COLOMBIA Democracy and the "dirty war" RAFAEL, a member of the national leadership of the Colombian political movement A Luchar ("To Struggle," from a publication of the same name), gave the following interview to Rodrigo O'Farrell in Geneva in mid-March. Rafael is also a trade-union leader in the public workers' sector.
A Lucharrepresents a coming together of several left political and trade-union organizations, including the Partido Socialista Revolucionario, the Colombian section of the Fourth International. A Lucharis the second largest left force in the country, after the Unión Patriotica (UP).
The UP emerged in the period of so-called Truce and National Dialogue under the government of Belisario Betancur (1982-86). Within its ranks are the Colombian Communist Party and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), the country's oldest guerrilla movement. In mid-May, A Luchar will hold its Second National Convention in Bogotá, at which it is expected to officially launch a united organization.
Political life in Colombia recently has been dominated by a slide into the terror of parallel police death squads, recalling the evolution in Argentina in the 1970s. At the same time, the political rulers of the country have been making some formal reforms in order to refurbish somewhat the crumbling façade of parliamentary rule.
the democratic mass movement, which started proposing this reform in the 1970s. However, the rate of abstention, 40% of registered voters — which means 55% of the electorate - shows that the enthusiasm was less than expected. • What did the election results show?
In the first place, they showed a deterioration of the image of the Liberal government. The Liberals lost the mayoralties in two of the country's main cities, Bogotá and Medellín. The Liberals won in 423 municipalities, and the Conservatives in 415, although the Liberals got almost a million votes more than their rivals. The Conservatives, who have been in opposition since the start of the government of Virgilio Barco, who took office in August 1986 (from 1958 until then there had been bipartisan governments), benefitted from the prevailing discontent.
For the Union Patriotica (UP, supported by the Communist Party) and the Frente Popular (FP, a current of Maoist origin), these elections were a bitter disappointment. They elected mayors only in 15 small towns, after the UP and FP had seen respectively 550 and 50 of their activists and leaders murdered by ultra-rightist paramilitary gangs trying to intimidate voters throughout the country.
A contributing factor to this new setback for the left also was the failure of the UP and the FP to campaign for a left alternative, independent of the two bourgeois parties. In 80 percent of cases, they made electoral deals with Liberal barons, even with their most corrupt elements. In major cities, the UP allied itself precisely with the sections of the Liberal Party that lost because of their unpopularity, as in Barranguilla, Medellín and Bucaramanga. • Why did A Luchar decide not to participate in these elections?
We had, and are still having, an internal discussion about this. The majority holds that we do not yet have the strength and organization to undertake such a campaign. There is also the view that, in the context of the dirty war that is going on in the country today, putting up candidates means exposing them to physical liquidation. It cannot be denied that these arguments have some weight. A Luchar has also been subjected to persecution. Forty of our compañeros have been assassinated, in particular in the Urab and Santandar regions.
Nonetheless, I think we have to insist that the political situation in the country calls for the most active sort of participation in the legal and parliamentary struggle, in spite of all the risks that this involves. A Luchar has a considerable social base and has been involved in all the regional and national civic strikes in the recent period. It has to complement this activity with a better defined political struggle. • It seemed that there was a possibility for the emergence of a third party in
W HAT WAS NEW in the
March 13 elections in Colombia? It was an election for mayors, municipal councillors and deputies to the departmental assemblies. What was new was that for the first time in the history of Colombia mayors were elected in 1,009 municipalities. Previously, mayors were named by the governors, who in turn were appointed directly by the president of the republic. This partial extension of electoral democracy is a product of the negotiations between the guerrilla movement and the government of Belisario Betancur in 1984. But it has been presented by the two-party system's Liberal tweedledum and Conservative tweedledee as their great contribution to the democratization of the country. • So, did this reform put an end to the control of the central government and the barons in the cities and towns? 10 By no means. The governors are still appointed by the president of the republic, reInternational Viewpoint #138 • April 4, 1988 gardless of the political relationship of forces in the departments. Although mayors are elected by the people, they can be removed by the governors. This can be done arbitrarily, whenever it suits the govemor. The law that provides for popular election of mayors says nothing about just causes for removing elected mayors. This reflects the power that the barons still have in the country's institutions.
On the other hand, there are no mechanisms enabling the community, the voters, to exercise a check over the municipal administration, municipal finances and so on. Nor, up until now, has there been any provision for mechanisms through which the community could express its views publicly. The means of communication continue to be in the grip of the traditional forces. • Nonetheless, the election of mayors aroused great expectations on the part of the population.
Yes. In a regime such as the one in our country, which is closed in and so top heavy, this reform was a partial victory for
Colombia, as indicated by the vote won by the UP candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal, in the May 1986 presidential elections. What has happened in this respect?
There was such a possibility. Pardo Leal got 300,000 votes. That was the highest vote the UP has won in its entire history. Pardo Leal was a focus for a sentiment rejecting the traditional two-party system. He waged a brilliant campaign around three main questions — opposition to militarism and the dirty war; against the IMF's austerity plans; and against the corruption of the barons and the decadent two-party system. At that time, the Liberals refused to make deals with the UP. But things changed in the recent mayoral elections, as I explained. The UP broke the continuity with what Pardo Leal symbolized in terms of class independence. •So, what about this opening for a third party?
You can't build a third party if you are unwilling make a definitive break with the Liberals and Conservatives. Dissident bourgeois groups such as Anapo and the MRL ended up being caught in the mesh of the two-party system, after trying to play the role of third parties. Colombia needs a third party, a party that will unite the oppressed, that will break the logjam in political life, that will fight for real democracy, that will raise the present concrete social struggles to a new level, that of political power. • It could also be said that there are enormous pressures coming to bear against this. The dirty war seems to have as its final objective the destruction of all popular resistance.
Yes. In Colombia there are three political assassinations a day. On March 4, 40 workers were assassinated in the Urabá banana plantations. Uniformed squads shot these people one night in front of women and children. The region is under the military control of the Eleventh Brigade, which is commanded by General San Mionel Rue- commanded by General San Miguel Buenaventura. No one was arrested for this massacre.
On the national level, the same thing is happening. In 1987, there were 1,500 political assassinations. No one was arrested for this. There are 140 gangs of hired killers in the country, according to the Ministry of Interior's figures. This wave of murders has claimed the lives of a minister of justice, a general prosecutor, the editor of the contry's biggest daily, most of the left mayors, democratic figures, priests, journalists, trade-union and popular leaders.
The group that has suffered most is the UP, which has had 550 people killed, including Jaime Pardo Leal. The objective of this war is to destroy all political or social opposition to the government. There are several interests behind this, but there is a sort of alliance among the barons, sections of the mafia and army officers. Industrial-
COLOMBIA ists have also financed the murder operations. The political rulers of Colombia have been using this mechanism for several decades. Colombia has been a Turkish-style democracy, Now, given the rise in social struggles, they are looking for a solution like that imposed in Indonesia in 1965 [that is, a massacre of the entire left]. • What role is Virgilio Barco's government playing in this war?
It is an accomplice in the dirty war. Every time there is a massacre or a particularly notorious murder, it expresses sympathy. But it has never managed to capture any of the killers. Of course, the instigators of these crimes are left untouched. The govemment bodies specializing in the investigation of these things do not investigate them. What the government has done is to beef up the armed forces and the police. Some 60 per cent of the national budget is eaten up by the military forces and the interest on the international debt.
An unconstitutional anti-terrorist law has been passed. Today, any cop or secret agent can arrest anyone without a warrant; they can force their way into any home without a warrant on the pretext that they suspect that there is a terrorist there. Colombian and foreign jurists have publicly condemned this law. I learned on arriving in Europe that a delegation of observers, including a general and several French jurists, visited Colombia this month and came back very concerned. They said that "the old Colombian democracy has ceased to exist," that "there is a determination to carry out an underground, a clandestine campaign of extermination on the part of the paramilitary groups," that the anti-terrorist law "is institutionalizing the possibility for terna more active repression." • What is involved in the discussion over the referendum?
In Colombia democracy is so limited that the constitution does not allow forms for consulting the people directly, even controlled ones, such as referendums. Many European democracies use referendums. Switzerland is an example. There, people are regularly consulted about the most varying decisions. Virgilio Barco is trying to reform the constitution to deal with the crisis. He announced that a referendum might be held, given the extent to which the Congress has become discredited and its elephantine slowness. He has to race against ume, because the decline of the institutions does not leave him any respite.
However, the Ex-Presidents' Club and the most reactionary sectors opposed such a form of popular consultation. Barco had to backpeddle. Now a referendum might be held only to ratify the cuts that may be proposed by a two-party commission of "experts" named by the president. The commission will be formed on the basis of proportional representation based on the results of the March 13 elections. So, the left would only have a minimal involvement.
This proposal could, of course, blow up. The country is going through an immense crisis. What is said today is out of date tomorrow. Therefore, the mass movement and the left can insist on their proposals, bring pressure to bear to advance their program and contrast it with the program of the ruling circles.
In fact, with the ground shaking under their feet, the rulers do not know if what they denied yesterday may not overwhelm them tomorrow. * ational DOINT
AFTER THE CRASH
Special feature on the world economic situation, with articles by
Ernest Mandel and Claude Gabriel
IV 140, May 2, 1988
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