The recent outbreak of violence between Colombia and neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador is notable -- among other reasons -- because, unlike much of what happens in Latin America, it attracted several days of sustained attention in mainstream U.S. media.

In 2002 Laura Restrepo predicted Colombia -- along with its culture -- would vanish within a decade. During her Feb. 25 to March 6 visit to Cornell as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large, Restrepo, a Colombian novelist, activist and journalist, insisted during an interview that while her country continues to exist, "nothing has changed" to improve its many problems.

The author of acclaimed novels such as "Delirium" (2004) and "The Dark Bride" (1999) that draw on her nation's tumultuous political history, Restrepo added, "If they have changed, they have changed for the worse. I'm not sure Colombia hasn't disappeared already."

It's a "very lively society and culture," Restrepo continued. "In Colombia, the only thing that can stop you is that they can kill you. But until they kill you, you can say whatever you want. It's quite an awful kind of freedom, but people do speak and artists do say things. That's food for your work, too."

The streets of Colombia have run with blood throughout her lifetime, said Restrepo, who was born in 1950. "We are used to thinking that countries are borders, and elections mean voting for president," she said. "I believe a country should be a place where the citizens could count on help from the state to stay alive. That doesn't happen in Colombia. Civil rights, human rights don't exist at all."

Describing Colombia as a third-world country that might seem remote from life in the United States, Restrepo contends that the two countries are in fact closely linked, as are the aspirations of both peoples. The Bush administration has offered the government of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe unequivocal support, reiterated as recently as March 7, when George Bush sided with Colombia in its conflict with its two neighbors.

"What happens in Colombia is very much a reflection of what's going on here," Restrepo said. "Only there, it's more extreme. It has come to a more desperate situation. But I do not think it is qualitatively different from what has been going on here during the Bush administration."

Uribe, Restrepo said, mirrors Bush: Both men have been twice elected to wage war on "terror." In Colombia, she asked, "Is war on terror really on terror? Or is war on terror mainly a war on democracy? War on terror is also war on trade unions, opposition parties or anyone that might speak against the government on human rights."

In 1983 Restrepo served on a commission that attempted to negotiate peace with a now-defunct Colombian guerilla group; the failure of the government and the guerillas to come to terms became the subject of her first book, in 1986, "Historia de un entusiasmo." She went into exile in Spain and Argentina -- an action she describes as common and unremarkable in a country where everyone's life is in danger -- until the guerillas agreed to disarm in 1989.

The current Colombian government's strength derives in large part from its warm relationship with Washington, Restrepo said. "What is being hurt is democracy in Colombia and Latin America," she said. "This president of ours, Álvaro Uribe, is a tyrant. He has on his side a huge paramilitary machinery that kills by the hundreds, by the thousands. How come he is looked upon as a democratic president? How come he has the backing of the American government?"

Restrepo called the war on drugs and the war on terror "a huge mirage" whose profits corrupt not only official Colombia but also the guerillas, both of which prop up a drug-money-enriched oligarchy.

"The big cartel in Colombia is no longer the Cali or the Medellín but the paramilitary cartels," she said. "Uribe's enormously popular. It's a very confused country. Anyone who wants to look can see that the huge fortunes that are growing in Colombia nowadays all come from drugs."

Yet for artists, Colombia offers unusual freedom, Restrepo said. Perpetual violence "comes out in your books and in painting and theater.

"The other side to it, in the whole of Latin America, is the fight for peace, and culture plays an important role in it. Through culture, people are trying to establish again what being alive means, what standing up against death means, what democracy and liberty means."