It is two years since President Juan Manuel Santos's government began peace negotiations with the farc guerrillas in Havana, and the going has been slow. The two sides have reached provisional agreements only on the easiest three of the six points on the agenda-on rural development, participation in politics and how to fight drug trafficking. The farc's leaders seem to be in no hurry to abandon a 50-year habit of war for the uncertainties of peace. Now, as Mr Santos sets off on a tour of Europe seeking political support and money to implement the hoped-forpeace deal, the talks are facing ever-shriller opposition at home. That opposition is led by Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's president in 2002-10, whom Mr Santos served as defence minister for three years. Mr Uribe, now a senator, unleashes a daily blast of vituperation against his former colleague. To follow Mr Uribe's Twitter account, as more than 3m Colombians do, is to be told that Mr Santos, an urbane pillar of his country's establishment, has become a sympathiser of "Castro-Chavismo". In up to 30 tweets a day, Mr Uribe makes outlandish claims: for example, that Mr Santos favours "the political leadership of the kidnappers and the handing over of the country to the farc". Mr Uribe's party last month issued a document called the "52 capitulations of Santos in Havana". No sooner had the government answered these charges one by one, than the uribistas added an extra 16.
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