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Here is a man of unfettered courage and determination. Undaunted by assassination attempts and death threats on his family, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, former president of Colombia, took on the Marxist rebels who undermined the well-being of his country. I interviewed him on my radio show; he is a living hero of mine. Perhaps we can all remember the noble root of the word politics more often, and honor it in word and deed as this man did.
In August 2002, Álvaro Uribe Vélez stood proudly in the capital city of Bogotá, Colombia, about to be inaugurated as the fiftieth president of Colombia.
Minutes before the presidential sash was draped around his neck, explosions shook the city of Bogotá, not in celebration of Columbia’s new president, but in an attempt to kill him.
The bombings killed twenty-two innocent civilians and injured more than forty people near the national parliament and presidential palace. It was a message from the Marxist, rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to President Uribe who had promised, as president, to eviscerate the armed guerrilla drug cartels that were ravaging Colombia.
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With the FARC and paramilitary groups hijacking the country for their own drug-powered Marxist regimes, the fate of Colombia’s democracy hung in the balance when Uribe took office.
“Half of the people of my country, 50 percent of forty-seven million Colombians, have suffered the same as my family,” Uribe told me. “It has been a long nightmare because of narcoterrorists. We have to fight the best we can for the new generations to enjoy the right to live in peace and prosperity.”
This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that the FARC had threatened President Uribe and his family. But it would never be enough to intimidate or stop his mission. The Greek statesman Pericles said that courage was the essence of democracy. Uribe epitomized that courage; he is a man peerless among politicians, a George Washington of Colombia.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez was born in Medellín, Colombia. Widely considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Medellín was home to the deadly Medellín Cartel run by the infamous Pablo Escobar, arguably the most elusive and successful drug lord in world history.
After studying law at the University of Antioquia, Uribe began his political career in the Empresas Públicas de Medellín and in the Ministry of Labor and in the Civil Aeronautic. He became the mayor of Medellín in 1982, and he was thrust headfirst into the drug wars.
In 1983, Uribe’s father was killed by FARC guerrillas during a kidnapping attempt. After his father’s death, Uribe vowed to use his political career, his life in the polis, to protect his family and country from the Marxist rebels. He served as a senator from 1986 to 1994, as governor of Antioquia from 1995 to 1997, and eventually as president of Colombia starting in 2002.
Uribe campaigned for president on the promise of fearlessly fighting the FARC and reclaiming Colombian land from the drug lords. He won the election in a landslide. As president, Uribe took the fight to FARC’s doorstep. He forced rebels out of Colombia’s cities and back into the countryside, senior rebel commanders were killed, and rebels began to desert. The number of kidnappings and homicides dropped, drug production decreased, and it was safe again for Colombians to travel on the highways. He brought a measure of peace, unknown for more than four decades, back to the lives of everyday Colombians.
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In the process, Uribe became the closest ally of the United States in Latin America. In his memoir, Known and Unknown, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “[I]n President Álvaro Uribe, we had the most skillfull partner we could have hoped for . . . Uribe was unafraid to take on the FARC and reclaim Colombian territory.”
Uribe’s success didn’t come without a fight. During his tenure as president from 2002 to 2010, the rebels tried to assassinate him no less than fifteen times. In April 2002, guerrillas detonated a bomb in a bus along the same route Uribe’s convoy was using in the city of Barranquilla. The explosion killed three civilians and injured thirteen, but the armor of his vehicle saved Uribe.
Every day of his presidency Uribe risked life and limb to protect his fellow citizens. In the end, perhaps his greatest accomplishment was restoring the trust of the Colombian people in their own country—their own polis.
“Many Colombians had lost faith,” Uribe said. “As president of Colombia, my greatest achievement was to create awareness among the people that the country could be secure, prosperous, and equitable.”
When Uribe took office, Rumsfeld wrote that “Colombia was leaning on the verge of becoming a failed state, a haven for drugs and terrorists.” After eight years, Uribe transformed Colombia. The economy boomed. International business, which used to avoid Colombia, now considers it one of the top business destinations in Latin America. The investment rate rose from 15 percent of gross domestic product when he took office in 2002 to 25 percent at the end of his second term.
In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare prophesied, “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
Álvaro Uribe Vélez both achieved greatness and had it thrust upon him. The people of Colombia, a country on the brink of becoming a failed state, were begging for a leader—a leader who experienced the problem firsthand and understood what it took to overcome the problem.
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“This problem is a problem of determination; it’s a problem of courage to overcome setbacks and all the difficulties,” Uribe told me humbly. “Colombia was at the brink of becoming a failed state. But because of the determination of the Colombian people, the courage of our armed forces, and the help of the United States, Colombia has made significant progress.”
Uribe’s own ambitions and goals were strong indeed, but they were one with the ends of his society. His was not a sterile or selfish ambition. He was, as Pericles wrote long ago, most about his own business when he was about the business of the city, his polis.