Pastrana Arango, Andres

▪ 1999

      The election of Andres Pastrana Arango as Colombia's new president on June 21, 1998, inspired cautious hope for a peaceful resolution to more than three decades of leftist guerrilla warfare. Backed by the Conservative Party, Pastrana won over 50% of the vote in a second-round runoff to defeat Liberal candidate Horacio Serpa Uribe. Acting immediately on his campaign promise to initiate peace talks, President-elect Pastrana held an unprecedented secret meeting with the leader of the country's largest insurgent group. Just days prior to his August 7 inauguration, however, guerrillas engaged in coordinated attacks on police and army bases and other targets across the country, killing some 130 persons and wounding scores. Although the rebels claimed that the bloodshed was a send-off for outgoing Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano, some political analysts suspected that it was a show of strength before the start of formal negotiations. Nonetheless, Pastrana remained determined to lead the peace process.

      Born on Aug. 17, 1954, in Bogotá, Colom., Pastrana was the son of Misael Pastrana Borrero, Conservative president of Colombia from 1970 to 1974. Pastrana earned a graduate degree in public law from San Carlos College in Bogotá and later studied at the Center of International Affairs at Harvard University. During the 1980s he worked as a television journalist and a city councilman. From 1988 to 1990 Pastrana served as Bogotá's first popularly elected mayor, and in 1991 he won a seat in the Senate.

      Pastrana first ran for president in 1994 but lost to Samper. Shortly afterward, he publicly released audio recordings of Samper campaign officials soliciting donations from the Cali drug cartel. Although Samper was eventually exonerated, the allegation tarnished his administration and led to further civil unrest and economic disintegration. The situation also produced a backlash against Pastrana for having brought the charge to light, forcing him to spend much time outside Colombia as a consultant to the UN. Pastrana's success in the presidential race four years later was, therefore, thought to be a personal vindication as well as a signal of the public's growing intolerance with the scandal-plagued Liberal Party.

      The change of government seemed to promise a turning point for Colombia on several fronts. Pastrana pledged not only to end the guerrilla war but also to crack down on political corruption, institute reforms to bolster the faltering economy, and combat drug trafficking. Still, many political observers were apprehensive. Pastrana inherited a country with a volatile brew of aggressive and well-financed left-wing rebel groups zealously opposed by the military and right-wing paramilitary organizations. He also faced a powerful narcotics industry, whose drug money infiltrated almost every level of society.

AFRODITE MANTZAVRAKOS

* * *