This source is coverage by the Public Broadcasting Service journalist Ray Suarez of the election of Alvaro Uribe to the Colombian Presidency. The report begins by describing the explosions that took place on the day Uribe was inaugurated. Uribe was elected on a hardline platform of law and order to defeat the FARC. Suarez covers how the U.S. had been working on changing its policies with regards to Plan Colombia in order to implicate Colombia in the war on terror.
Along with contextualizing the election of Uribe, Suarez also uses interviews of locals caught up in the violence conducted by both the guerillas and paramilitaries to show how bad the situation in Colombia had gotten. While this report did provide solid coverage of the events, its fast paced coverage of the situation can be compared with a PBS report from two years prior that slowly explained how Plan Colombia had many different perspectives. This report paints Colombia as an especially violent country plagued by terrorism, it does provide multiple perspectives, but it shows how dramatic media coverage can lead to support for an increased U.S. military presence.
RAY SUAREZ: During the campaign, Uribe staked out a hard-line position against Colombia’s guerrilla rebels– rebels who assassinated his father and who tried to kill Uribe himself more than a dozen times. While his predecessor, Andres Pastrana, invited rebel leaders to the peace table, Uribe says he wants to attack them, and he’s pledged to double the size of the army. It’s a strategy that Uribe has said fits in the context of the world’s newest war.
PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE (Translated): Acts of terrorism in Colombia have the potential to destabilize South American democracy. It’s a conflict that could affect 380 million citizens, so Europe and the U.S. and the Democratic world need to help us in our fight.
RAY SUAREZ: That fight has escalated in the past year. In February, outgoing President Pastrana ended peace talks with the main left wing rebel group. It’s known by its Spanish acronym, FARC. 17,000 strong, the rebels have close ties with Colombia’s drug growers, who provide 90% of America’s cocaine. Talks broke down when, according to Pastrana, the guerrillas hijacked a plane carrying a Colombian senator. Pastrana then told his army to invade rebel territory, and he sent this warning to the FARC:
PRESIDENT ANDRES PASTRANA (Translated): It is you who will have to answer to Colombia and to the world for your arrogance and your deceit. This is why I’ve made the decision of not continuing with the peace process with the FARC.
RAY SUAREZ: Around the same time, the FARC stepped up its own attacks. The rebels eluded their pursuers and took the war to the cities.
CYNTHIA ARNSON, Woodrow Wilson Center: I think absolutely the war is going to get worse before it gets better.
RAY SUAREZ: Cynthia Arnson is deputy director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. CYNTHIA ARNSON: The guerillas have mounted an urban terror campaign in an explicit effort to take the war to the cities. They have attacked the economic infrastructure systematically. They have threatened local and municipal officials, threatening them with death if they don’t resign their posts. And I think the explicit purpose of these kinds of measures is to make the country ungovernable.
RAY SUAREZ: Colombia’s armed forces outnumber the FARC by five to one, but the army has long been absent in many rural areas. That void has been filled by right-wing paramilitary squads, sworn enemies of the FARC. All the combatants have been linked to war atrocities. Since 1997, the State Department has labeled both the FARC and the paramilitaries as “terrorist organizations.” These attacks have taken a heavy toll on civilians, who do not want their identities known.
Suarez, Ray. “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” American Archive of Public Broadcasting, August 7, 2002. https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-959c53fn74?start=1695.6&end=2299.49.