In a country where the national bird is the vulture and the national pastime is pretending decades of civil war are a minor inconvenience, Colombia has now elevated its homicide rate to electoral strategy. Yes, dear reader, as the presidential election approaches, the candidates have discovered that nothing says 'I care about the people' quite like having your opponents kneecapped by paramilitaries.
The violence, a sprightly cocktail of FARC dissidents, ELN holdouts, and various narcotraffickers who treat human life as a bargaining chip, has reached such a crescendo that even the most optimistic avocado farmer now accepts his morning coffee might be his last. The current frontrunner, a fellow whose campaign slogan might as well be 'At least I'm not being shot at,' has promised to 'restore order' by doing exactly what every previous president has done: shaking hands with the military while secretly funding the death squads.
But let us not be cynical. Perhaps this time it will be different. Perhaps the new president will actually negotiate with the gun-toting farmers, the coca-growing accountants, and the gentlemen who believe that political discourse is best conducted via IED. Alternatively, he could simply declare a state of emergency, suspend habeas corpus, and invite the CIA for a jolly round of 'Who can disappear more voters before tea time.'
The international community, of course, is 'deeply concerned.' The UN has issued a statement. The EU has expressed 'grave alarm.' The United States has sent a strongly worded tweet. Meanwhile, in the barrios of Bogotá, mothers lock their children indoors while the sound of automatic fire becomes the city's unofficial lullaby.
One candidate, a former guerrilla who has swapped his rifle for a microphone, insists that peace is 'just a matter of dialogue.' His opponent, a conservative who believes the only good communist is a dead communist, promises to 'eradicate the cancer of leftist insurgency.' Both are, of course, lying through their teeth. But in a country where the truth has been buried in a mass grave for sixty years, who's counting?
As the election approaches, the violence does not so much escalate as metastasise. More massacres. More assassinations. More of those delightful videos where masked men threaten to 'cleanse' the country of all who disagree with them. It is, in short, the perfect electoral climate. Because nothing says democracy quite like the knowledge that your voting booth might be strapped with C4.
Perhaps the only sensible solution is to let the gringos invade. They've been itching to try again since the Escobar days. Failing that, we could always just declare the whole country a UNESCO World Heritage Site of Suffering and move everyone to Switzerland. But that would require a level of compassion that Colombia's elites have carefully avoided for generations.
In the meantime, I shall be at the airport bar, raising a glass of the cheapest gin I can find. To Colombia: where the election is a bloodbath and the bloodbath is an election. Cheers.
