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Colombia Defence and Security Report Q2 2009
Market |
Defence |
Report Type |
Market Research |
Country |
Colombia |
Published |
21 May 2009 |
Number of Pages |
54 |
Download |
|
Immediate |
|
Publisher |
Business Monitor International |
Colombia’s political risk ratings have improved in recent times. The changing fortunes of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) have been largely behind the improvement in Columbia’s security position. The insurgent group, which has dominated Colombian politics in recent years, has suffered a number of significant defeats in recent months that have left the group severely hobbled. Further defeats continued in the past three months.
A major turn in the fortunes for FARC occurred in March 2008, when Colombian troops raided a FARC rebel camp in Ecuador, killing 20 people, including senior rebel Raul Reyes. While this weakened the power of the FARC, it did temporarily damage relations with leftist countries Ecuador and Venezuela, who did not agree with Colombia fighting battles in their country.
On March 2 2009, the Colombian army claimed it had struck another blow against the FARC rebels, killing the commander of a guerrilla front operating in central Colombia. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Eastern Bloc commander Jose de Jesus Guzman was killed by army troops, the military's press service said. The army also announced it had unearthed guerrilla hide-outs in caves deep in the jungles where rebels evaded attack, stashed land mines and stored medical supplies. The army said troops had been searching for the hide-outs for five years.
Colombia is also focused on maintaining its financial assistance from the US government to fight terrorism and the FARC. Colombia would like to persuade President Obama and his administration to continue to provide $556mn a year in military and economic aid to Colombia as part of the Plan Colombia deal. Currently, the US and Colombia are negotiating a further defence cooperation agreement.
The agreement will formalise the military-to-military relationship between the United States and Colombia and is expected to be completed in April. A component of this deal will be that Colombia allows US planes to fly into its bases.
A deteriorating economic outlook will certainly be a concern for the government, which will want to retain its sturdy popularity ratings in the lead-up to next year's elections. That said, we are yet to witness the announcement of a major counter-cyclical stimulus package by President Álvaro Uribe's administration, perhaps because at present they are still forecasting the economy will expand by a robust 3.0% this year. While this may well change once Q408 data is released (recent comments by Finance Minister Óscar Iván Zuluaga suggest this 3.0% figure could be downgraded), we are sceptical as to the ability of the government's fiscal coffers to accommodate a hefty expansion in public expenditure this year, particularly when revenue from oil exports and tax receipts looks likely to suffer from subdued global oil prices and rising unemployment levels. As such, if there are risks to our negative 1.5% real GDP forecast for this year, we believe they are to the downside.
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