2 days ago
A martyr in the making?
History can repeat itself in terrible ways. In January 1991 Diana Turbay, a Colombian journalist and daughter of a former president, was killed on the orders of Pablo Escobar, a drug lord. She had been reporting on the assassinations of presidential candidates at the height of Colombia's violent struggles. Her son, four years old at the time, grew up without a mother.
Last October, Miguel Uribe stood where his mother had died and launched his presidential campaign in her name. 'I suffered first-hand the same pain that millions of Colombians have experienced,' said the then 38-year-old senator of the Democratic Centre (Cd), Colombia's largest right-wing party. He vowed to end the violence that has robbed Colombians of 'lives, hopes and dreams'.
A photo of late Colombian politician Miguel Uribe is displayed during a Memorial Mass in his remembrance, in Miami,(REUTERS)
But on August 11th Mr Uribe died in a clinic in Bogotá, Colombia's capital, from bullets fired by a gunman on June 7th as he campaigned. It was Colombia's worst act of political violence for 35 years. Mr Uribe's four-year-old son was set to start school this week. Instead he will mourn a parent's death, just as his father did.
The country is in shock. Flags are at half mast. Carlos Galán, Bogotá's mayor, declared three days of mourning. (He was 12 when Escobar's hitmen murdered his father, a presidential front-runner, in 1989.) Many Colombians fear that Mr Uribe's assassination may signal a return of the political violence they believed was over.
Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, demanded 'justice for those responsible'. But it remains unclear who ordered the killing. The government of Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first avowedly leftist president, is blaming the Segunda Marquetalia, a dissident group. Security experts are sceptical. The prosecutor's office is unlikely to conclude its investigation before the presidential election next May. Conspiracy theories are proliferating in the gap.
Opponents of Mr Petro have seized on the tragedy to stoke fears of further violence. Vicky Dávila, a journalist who is another presidential hopeful, lambasted Mr Petro on X: 'An opposition candidate was assassinated and your government did not protect him.'
Mr Petro's 'total peace' policy is failing. He has sought to negotiate simultaneously with all illegal groups and gangs. Instead, lawlessness has spread. Kidnappings have increased. The government has shifted towards a harder-line security policy, with military operations to kill prominent commanders. That is 'good for politics and cameras', says Kyle Johnson, an expert on the conflict, but does not solve the problem. Citizens cite security among their main concerns.
Mr Uribe's murder is a 'big blow to the peace agreement' of 2016, says Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's president from 2010 to 2018, the accord's architect. Under its terms, the Marxist revolutionaries of the FARC disbanded. 'The agreement was negotiated to avoid what happened to Miguel,' says Mr Santos. It stipulated security guarantees for the opposition. Had the deal been fully implemented, Mr Uribe would not have been killed, argues Mr Santos. Both Mr Petro's government and the previous one have been blamed for being slow to implement the peace accord.
Colombia's right now lacks a strong candidate. The deceased Harvard-educated senator was a rising star. In 2022 he won his seat backed by Álvaro Uribe (no relation), a former president who founded the Cd. After he was shot in June, Miguel Uribe leapt to the top of voting-intention polls. The conservatives must find and rally behind another compelling candidate.
Disarray in their ranks worsened on August 1st when Álvaro Uribe was sentenced for bribery and perverting the course of justice to 12 years under house arrest. His supporters claim both Uribes are victims of political persecution. The living Mr Uribe would be wise to name a successor to stand for the cd.
The right can at least count on Mr Petro's divisive style of governing. 'He could unite the right in a much better way' than it is doing itself, thinks Mr Santos.
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