one Democratic legislator. This is the tone that will predominate in the campaign. And while the opposition hopes to win six key seats [in the Senate], which could turn around control of the Capitol, the Republicans will continue to play upon the electorate's darkest fears of terrorism.

The approval of this horrible law opens a dangerous Pandora's box. The United States' democracy has been an example to the world for two centuries. Now, its limitations will inspire similar retrenchment in other countries' laws. The same thing will happen with human rights, beaten back by a majority vote. Many despots will think that they have a green light for their procedures, and it is probable that the first to suffer from it will be U.S. citizens and soldiers overseas. Countries that cooperate broadly with Washington, like Colombia, have the right to ask whether extraditing citizens accused of terrorism, only to see them submitted to this new regime, violates their own constitutions. And there are more questions. What do the United States' allies think of all of this? How will it be viewed by international courts, though that country doesn't recognize their jurisdiction except when other countries' citizens are involved? With what moral authority can the United States keep on issuing "certificates of good democratic conduct" to other countries?

All that is left is to hope that the U.S. public rejects this law at the ballot box and supports Democratic candidates, who can change the composition of this shameful Congress.

Over the past few days, following my return to Washington, I've gathered and read through more than 130 articles that have appeared so far this month in Colombia's press about the current movement toward dialogue between the Colombian government and the FARC. As mentioned before, Álvaro Leyva, one of the talks' main facilitators, has publicly proposed a confidence-building role for the Center for International Policy in the process. The memo below, based on my reading of the situation, should be viewed as part of that role.

October 16, 2006

To: Interested colleagues
From: Adam Isacson, Colombia Program, Center for International Policy
Re: Next steps for talks with the FARC

In late September and early October, we saw a flurry of activity around the possibility of talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas. This activity raised hopes for a prisoner-exchange deal that might free about sixty politicians, military officers, and other prominent individuals whom the guerrillas have been holding in captivity for several years. While the FARC has kidnapped many more individuals for ransom, it has made clear that these sixty will only be released if Colombia frees about 500 guerrilla prisoners (and, perhaps, two guerrillas awaiting trial in the United States).

Both sides then released communiqués indicating that talks about an exchange could become a first step toward a larger peace process. The FARC laid out conditions for a cease-fire, while Uribe spoke of meeting personally with the guerrilla leadership and supporting an assembly to modify the country's constitution once talks progressed to that point.

This was nearly two weeks ago. Since then, little has happened. The government appears to be backpedaling from full acceptance of the guerrillas' terms for talks, amid signs of internal disputes. Both sides have voiced clear differences about what the "encounter zone" might look like. Meanwhile, the government's designated negotiator, High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo, is occupied for the next two weeks with a round of talks in Havana with the ELN guerrillas.

It would be inaccurate to say that this new effort to initiate talks with the FARC has been derailed. The train is still on the track, but it is clearly not moving forward. How can it be made to move again? Here are five suggestions.

1. Supporters, both within and outside the government, must build consensus for the prisoner-exchange talks as the "least bad" option. The whole idea of exchanging prisoners for kidnap victims faces strong criticism, much - though not all - from the right wing. Critics argue that to do so will reward hostage-taking and kidnapping. They note that it does nothing to free those kidnap victims - most of them less-prominent citizens - who are being held for ransom. They worry that freed FARC prisoners will re-join the guerrillas and kill Colombians, and that the FARC will be encouraged to kidnap again to free more of its cadres. They argue that a demilitarized zone for talks raises ghosts of the Pastrana government's failed 1998-2002 peace effort, that it will confer a degree of political status on the guerrillas, and that the FARC could get some strategic advantage out of the zone, even if its duration is limited to 45 days.

(These arguments have been laid out in recent columns in Colombia's press by, among others, Saúl Hernández, Fernando Londoño, Rafael Nieto, Eduardo Plata, Álvaro Valencia, and Mauricio Vargas.)

These arguments are strong and hard to refute. They express very real concerns, though the government and outside monitors should be able to address some of them as part of the process.

The critics, however, share a common weakness: none offers any proposal for what to do instead. They offer no other options for freeing these sixty people who have been in FARC custody for as many as nine years. The frustrating reality is that few other options do exist.

If an armed rescue could be carried out without the guerrillas killing their captives, it would have happened by now. (One was in fact attempted in May 2003, with tragic results.) To maintain the status quo is a poor option as well: the captives are no closer to freedom, as even the past several years' military buildup has proven unable to force the guerrillas to sue for peace.

An effort to secure a prisoner exchange, then, is the least bad option, and little else. As the critics remind us, such an agreement carries grave disadvantages. Success would offer little to celebrate, other than the return of several dozen people to their loved ones.

However, talks about an exchange do offer at least a slim hope that broader peace talks might follow, or at least that government and guerrilla representatives can build a measure of trust and establish lines of communication. These could in turn ease future dialogues.

2. For now, stick to the prisoner exchange. Leave larger peace proposals for later. The atmosphere quickly became confused in early October when the FARC and President Uribe began discussing conditions and possibilities for broader peace talks. While it is encouraging to hear speculation about cease-fires, meetings between Uribe and the FARC Secretariat, or constitutional reforms, it is very premature to be considering such questions.

By offering a series of hard-to-meet pre-conditions for any larger peace process (such as demilitarizing two coca-producing departments that together are larger than the state of Pennsylvania), the FARC has made clear that for now, it prefers to keep on fighting. Right now, the only viable way to dialogue is to discuss a prisoner exchange. Focus on that, and leave for later the speculation about a larger peace process. To do otherwise is to create a distraction that unnecessarily raises the public's hopes.

3. For now, stick to the question of how to get to the table. The details of the prisoner exchange can wait until the start of negotiations. Observers have asked many good questions about whether an exchange agreement is even viable. After they leave Colombian jails, they ask, will FARC prisoners re-join the guerrillas? If they agree not to re-join the FARC, how can their demobilization be verified? Will the FARC abstain from future kidnappings to pressure for exchanges? Even if they make such a commitment, can it be trusted, or is Colombia condemned to a continued cycle of kidnappings and prisoner exchanges? How many from each side are to be released? Can the exchanges happen bit by bit, rather than all at once? What about FARC prisoners accused of crimes against humanity, who by law cannot be amnestied? What about FARC prisoners, especially "Simón Trinidad" and "Sonia," who are currently in the U.S. criminal justice system, which has no legal mechanism for prisoner exchanges? What of the hundreds - perhaps thousands - of kidnap victims whom the FARC is holding for ransom? Can the prisoner-exchange talks be a step toward a real peace process?

These are all good questions. Taken together, they certainly dampen one's optimism about the negotiations. With such challenges, it is very possible that 45 days of negotiations - even 90 days - may pass in a demilitarized zone, and no prisoner exchange may be reached. The dialogues could fail completely, returning the captives' situation to the status quo.

It is important to remember, though, that these questions don't have to be answered now. Reaching compromise on these issues is the exact purpose of the formal 45-day negotiations. The talks themselves, once they start, are where both sides will determine what is negotiable and what isn't, what kind of prisoner exchange is achievable in the short term, and what kind may have to wait for a later opportunity.

The negotiations may fail due to substantive disagreements - though hopefully efforts to build confidence and trust will help overcome them. This is a risk of every negotiation process. But they should at least be allowed to get that far. The talks should not be allowed to fail because (a) the questions to be addressed are perceived beforehand as too difficult, or (b) neither side can agree on procedural issues like "the rules of the game" to govern the talks themselves.

4. Right now, it is necessary to focus almost entirely on procedural issues, because establishing "the rules of the game" promises to be hard enough. The process gained its current momentum when President Uribe agreed to the formation of an "encounter zone" for talks to take place. This was widely viewed in Colombia's media - and was explicitly described by facilitator Álvaro Leyva, who has been meeting often with Uribe - as an agreement to meet the FARC's demand to pull the security forces out of two municipalities (counties) so that talks could go ahead there.

The municipalities in question are Florida and Pradera, two rural counties in the southeast corner of Valle del Cauca department, not far from Cali. The guerrillas have asked for a pullout of security forces for 45 days, a period that many expect would be renewed at least once.

Though the Uribe government is widely believed to be willing to pull the security forces from Florida and Pradera, and has not contradicted Leyva's assurances, none of its representatives has specifically mentioned the two counties. The government is strongly reluctant to declare a demilitarized zone; President Uribe was one of Colombia's strongest critics of the 42,000 square-kilometer, five-county zone that President Pastrana granted the guerrillas during the failed 1998-2002 peace talks. Though Florida and Pradera are about one-fiftieth the size of Pastrana's zone, while the time period is shorter and the talks' purpose is more specific, there is much trepidation about repeating the experience of the Pastrana years.

The zone vacated by the security forces for peace talks with the FARC in 1998-2002.	The proposed zone for prisoner-exchange talks with the FARC.

Conventional wisdom in Colombia holds that the "original sin" of Pastrana's peace process was to have granted the demilitarized zone to the FARC in the first place. Negotiations about substantive issues remained on hold while both sides wrangled endlessly about conditions in the zone - the absence of independent observers, the presence of troops on the periphery, the presence of non-military government institutions, its use as a base for attacking neighboring populations, reports of increased coca-growing, and several others.

In fact, the real "original sin" of the Pastrana process was to have agreed to a demilitarized zone without conditions. The idea of pulling soldiers out of a zone that had little state control anyway, in order to address the security concerns of a highly distrustful adversary, was not enormously controversial at the time. The problem arose when President-elect Pastrana, on a July 1998 visit to FARC leaders at their jungle encampment, apparently promised them - without consulting anyone - that he would demilitarize the five counties unconditionally. That, at least, is what the FARC understood: the rules of the game for the demilitarized zone were, basically, "no rules." The guerrillas stuck to that position, resisting efforts to establish rules - such as the presence of unarmed soldiers or international monitors - after the fact.

The Uribe government is taking a far more cautious approach, insisting on clearer rules for the zone before agreeing to launch talks. Several issues must be addressed, among them the presence of non-military government institutions (judges, mayors, ombudsmen and the like); the presence and duties of international or civil-society observers; the transportation of negotiators to the zone; and the identity of each side's negotiators (the FARC has already nominated its own).

However, the biggest topic remaining to be resolved - and on which discussions may right now be stuck - is the question of security within the zone. The FARC wants to be able to maintain an armed presence in the zone in order to protect its negotiators, but it rejects the presence of armed government representatives. (This was the arrangment during the 1998-2002 talks, in which the FARC was the only group in the demilitarized zone that carried weapons.)

The guerrillas want armed bodyguards and rings of security. This is not merely because they don't trust the government to resist the temptation to launch a sneak attack. The scenario that more likely worries the FARC is that ex-paramilitaries or similar elements, perhaps aided by rogue members of the security forces, could gain entry into the small zone and carry out an act of sabotage, such as an attempt on the lives of the guerrilla negotiators. High-level FARC leader Raúl Reyes told an interviewer recently, "We cannot trust our security to members of the executive branch, when they don't even have their own security guaranteed."

The dispute over security in the zone is far from intractable; several potential solutions exist. Here are a few:

• Allow the FARC to have an armed presence in the zone, but prohibit the carrying of weapons in the town centers ("county seats") of Florida and Pradera, and within a perimeter around the area where talks are occurring. The guerrillas would be allowed to maintain security checkpoints outside the no-weapons zones. This solution would keep weapons out of the few square kilometers where FARC negotiators would be in contact with government representatives. It also recognizes that, as is the case today, there is little the government can do to exclude armed guerrillas from the entire 850 square-kilometer zone, which is almost entirely rural and devoid of roads.
  
  
• Allow international guarantors of the talks to manage security. The "group of friends" of the talks - which currently includes Spain, France and Switzerland, and to which the FARC proposes to add Venezuela and Cuba - could take responsibility for security in the zone where talks are occurring.
  
  
• Allow the guerrillas to maintain a larger armed presence upon their negotiators' entry and exit from the zone.
  
  
• Maintain a constant presence of unarmed individuals to accompany the negotiators. These individuals, who could be both international and Colombian citizens, would have to be approved by both sides.

None of these proposals is mutually exclusive; it would be possible to choose a combination of some or all of them, or some other mechanism entirely. The priority for now, though, should be on developing this solution so that the process can move forward.

Moving forward will also require progress on several intangible points. President Uribe, for instance, needs to develop a clearer consensus in support of the talks, both among his conservative base and among elements of his own government - especially the military. This support need not be enthusiastic; it may even be grudging. But active opposition to the process must be minimized within the Uribista ranks. Offensive military operations in the zone should cease as progress toward talks continues.

The United States - whose position on "negotiating with terrorists" is well-known - should avoid public criticism of the process; a single disparaging comment from a U.S. official could be enough to torpedo this fragile effort. At this moment, meanwhile, the FARC could help President Uribe make progress on these "intangibles" with a single goodwill gesture: another proof of life, or perhaps an offer to declare a geographically limited cease-fire while talks take place (such as no offensive operations in Valle del Cauca department during the 45-day period).

Both sides would also do well to drop some proposed pre-conditions for talks. The FARC has indicated, for instance, that the government must first "define whether its interlocution is occurring with an organization that has taken up arms against the state, or with terrorists." For years, President Uribe has called the FARC terrorists, and has encouraged foreign governments to consider them as such. Requiring him to go back on this long record of rhetoric is too big a condition to require; it is best to leave this unsaid for now, and accept that, in agreeing to negotiate, President Uribe has made some tacit alteration to the "definition of his interlocution."

The Uribe government, meanwhile, said in a statement that it expects the FARC to declare a cease-fire while prisoner-exchange talks take place. That proposal is a deal-breaker - the government has not put anywhere near enough military pressure on the guerrillas to expect a cease fire - and the government must know it. This demand, like the FARC's requirement for specificity on the "terrorist" label, should be quietly dropped.

5. There is no shame in "talking about talking." It may take a while to establish the ground rules for talks. The only negotiating agenda that matters right now is the dialogue over procedural matters, particularly conditions for the zone where prisoner-exchange talks might take place. This dialogue should be allowed to take as long as is necessary, but it should not be allowed to break off.

Most of these procedural points - what Leyva and others have called the "carpentry" behind the eventual process - can be resolved with relative ease, as long as both sides remain focused on them. In order to move ahead on them, however, these "talks about talking" should not be happening through public communiqués and statements to the media. It is imperative that lines of communication be made more fluid and direct. It is also important that discussions occur out of the public eye, so that both sides can make badly needed concessions and proposals without losing face in the court of public opinion.

The dialogue's outside facilitators can help through continued, vigorous performance of their "good offices" role. Direct discussions between guerrilla and government representatives may also be necessary, though - given security concerns - they may be logistically difficult. However, if agreement on a demilitarized zone requires face-to-face talks in some other forum - a third country, perhaps - the FARC should be open to the possibility.

Finally, all involved should avoid raising the public's hopes. It is reasonable to expect this process to move with excruciating slowness, and to have several ups and downs. Recall that even in 1998, when public support for negotiations was much stronger and President Pastrana had given a green light to an unconditional demilitarized zone, there was a five-month lag between Pastrana's initial acquiescence (July 1998) and the pullout of troops (December 1998).

Things may go similarly slowly now. What is important, though, is that they do not stop.