Uribe must make an effort to overcome this difficult juncture at a time when the state, economically strapped because of the global financial crisis, will have increasingly fewer instruments to use to calm the unrest, Valencia said.
Colombia’s economic growth, which reached 7.5 percent last month, is forecast to be below 3 percent this year. One sign of the coming slump is that industrial production dropped 0.6 percent last month, the first drop in nine years, one business survey showed.
“The government is strong and will remain strong,” said a business leader with close ties to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity and hinting darkly that the current unrest is being “financed from abroad.”
In one sign of flexibility Uribe has agreed to meet with indigenous protesters today on a march towards Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city.
The indigenous leaders, heading a column of some 30,000 protesters, said they want the president to deliver 200,000 hectares of promised land and negotiate peace with the FARC guerrillas.
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