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June 4 2013 The New Colombia Peace and prosperity in sight: the country comes of age www.ft.com/new-colombia The New Colombia Contents Comment 5 Many of the republic’s presidents have had a lasting and sometimes unwelcome 8 influence on their successors, says Malcolm Deas Introduction 6 The country is overcoming 26 rugged geography that has long stymied development Editorial Profile Special Reports editor: Michael Skapinker 8 President Juan Manuel Editor: Hugo Greenhalgh Santos has vowed to end the Lead editor: Helen Barrett country’s drug violence but is Production editor: treading a fine political line George Kyriakos Art director: Gavin Brammall Picture editors: Michael Crabtree, John Wellings Sub editor: Philip Parrish Advertising production: 12 Daniel Lesar Contributors Energy John Paul Rathbone is the FT’s 12 The oil industry has Latin America editor boomed following market Andres Schipani is the FT’s liberalisation and an influx Andes correspondent of Venezuelan talent Adam Thomson the FT’s bureau chief in Mexico Security Henry Mance is an FT Companies reporter 14 Expertise gained fighting Naomi Mapstone is the insurgents has developed FT’s Peru correspondent into a thriving export trade Malcolm Deas is an emeritus Colombians to watch fellow, St Antony’s College, Media wars 34 The men and women who University of Oxford 20 New conflicts of interest are setting the agendas in Óscar Naranjo is a senior partner 42 and chairman of Óscar Naranjo & arise, as the balance of power politics, society, business and Partners and a former director of shifts from political elites to culture, at home and abroad the Colombian National Police big business Bogotá nights The big picture 42 The capital’s young For commercial opportunities 26 La Guajira peninsula is an people sound off about their please contact John Moncure at unlikely mixture of semi- hopes and aspirations [email protected] or Alejandra nomadic people, tourism and Mejia at [email protected] mining companies Comment 46 A more service-orientated Infrastructure culture has revolutionised 30 A huge transport upgrade policing, says Óscar Naranjo, programme promises to the former director of the Interactive graphic: Biodiversity ease cross-country journeys Colombian National Police www.ft.com/colombia-biodiversity 3 The New Colombia Eternal leaders Colombian presidents often exert their influence long after they have left office – much to the irritation of some successors, says Malcolm Deas All the same, his candidate, José María Obando, lost the 1837 election and Santander spent the cou- ple of years remaining to him in virulent polemics. When he died, one newspaper commented that his friends should see to it that he was buried with pen, ink and paper, as he would no doubt go on scribbling in his tomb. he politics of Colombia have Other notable presidents have followed Santand- never been typical of Latin er’s example: Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, whose America. The same could be remarkably creative first presidency was followed said of the other countries in the by three later terms in which he achieved much less; region, because generalisations Núñez, who could never quite let go; Miguel Anto- are nearly always wrong. nio Caro, an ultramontane dogmatist who nonethe- T Colombia has been governed less found life not worth living without engaging in predominantly by civilians, who constant public arguments. have gained the presidency through elections where, More recently, Carlos Lleras usually, the outcome was uncertain. Restrepo, who after leaving the Colombia is not Few winners have dominated the country’s politics presidency in 1970 wrote and a deferential for long, and few presidents have been re-elected: published a periodical almost Álvaro Uribe’s two terms, which ran from 2002 to single-handedly, and his cousin, country. 2010, have been matched only by Rafael Núñez’s Alberto Lleras Camargo, who, ascendancy in the 1880s and 1890s. Núñez, for most of Cincinnatus-like, retired to Such a time the time, delegated the exercise of power to his vice- rural Chia. But far from putting never existed presidents, preferring to brood far from the capital, his hand to the plough, he went lulled by the sea breezes in his villa near Cartagena. on writing to the political lead- One result of this system is the existence at any ers in El Tiempo, the country’s leading paper. On the one time of several living ex-presidents. At present, other side of Colombia’s bipartisan divide, Conserva- as well as Uribe, there are four: Belisario Betancur, tive ex-presidents Laureano Gómez and Mariano César Gaviria, Ernesto Samper and Andrés Pastrana. Ospina led their factions from beyond the grave. Of those, only the first can be said to have retired from One exasperated columnist has recently suggested the fray, in his case to devote himself to the arts and the usual remedy in this legalistic republic – that enjoy the tranquillity of provincial Barichara – and there should be a law against this sort of thing, that even he cannot resist the occasional political twitch. somehow ex-presidents should be compelled to keep Colombia has never been an easy country to gov- silent. This is seen as particularly desirable in the ern, and ex-presidents add to complications faced by context of the delicate peace negotiations between any incumbent. This is the case with President Juan Santos’s government and the Farc guerrillas. Manuel Santos and his predecessor, Uribe, whose It cannot be done, and there are many reasons why. prestige is still high and whose exceptional energy is One is human nature: most politicians feel compelled undiminished. Uribe is also a master of Twitter, an to defend their records. instrument only recently available to those who have Others are perhaps more Colombian: there is no left office. Some Colombians look back to a past age House of Lords where such figures can be put out to when ex-presidents supposedly behaved with more grass and no presidential memorial libraries – at least restraint, receiving in return the respect and defer- not for the living. ence that few of them enjoyed while in office. Followings insist their leaders continue to lead. Colombia is not a deferential country. Such a time The country is a disputatious democracy where no never existed. Francisco de Paula Santander, the rival one is censored and all have a right to be heard. Suc- to Simón Bolívar and founding president of the inde- cess in making peace must take that into account. n pendent republic, recognised that the only way to govern its vast and poorly integrated territory was by Malcolm Deas is an emeritus fellow of St Antony’s College constant long-distance networking, assiduous parti- and lecturer in the government and politics of Latin san journalism and the full range of electoral arts. America at the University of Oxford 5 The New Colombia coReundiscovertred y For decades the rugged Andean landscape harboured crime and violence, but today regional pride is emerging in a revived economy. By John Paul Rathbone ric Hobsbawm, the Brit- appeared to be something else, because ish historian who died nothing was necessarily what it seemed. last year, had an abiding Still, as Ilearnt then and for ever remem- affection for South Amer- ber, Colombia’s tortured topography ica. He first visited in the explains much about the country. Often 1960s and returned often. impassable terrain can lead to hugely dif- “Nobody who discovers ferent yet adjacent micro-climates – be ESouth America can resist they ecological, social or political. the region,” he once wrote. Thus, Paris Hilton, the American heir- I first travelled to Colombia in the ess, has opened a boutique in Bogotá sell- mid-1980s and, like Hobsbawm, could ing accessories (modernity has it pluses Geography has left not resist what I saw. Two years later I and minuses). Meanwhile, 150km away returned to write a tourist guide, having in Boyacá, campesinos, peasants seem- much of Colombia out persuaded a publisher of the brio of the ingly drawn from medieval times, use Colombians and the remarkable biodi- the archaic if charming address of “su of sight, out of mind versity of their country, with its Carib- merced”, meaning “your mercy”. bean and Pacific coasts, Amazon jungle, Indeed, for much of the country, Bogotá grassy plains and rolling, if often impen- remains a remote and distant capital. And evolved from nearly failed state in the etrable, central mountains. if the state’s reach has failed to penetrate 1980s into the can-do emerging power of If it was a romantic vision, the honey- some regions, that has often been simply today is more or less well known, even if moon ended abruptly and on an exact because it could not get there. its costs are not always fully appreciated. date: August 18 1989, when the Medellín Successive governments attacked and drug cartel killed presidential candidate Age-old battles balkanised the drug cartels into smaller Luis Carlos Galán. Bomb attacks, kidnap- That is partly why Colombia has hosted criminal groups. These no longer pose a pings and assassinations (especially of one of the world’s oldest guerrilla insur- systemic threat and violence has dropped judges and journalists) were soon routine. gencies. Geography is a veil that has left sharply, even if narco-trafficking persists Writing a tourist guide became an much of the country out of sight, out of and will continue to do so while illegal anomaly. Surely I was CIA, many disbe- reach and out of mind. drugs remain highly profitable. lieving Colombians asked. In those con- How the world’s most populous In the 2000s, Álvaro Uribe, then-presi- fusing, fear-filled days, everything often Spanish-speaking nation, after Mexico, dent, launched an all-out offensive on the 6 The New Colombia the food producer – have expanded It is, perhaps, the most “Anglo-Saxon” 300 km abroad and become true multilatinas, country in Latin America – as can be Caribbean Sea with market capitalisations to match.

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