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BOGOTA (AlertNet) - A sharp fall in kidnapping and murder rates along with heavy losses suffered by the FARC have made Colombian President Alvaro Uribe the most popular leader in his country's history. But while many Colombians credit the hardliner with sa
BOGOTA (AlertNet) - A sharp fall in kidnapping and murder rates along with heavy losses suffered by the FARC have made Colombian President Alvaro Uribe the most popular leader in his country's history. But while many Colombians credit the hardliner with saving the country from being overrun by guerrillas, observers note he has had little success in narrowing the wealth gap or tackling a massive displacement crisis.
A stern Oxford and Harvard educated lawyer, Uribe's popularity ratings have hovered above 60 percent throughout his term in office, which will end in August after eight years.
The president's overriding legacy is his so-called Democratic Security Policy that has seen a U.S.-backed military crackdown against leftist rebels from the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) weaken the guerrilla movement and put it on the back foot.
The improved security has lured foreign investors in recent years. Uribe has overseen a fivefold increase in direct foreign investment and robust economic growth during his two consecutive terms.
Despite these successes, Uribe has done little to narrow the wide gap between rich and poor. Just under half of Colombia's population of 45 million lives in poverty.
And far less progress has been made in stemming the high numbers of villagers and farmers driven from their homes as they flee violence as part of Colombia's decades-long armed conflict.
At least 3.3 million Colombians have been forcibly displaced during the last three decades, ranking Colombia second after Sudan in numbers of internally displaced people (IDP).
In 2008, 300,000 new people were added to the displaced list, up from 230,000 four years earlier, according to government figures.
"The main blemish in the government's Democratic Security Policy is displacement. Uribe can show good figures on murder and kidnapping rates but not on displacement. The majority of Colombia's displaced population, over 2,300,000 people, were displaced during his government," said Jorge Rojas, president of the Bogota-based Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a local non-governmental group.
INVISIBLE PROBLEM
While the numbers of displaced are high, the problem goes unnoticed in some parts.
Walking along the tidy streets of north Bogota, for example, with its trendy restaurants and penthouse apartments, it is easy to forget that the capital city is home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced refugees.
A city of eight million people, Bogota is sharply divided between the affluent northern neighbourhoods and the impoverished southern hilltop shanty towns where most displaced families live, largely hidden from view from Colombia's elite.
"In Colombia, there are no huge refugee camps like in Sudan. Here displacement is very invisible," said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International.
Under Uribe, the military has intensified its offensive against the rebels and skirmishes between government troops and rebels take place almost every day, concentrated in FARC strongholds in the southern jungle provinces near Colombia's border with Ecuador. While this strategy has improved overall security, the communities living there, mainly Afro-Colombian and indigenous groups, are increasingly caught in the crossfire.
"The dynamics of the conflict have changed," said Pollack. "It has dispersed away from the urban cities to the peripheries were many Afro-Colombians and indigenous groups live, making them more vulnerable and increasingly hard hit."
The Uribe government defends its record on tackling the country's displacement crisis. The annual state budget for IDPs has increased more than five-fold since 2000, while the number of displaced families receiving healthcare, schooling and state humanitarian assistance, usually a three-month subsidy, has increased.
But greater state spending has not made the lives of Colombia's displaced significantly better, says the country's constitutional court. A typical displaced family of five lives in abject poverty, surviving on less that US$10 a day. The court has ruled that the Uribe government has not fulfilled its legal obligations to provide housing, job opportunities and training for displaced women and their families.
"Despite all the money being spent, a chronic human rights crisis still goes on," said Rojas. "IDPs continue to live in a precarious situation. That won't change unless the government starts to see displaced people as victims of the conflict and not just as people who need to be given a government handout for three months."
The country's displacement crisis has barely featured on the campaign trail in the run-up to Colombia's presidential elections this Sunday. The issue was only touched on briefly during one of more than six televised presidential debates.
For Uribe's likely successor, former defense minister Juan Manual Santos, Colombia's displacement crisis remains a major challenge that shows little sign of abating.
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