Álvaro Uribe's arrest rekindles political polarization in Colombia

By AP

Hero or villain? In Colombia, former President Álvaro Uribe is both. The division generated by his figure and the wide split in Colombian society born of the violence experienced for generations - and which diminished with the peace agreement reached with the insurgents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016 - were later rekindled. that the ex-president received a measure of house arrest for a case of alleged tampering with witnesses .

And to exacerbate the drama of that situation, a spokesman for the Democratic Center party, to which Uribe belongs, said on Wednesday that the former president tested positive for the coronavirus . The representative spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Hours earlier, a medical team had visited Uribe for 20 minutes. The Colombian media reported that he was in good health.

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The ruling that the Supreme Court of Justice issued on Tuesday this week to detain the 68-year-old former president, who is still a political force in the country despite leaving the presidency a decade ago, exposed the tensions in a Latin American democracy that it is divided over who should be held accountable for alleged crimes linked to Colombia's brutal history .

It occurs at a difficult time for the nation, as the Government tries to contain the coronavirus and endures the harsh economic consequences of a months-long confinement.

They order the house arrest of former President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe

"Now we are going to add, let's say, greater political polarization," said Juan Manuel Charry, a Colombian lawyer and constitutional analyst. He noted that the court ruling "breaks a long historical tradition that, although the former presidents of the republic had been tried, none had been detained in preventive detention ."

Detractors of the former president said that the decision of the highest court should be respected pending the investigation of Uribe, who currently serves as senator and has denied having committed any illegal action.

[Former President of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, testifies in the Supreme Court]

"No one is above the law," tweeted the mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, who is critical of Uribe and who as an investigator had analyzed some cases that show complicity between politicians and paramilitary groups.

The Attorney General's Office reminded officials and public servants that they must abide by judicial decisions, in reference to the decision made by the Supreme Court against Uribe.

Former President Álvaro Uribe tests COVID-19

In a statement, the attorney general's office indicated that “it is imperative” for all branches of the public power to abide by and comply with the decisions made by the highest court. "No public servant can promote or encourage non-compliance," he said.

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In the presidency, Uribe was an austere hard- line president whose US-backed military successes against the rebels gave him enormous popularity during his 2002-2010 term. He was detained because of his alleged links to paramilitary groups, which had been organized by landowners, sometimes with the complicity of the state, to combat guerrillas who defended a leftist ideology while resorting to kidnapping and extortion.

The result was a brutal bloodshed in which generally civilians were victims of human rights violations , and carried out by various armed groups in murky circumstances.

The court ruling infuriated Uribe's supporters, who questioned why he was being detained while former FARC leaders remain free and even enjoy representation in Congress under an amnesty agreement.

Those supporters include President Iván Duque, a man Uribe groomed for office and whose criticism of the court's ruling put public pressure on a seemingly independent judicial system that has for years suffered from internal corruption scandals .

The house arrest of former President Álvaro Uribe generates mixed opinions and protests in Colombia

"There is a trial that will have to be developed, but the least that a society expects in a circumstance of these, with someone who has served Colombia, is that they can exercise their defense in freedom," Duque said Wednesday in an interview with the RCN radio station.

Duque, who has said that some clauses of the 2016 peace deal with the FARC were too lenient, compared Uribe's predicament to that faced by a former rebel leader known as Jesús Santrich , who apparently fled last year after the Supreme Court ordered that he be released from prison on the grounds that he had limited immunity as a legislator. Santrich was wanted in the United States on charges of criminal association to traffic cocaine, a crime he allegedly committed after the peace agreement.

Santrich is simply "a criminal," while Uribe does not represent a flight risk and has collaborated with the judicial process against him, Duque said.

Uribe is being investigated for allegedly bribing a former paramilitary member to recant damaging allegations against him . The case stems from accusations brought by Senator Iván Cepeda, who maintains that Uribe was a founding member of a paramilitary group in his home province during the decades-long civil conflict that involved government forces, rebels, and paramilitary groups, and in which hundreds people died, disappeared or were displaced.

Now Uribe defends himself in court. His lawyer, Jaime Granados, says he is innocent.