Colombia: President Santos Making Prudent Foreign Policy Moves

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has made two significant moves in his country's foreign policy in the past week.

Santos has made several prudent foreign policy drives this
week, including a plan to normalize relations with Chavez's Venezuela. 

First, Santos' government announced that they would reestablish diplomatic ties with Venezuela that were severed last year when former President Alvaro Uribe alleged that Chavez was providing the FARC with material assistance. The two neighbouring countries will reportedly meet to discuss trade and border security, two issues of great importance towards regional integration and security.

The Democratic Security Strategy has dealt the FARC several significant set backs, such as the killing of top commanders (Raul Reyes in Ecuador in 2008, and Mono Jojoy on Sept 22nd, 2010)  and the demobilization of thousands of guerrillas. Reconciling with Venezuela will increase cooperation between the two militaries in patrolling the border, thereby eliminating one of the last areas of refuge for the guerrillas.  Stabilizing relations will lower tensions in the region, which have become a polarized with Chavez's (and other leftist leader's) continued criticism of US foreign policy and Colombia's decision in 2009 to grant the US access to seven military bases throughout Colombia.

Santos has also said that he expects a Colombia-Venezuela free trade agreement to become manifest by April 2011. These are very ambitious goals, especially given the ideological tension between the two governments and the recent history of foreign policy antagonisms. The  president of Colombia's National Business Association, Luis Carlos Villegas, announced in Aug that Colombia has found new markets for over two billion dollars previously exported to Venezuela. Bilateral trade between the two antagonists fell by 73% over the first quarter compared to the year before due to an informal ban over bilateral trade initiated by Venezuela. This new trade relationship will again increase demand for Colombian non traditional-exports (since Venezuela has oil a-plenty), and hopefully stay the feared Dutch Disease.

This economic condition occurs when a rise in natural resource production brings in a large amount of foreign capital and foreign direct investment, causing the national currency to appreciate and make every other of the nation's exports relatively more expensive for importing market. This happened to Colombia during the 1970s coffee boom, and some experts fear that  their rising export in oil is making it happen again. The Economist, in a special report on Latin America, has also noted the potential for Dutch Disease.  While Colombian oil exports increased by 80%, textile exports decreased by 53% in 2009. Oil production in September 2010 is higher than at any other point in the last ten years. The Colombian Central Bank statistics show that in 2002 44% of FDI was invested in the oil sector, and this figure rose to 77% in 2009. While resuming trade with Venezuela is not expected to be a panacea solution for this economic condition, it can at least be expected to mitigate against some of its effects.

Second, Santos has sought to further strengthen ties with the US, but instead seeking to reestablish their relationship as one between partners and equals instead of one of dependency between aid donor and receiver.

US Ambassador to Colombia, Michael McKinley, has spoken to Santos about forming an "alliance". The US has been hesitant to offer strictly termed 'alliances' in the past, instead preferring lesser informal agreements like 'Strategic Partnership's', or "Mutual Cooperation Treaty's". Israel for the longest time could not get the US to offer them an explicit alliance, despite being the number one recipient of US military aid for several years. So this is big news for Colombia. It represents the US recognition of Colombia as being fundamentally integral to US security interests, especially as the number one producer of cocaine that is trafficked to the US. It has given Colombia more than 8 billion dollars to fight counterinsurgency campaigns and drug enforcement in the past 10 years.

However, while the US does require that the Colombian military respect international Human Rights obligations as a condition on receiving this aid, it is becoming increasingly apparent that neo-paramilitary forces are committing widespread abuses which according to eyewitness account are operation with tacit consent from the authorities. A Human Rights Watch publication from earlier this year titled "Paramilitaries Heirs" chronicles these abuses, often committed against trade unionists, human rights activists, and victims of past crimes seeking restitution. The report alleges that the government is dragging its feet over countering these forces, because it would mean that their demobilization program of the Autodefensas Unidos de Colombia has been a total failure. Forcing the military to take action against them is also problematic, because Colombia's military has a much higher degree of autonomy from the civilian administration than us in the West are used to. In fact, it was a big triumph for Colombian democracy to even be able to replace the Minister of Defense with a civilian, or to compel them to mind Human Rights obligations and training. One of the institutional prerogatives they have retained over the nation's history is the right to determine for themselves what issues they should be focusing on. And right now, they been almost singularly focused on fighting the FARC, and be hesitant to pursue the paramilitaries because of their perceived superior ability they have to root out guerrilla sympathizers in civil society.

In any case, the paramilitaries are becoming an increasingly large menace that adds yet another actor to terrorize Colombians.  The paras perhaps even rival the threat posed by the guerrillas to the rule of law in this society because they are more enmeshed in civil society whereas the guerrillas are forced outside the bounds of it.

While the US continues to provide the Santos administration with support to extend the rule of law across all its sovereign territory, hopefully the US government can use its influence to Santos administration to address this growing human rights concern.