Meeting Juan Manuel Santos, Minister of National Defense of Colombia

Juan Manuel Santos, Minister of National Defense of Colombia

One reason to get up early and skip the fabulous breakfast at ISH was definitely an invitation of my favourite think tank: The Center for American Progress. (btw: you definitely should subscribe to their hilarious cartoons) I felt a little bit weird among all these retired attendants, but at least the view was beautiful and the food nice.

I was early and found a seat in one of the front rows. Ten minutes later I was surrounded by high rank Colombian soldiery who asked me about my opinion on the FARC - I wished I was better prepared - and invited me to Colombia: "It's safe now." One Latina journalist welcomed my neighbour heartily and he introduced her to his German friend Kati - me. So much more fun than usual office boredom in I Street...

Then, Santos - the second defense minister I had seen so far in DC - entered the stage and started telling the story of how the government freed the hostages including the former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt on July 2nd. He spoke quite frankly and proudly about recent blows against the FARC and shared a quite optimistic outlook on Colombia's future.

For the first time in history the state was able to control the whole country. Before, even divorces were settled by the FARC in some towns that had been controlled by them. Now, the most popular institutions were the armed forces. When it came to operation checkmate Santos became euphoric: "I could go into more details, but you'll probably see the movie on it".

The host took over again and reminded the participants pedagogically to ask questions instead of giving small speeches of their own. Some of the questions were rather critical. They reminded the people of the Red Cross incident. Santos nodded understandingly - although of course he did not know anything about the Red Cross emblem until it was too late. But he had made up for it when he did invite the Red Cross staff over to his house immediately. He was wearing his pyjamas then, he added.

Two questions later, Santos mentioned the "C"-Word, referring to the Venezuelan President. Everybody laughed contently - Colombia was still one of the good! Also, Santos defended his government when he said, that he still did not know what the South American Defence Council was for. But as it was obviously meaningless it would not impose any threat to the US. The Americans were relieved and left the event punctually.