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One of Bill Clinton's last acts in office was his release of the second half of the $1.3 billion to Colombia. Shockingly, the military aid, which was supposed to be linked to human rights improvements, was released as news reports were coming in about the most horrific of a growing number of massacres committed by the paramilitary. The bludgeoning of 26 men in the village of Chengue was the latest in a series of political killings by these right-wing death squads, financed by the narco-traffickers and linked to the military we are training and supporting with Plan Colombia.
Skepticism about Plan Colombia is not limited to Congress. Even retired Gen. Wes Clark, who as commander of all U.S. military forces in Latin America was directly involved in the shaping of the strategy, has his doubts. "Fundamentally," he told me, "this is a political and a social problem, not a military problem. Colombia is a stratified society, which has failed to account for the aspirations and needs of all its citizens despite the fact that it's the longest-running democracy in South America."
Trying to figure out what would convince Manuel Marulanda, the 70-year-old guerrilla leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to put down his guns and end the 40-year-old civil war has not been easy. But two very unlikely emissaries have been working at it.
Jim Kimsey, the founder of AOL, and real estate magnate Joe Robert are the only two Americans Marulanda has ever met with -- other than the capitalists he's kidnapped. Flying into the Colombian jungle in Kimsey's private plane, and against the advice of the State Department, they met with Marulanda for four and a half hours.
As a show of good faith, Robert and Kimsey offered to bring in Operation Smile doctors to provide reconstructive surgery for some of the guerrillas' children born with genetic defects. Looking at the "before and after" videos Robert showed me, you could see how these children, who had been ostracized as "monsters," had not just their faces but their lives transformed.
"The best part, in terms of peace," Robert says, "was that the guerrillas credited President Pastrana, who had allowed the doctors to fly into FARC-controlled territory." As Bill Magee, the head of Operation Smile put it: "The world is changed by emotion. It has nothing to do with reason."
Practicing random acts of leadership can be a shortcut to touching even the most battle-hardened hearts. And in Colombia, shortcuts may be all that's left because the window for peace is closing fast. Pastrana's term is up in May 2002, and he cannot run for re-election.
"If we are going to succeed in Colombia," Kimsey told me, "we have to stop practicing 'karate foreign policy' and take more of a 'jujitsu' approach -- using the strength of our opponents to our advantage."
Kimsey hopes to flip the dynamic in the region by helping arrange a peace summit outside Colombia. "I know it's quixotic," he says, "but if we really intend to see results, rather than simply continue talking, we have to be able to get all the principals -- the government, the rebels and the paramilitaries -- in the same room."
He and Robert recently met with Fidel Castro in Havana for seven and half hours. "Given that Marulanda has been in the jungle for 40 years," Kimsey explains, "he might be more likely to agree to a summit if it takes place in a country that he considers sympathetic to his cause."
If they manage to pull it off, Jimmy Carter has agreed to moderate. Although Secretary of State Colin Powell has expressed his preference for leaving foreign policy to "the experts," he knows Kimsey well, having served on AOL's board. And, after all, he did say during his confirmation hearing that he doesn't "think there is a military solution" to the problems plaguing Colombia.
As for Rep. Jim Kolbe, who has just taken over as chairman of the House Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee, he told me that, although he reserves final judgment until he visits Colombia next month, he is "very dubious about how effective Plan Colombia is going to be."
Couple these sentiments with new Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's recent assertion that drugs are "overwhelmingly a demand problem," and it's clear that there will be a different mood in Washington when Pastrana comes to the nation's capital on Feb. 27.
While there is a faint hope of working with Marulanda, there is absolutely no hope of reaching any peace agreement unless Pastrana gets serious about isolating the paramilitaries. During his meeting with Marulanda last week, Pastrana agreed to create a commission to look at ways to restrain them. But Pastrana has to send a much more powerful message to the military that the time has come to unequivocally treat the growing paramilitaries not as collaborators of the military but as enemies of the state.
The question now facing the new administration was summed up by Kimsey: "How can we separate reducing the flow of cocaine out of Colombia from the political and ideological battles that surround it?" Demanding that Pastrana treat the paramilitaries, who are increasingly involved in narco-trafficking themselves, as the drug thugs that they are would be a good start.
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