CONTRERAS: What convinced you that your life was in danger? SANTOS: I didn’t receive a [death] threat. But if your environment changes, you start to think that something is wrong. In January I started seeing [unknown] cars around my house that had been there just the day before. Then I saw cars following me. Two weeks before I left, some people were sifting through garbage outside the housing complex where I live. Something exploded and two people were injured.
Do you think you’ve been targeted on account of the anti-kidnapping protests that you helped launch last year? At first I thought so, [but] I think it has a broader scope. The FARC forces are creating a huge criminal extortion ring in Bogota and [the surrounding province of] Cundinamarca. We uncovered that and told the authorities, and [I figured] that’s when they gave the order to kill me. But I’ve come to realize that that was an excuse and maybe the [FARC] secretariat knew about it.
Are you saying the order to kill you was taken at the highest levels of the FARC leadership? I don’t rule it out at all. They’re Stalinists, they have that type of mind. What they did was to take out the person who was an obstacle to their business and was helping to mobilize millions of Colombians [as well as being] the editor of the most important paper. That sends a very clear message to journalists and peace activists. But they didn’t take me out of the game, they just forced me to play in another stadium.
Senior FARC officials have accused the protest organizers of being biased because they downplayed human-rights atrocities committed by the Colombian Army and right-wing paramilitary death squads. That’s bulls–. [The protests are] a message of the people. On the same day that peace talks with the government [began], there were 12 million people marching in the streets of Colombia. The FARC leaders don’t like that.
Is your situation another argument in favor of the Clinton administration’s proposal to send $1.6 billion in aid to Colombia? The Colombia Plan is inevitable. But I would want to see a couple of things [changed] before the Colombia Plan is approved. I would love to see a clause whereby if the peace process moves ahead more quickly, more of the military aid could be transformed into social assistance.
Is it more dangerous now for Colombian journalists than it was 10 years ago when you yourself were kidnapped by the drug lords? It’s not as targeted [now]. But it’s as dangerous as then because you don’t where the threats might come from. It’s not one enemy like Escobar who you could pinpoint.
Last November you told The New York Times “people are really fed up… feeling impotent and forced into a corner.” But doesn’t your departure fuel that sense of impotence? Obviously that feeling is there. Everybody says, “Jesus Christ, if Francisco Santos had to leave…” But this is not a personal battle, this is a battle against society.
Would you like to see the U.S. government play a more active and direct role in Colombia’s counterinsurgency campaign? I think the international community should get more involved. It doesn’t mean soldiers. It means political pressure, it means putting Colombia in the spotlight and pressuring the government and the guerrillas heavily through international means to stop hurting civilians.
Colombia has produced world-renowned authors, musicians and artists, yet 10 people die in political violence every day and it has a per capita murder rate that dwarfs the comparable figures for the United States. Why is your country such a violent land? Its own creative possibilities generate the best and the worst. One of the main reasons is a political system that hasn’t been able to deal with conflict. I remember a Nicaraguan ambassador who once said to me, “You guys in Colombia don’t know the term ‘mediocrity.’ You have the best and the smartest and the most erudite and you also have the most incredible gangsters.” It’s something that I don’t understand.
