Former President of Colombia talks security, guerilla movements

Colombia saw poverty reduction, economic growth and increased protection for liberty during his presidency, said Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Former President of Colombia, in a lecture on Tuesday.

Uribe served as president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010.

According to Uribe, during his term his government primarily focused on improving security, investment and social cohesion.

Uribe said that 63 percent of voters reelected him in the first round of 2006 elections as a result of the parallel success of his investment and social policies. These policies enabled him to reduce poverty from 50 percent to 33 percent while increasing domestic investment from $20 billion to $70 billion during his time in office, he added.

However, Uribe also noted that many of his difficulties with security came from leftist movements which affected not only Colombia, but also neighboring countries such as Venezuela.

“I have divided Latin America between rightist and leftist governments. We have to consider what are progressive and what are aggressive democracies. Venezuela does not have security, investment or social cohesion,” Uribe said.

He also cited the Venezuelan government as a source of Colombia’s own internal disturbances, criticizing it for providing funding for Colombia’s leftist groups which use guerilla warfare tactics.

Uribe additionally took a strong stance against paramilitary groups and the guerilla movement led by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia during his speech, criticizing them for their involvement with trafficking narcotics.

This criticism extended to the current Colombian government led by his successor President Juan Manuel Santos, as Uribe disagreed with the current Colombian government’s lenient stance on FARC and narco-trafficking.

When speaking about Plan Colombia, an initiative created with the United States to combat drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups, he noted that the blame should be placed on the current Colombian government for wasting money.

“The United States has supported Colombia with $10 billion . . . it seems we have lost this money because of the new increase in narco-trafficking and violence,” he said. “Will the international community accept the impunity for narco-traffickers in Colombia? Will the United States continue helping Colombia?”

During the question and answer session, Uribe was asked about possible human rights violations and scandals under his government.

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Several members of the audience questioned him about allegations that he and members of his family were tied to paramilitary groups that were known for attacking the civilian population.

Uribe did not provide detailed comments about the instances related to his close family members but denied such allegations, stating that his security policies only intended to impact guerillas.

“They said armed forces killed 4,000 innocent people. My reply is, how can a country reach security during my years if we did not shoot down guerillas and instead we killed innocent people?” he said.

Uribe also noted that there were a few times when his policies resulted in failure, but instead of recognizing and accepting problems and making the decision to correct these problems, people began to argue and disclaimthose problems.

The talk, entitled “Columbia: Present & Future,” was sponsored by the Wilson School and took place on Tuesday in Dodd Auditorium, Robertson Hall at 4:30 p.m.