For years, Colombia’s political elite dismissed Gustavo Petro’s allegations.
Relentlessly denouncing ties among the nation’s lawmakers, government officials and paramilitary death squads, the diminutive leftist guerrilla-turned-legislator became one of the most formidable adversaries of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, an important Washington ally in Latin America.
Defying death threats, he sported a bulletproof jacket and traveled with nine bodyguards. The president himself described the lawmaker and other former guerrillas now in politics as “terrorists in business suits” — an explosive allegation in a nation where scores of leftist politicians have been assassinated.
But Petro’s credibility and profile have soared in recent months as Colombia became engulfed in a “para-politico” scandal that has lent credence to many of Petro’s allegations.
“At the beginning, I was undoubtedly alone,” said Petro, 46, seated in his office in downtown Bogota. “I was physically afraid. But as this has developed in a positive way, today I don’t feel alone. It’s starting to have a snowball effect.”
Eight lawmakers — most of them Uribe allies — have been arrested on allegations they plotted assassinations, rigged elections or otherwise collaborated with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a coalition of paramilitary groups that slaughtered hundreds of civilians in a decades-long “dirty war” against leftist insurgents.
Uribe remains popular because of his tough, no-nonsense image, but the scandal has been his most severe political blow since taking office in 2002. Among those tainted by the scandal is Maria Consuelo Araujo, who resigned as foreign minister in February after evidence surfaced that her brother, Sen. Alvaro Araujo, and her father had ties to Rodrigo Tovar, one of Colombia’s most notorious paramilitary commanders.
Jorge Noguera, a former Uribe campaign official who headed Colombia’s intelligence service from 2002 to 2005, is under investigation on allegations he provided the right-wing militias with what amounted to a hit list of leftist activists. Several people on the list were killed.
Also under arrest is Col. Hernan Mejia, a highly decorated army officer who allegedly received $12,500 a month in payoffs from Tovar to allow the paramilitary commander’s forces to act freely, according to the Colombian newsmagazine Semana.
According to the magazine, Mejia also demanded that Tovar’s forces provide him with dead bodies so Mejia could show them to his commanders and prove that he was successfully battling Marxist guerrillas.
“It’s likely a wave of colonels and generals are going to be swallowed up by the scandal,” said Adam Isacson, director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank.
While the Colombian Supreme Court and the attorney general’s office are now responsible for investigating the “para-politico” scandal, Colombian lawmakers and experts give Petro credit for almost single-handedly exposing the links among the AUC, public officials and politicians over the past four or five years.
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Disillusioned with system
Born in the town of Cienaga de Oro in northwestern Colombia, Petro said he became disillusioned with what he described as Colombia’s elitist, autocratic political system and joined the M-19 guerrilla movement in the late 1970s when he was 17 years old. Petro worked as a community organizer for the insurgents before he was captured and tortured by military authorities and imprisoned for nearly two years.
Following his release in 1987, Petro spent two years in hiding and resurfaced after a peace accord between M-19 and the Colombian government that included an amnesty for the guerrillas. Petro ran for Congress and was elected in 1991. Last year he received the second-most votes of any senatorial candidate in national elections.
“It’s an obvious indicator that there are millions of Colombians who are now accompanying me,” he said in the interview. “I also have to say that there are millions of Colombians who have not liked what I’ve done.”
Petro’s most blistering words have come on the floor of the Colombian Congress, where he has denounced fellow lawmakers as paramilitary lackeys, accused a former attorney general of covering up paramilitary massacres and described Uribe’s peace and disarmament accord with the AUC as a charade.
“The president lied to Colombian society,” Petro said last October during a congressional debate. “Colombia is left with a new paramilitarism, trafficking, sacking and destroying democracy in a good part of the national territory.”
Living almost ‘like a prisoner’
Rafael Pardo, a senator, former defense minister and one-time ally of Uribe’s, credits Petro with “holding a very firm line” despite relentless attacks from critics who describe Petro as a loose cannon and rebel sympathizer.
“He’s been very brave,” Pardo said. “He deserves the recognition that he has been given.”
Leon Valencia, a Colombian analyst and former guerrilla, warned that Petro remains under threat because of the continued power of Colombia’s right-wing militias and their allies in the military and government.
“It’s very risky for him to do this,” Valencia said. “He’s taking on very dangerous forces.”
Petro said he has learned of two assassination plots against him in the past four years.
On three occasions he has fled temporarily into exile after receiving death threats. In addition to the omnipresent bodyguards, Petro travels in an armored vehicle, his apartment is fortified against attack and he never wanders the streets of Bogota.
“I live practically like a prisoner,” said Petro, whose five children also take security precautions. “I have no possibility of doing what normal people do.”
He is not complaining. If anything, he is emboldened by the recent arrests of prominent politicians and security officials, along with the increasing willingness of average Colombians to denounce massacres and other atrocities committed by the death squads.
“I feel satisfaction because we are beginning to see mothers recovering the cadavers of their children, discovering mass graves, and politicians are going to prison,” he said.
Petro is scheduled to lead a congressional hearing Tuesday on the growth of paramilitary activity in the northwestern Colombian state of Antioquia during Uribe’s tenure as governor there from 1995 to 1997.
Petro said he has collected the names of more than 2,000 Colombians with ties to the paramilitary groups — from ranchers to former legislators to priests.
But he predicted Colombia’s elite, aided by members of its security and intelligence agencies, almost surely will try to block the “para-politico” investigations. That, he said, would further harm a nation already under the influence of outlaw militias and drug cartels.
“They are going to try to isolate the judicial sector that is investigating them, denigrate them and destroy them morally and economically,” Petro said. “If that happens, the consequences will be more violence, more destabilization and the building of a true narco-state.”
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