During President Alvaro Uribe’s first year in office, officials in Washington and Bogotá, along with the mainstream media, repeatedly trumpeted the “successes” of the new administration’s democratic security strategies. They rushed to point out the decrease in killings, kidnappings and forced displacement, claiming that the military had seized the initiative and had the guerrillas on the run. In sharp contrast to last year’s public relations campaign, government officials and the mainstream media have been far less eager to discuss the most recent statistics pertaining to Colombia’s conflict, which show that the situation has deteriorated dramatically over the past year.