COLOMBIA: While everyday life is a shade less tense, two-thirds of Colombians are living under the poverty line, writes Hugh O'Shaughnessy, in Bogota
Alvaro Uribe Velez has just completed a year as president of the Colombia, the third most populous country in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico.
This rich former governor of the department of Antioquia, 50 and bespectacled, whose father was murdered by guerrillas has reason to be content, even proud, after his first 12 months.
Public opinion polls show he has a favourable rating from seven Colombians out of every 10. His severe policies towards the two guerrilla organisations operating here have, it seems, gone down well and the fear which was around two or three years ago that Bogota would be cut off from the rest of the country when insurgents were finally able to sever all its road links have subsided. Everyday life here is a shade less tense. The president has had two important visits in quick succession. First came Gen Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff, who was followed rapidly, if very briefly, by Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary.
US money and material flow rapidly into Colombia, which gets more US aid than any other country apart from Israel and Egypt. They are going to bolster the fight against the left-wing guerrillas. The US forces are snugly stationed around Colombia and private US companies are profitably carrying out other military tasks. Washington is delighted the president is putting up with no nonsense from the judges. He has said he will disregard a court order and continue to spray areas of the country where coca bushes, whose leaves are the raw material for the manufacture of cocaine, with powerful toxins to kill them. Thus he is putting himself forward in the "war on drugs" which President George Bush is seeking to wage with ever greater ferocity, though the results are at best meagre.
The Europeans are also slowly coming round to the Uribe line. Much as they followed the US lead in sending troops to Iraq, Mr Tony Blair in London and Mr Josè Marma Aznar in Madrid have promised troops to President Uribe. In the next few weeks diplomats from many countries will come together to pledge more aid to Colombia. Mr Uribe is certainly in Mr Blair's good books, having been given a government scholarship in 1998 for study at St Antony's College, Oxford.
On May 26th, 2002, he won four years in the presidency resoundingly with 53.1 per cent of the votes, though more voters abstained than cast a ballot. With the motto "a firm hand and a great heart", he took up office.
But the guerrillas, who have been at the centre of the war which has lacerated Colombia since 1948, were on watch. The mortars and dynamite which they set off in this capital on inauguration day killed 17 people and hit Congress only minutes before he was sworn in. The five Colombian ex-presidents and other leaders were lucky to escape. Less than a week later he declared a state of emergency and cut back on citizens' constitutional rights.
Those first decisions have, according to some, set the tone of Mr Uribe's presidency. His opponents recall his close relations with the extreme right when he was governor of Antioquia and the vigour he devoted to setting up vigilante groups committed to denouncing those they felt were in league with the left. During his governorship, was it true that permission was given to pilots to transport drugs on behalf of important local people?
He certainly praised Gen Rito Alejo del Rmo, a local commander accused by human rights organisations of involvement in the most horrific massacres in alliance with the autodefensas or paramilitary death squads formed and armed by landowners and other notables.
Some suspect the president wants to grant an amnesty to such death squads, however many crimes they had committed. Even Senator Darmo Martmnez, an Uribe supporter, warned this month of the damage it could do the country's image: "The message of impunity would be fatal for the Colombian community and the world."
Many journalists meanwhile are uneasy about the government pressure on them. Most Colombians are not so much worried by human rights issues. The economy and the urgent creation of new jobs is a greater preoccupation in a country with enormous social divisions.
According to the National University this week, nearly two-thirds of Colombians are living under the poverty line. According to the UN, more than a quarter of the population live in extreme poverty and one in eight show physical signs of malnutrition.
Mr Uribe's economic record is seen as much less creditable than it is on security. There are dark sides to the man from Antioquia.