A few months ago two out of three Colombians
approved of the Santos government – a rockͲstar
standing by the bruising political standards of the Andes.
The country´s economy was soaring, overtaking
[5] Argentina as the fifth largest in Latin America. Foreign
investors lined up as prospectors found oil, gas and coal
practically everywhere they dug. Crime, once a national
scourge, was plunging. The only thing missing was
peace. And so, late last year, the savvy 62ͲyearͲold
[10] economist turned president declared, “the stars are
aligned”, and set out to secure a peace deal that would
end the insurgency by the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC), which has lasted more than half a
century.
[15] But, after 12 tough rounds of negotiations in Havana,
even the significantly weakened FARC may be proving
too difficult for Santos to handle. Certainly, hope of a
peace deal by November, as had been hopefully
predicted by the Santos regime, looks increasingly
[20] unlikely.
As negotiations have dragged on, the national mood
has dragged down. The most recent polls show that two
thirds of the country now disapproves of the peace
effort and 60 percent of those surveyed said that they
[25] don´t want to see him reelected next year.
Perhaps his harshest critic was Álvaro Úribe, his
predecessor and once mentor, who had waged an allͲ
out war against the FARC while in office. Ironically, it was
Úribe´s unrelenting pursuit of the FARC that paved the
[30] way for the current peace plan. With dimming prospects
for peace and a looming election, the irony may be lost
on the ColombiansͲand on Santos himself.
(from a Perilous Peace Plan, by Mac Margolis, in NEWSWEEK, August 26, 2013)
In the passage, the president´s words “the stars are aligned” (lines 10 and 11) convey
