Assembly without credibility AGAINST a background of an abstention rate of 75%, military operations by paramilitary groups, army actions against insurgents and last minute manoeuvres aimed at ensuring a majority for the Liberal party, elections to a Constituent Assembly took place in Colombia on December 10. Between January 1991 and the middle of that year this assembly will have the task of working out a new constitution to replace the existing one, which dates from 1886.
The events preceding and during this vote point towards the conclusion that, rather than heralding a new phase of political consensus and stability, the social and political turmoil in the country is going to get worse. ALFONSO MORO
N SPITE of the efforts of Cesar Gaviria's government to establish a new consensus which would renew the legitimacy of the state institutions, and despite the cooperative attitude of M-19 (April 19 movement — exguerilla movement, now a "legal" political party, who are participating in the government, the bulk of the population, in the absence of any offer of a clear idea of how the crisis and the massacres of the last 30 years or more are to be brought to an end, decided to stay at home.
On the face of it, the only winner is the Democratic Action/M-19 list, which increased its score over the May 1990 elections, gaining more than a million votes, and now has 19 of the 70 seats in the Constituent Assembly. The rest of the deputies — on lists headed by members of the Liberal and Conservative Parties -saw their votes fall.
The traditional system of alternation between Conservatives and Liberals is now in a deep crisis, with these parties openly divided in front of the electorate. There are differences on the attack on the Palacio de Justicia in 1986, which left more than 60 dead; the trials of the military personnel who took part in this attack; the new project for capitalist restructuring, and so on. The only remaining point of agreement was to keep the Constituent Assembly in a framework that they could control. But reality does not always match up to desires.
The Liberal Party is experiencing an explosive crisis, which has got worse in the past four months, as is shown by the multitude of electoral slates which feature Liberal leaders. This fragmentation has also been used by the regime to ensure a majority in the Assembly.
The Conservatives, although divided into two large currents, are nonetheless 17 solidly opposed to cohabitation with the
COLOMBIA M-19 leadership, which has recently converted to right-wing Social Democracy. The M-19 slate, however, was the most successful in these elections; this goes against the wishes of the traditional parties and will accentuate their problems, both inside and outside the Assembly.
The existence of a "third force" has definitively broken up the two party system, and, furthermore, neither of the two traditional currents has any short or medium term plan for dealing with the situation.
Gaviria's Liberal Party, despite its apparent majority in the Assembly and M19 support — pledged even before the elections — is in fact the weakest of the bourgeois fractions. It has lost more than it has won.
Massive support for Constituent Assembly
Its first defeat was in the May 1990 elections, when Gaviria got only about 60% support among those who also expressed support for a Constituent Assembly. The High Court then declared its backing for the calling of such an Assembly, in opposition to the President's project for a "Constitutional Assembly" which would only amend the 1886 Charter. The dispersion of the Liberals has reached the point where some of them turned up on the M19 slate.
Under these conditions, Gaviria's current cannot be certain of controlling events in the Assembly, while the LP's internal battles are continuing, notably with the Liberal sectors associated with the most backward parts of the bourgeoisie and army.
The High Court decision of October 1990 was more than a simple legal decision. Gaviria's first proposal —for which the M-19 expressed support — did not convince the public. Worse, it was an insult to millions of Colombians who had voted for a Constituent Assembly. This opened the way for a collapse in the legitimacy of the state institutions, encouraged growing social agitation and left burning social problems, such as the issue of the extradition of drugs' traffickers to the US or the negotiations with the armed organizations grouped in the Simon Bolivar guerilla coordination, unaddressed. Furthermore, Gaviria was jeopardizing his international image, since even from a formal point of view it is difficult to sound like a "modernizer" while refusing to respect a vote.
The most enlightened wing of the bourgeoisie represented in the High Court carried the day on the vote, but got no further. Fourteen of the 26 magistrates voted for the Constituent Assembly, without however affecting the limitation of its size to 70 members — various social and political organizations demanded 300. The 18 issue of new electoral cards was vetoed, so that more than three million Colombians International Viewpoint #197 • December 24,
ARGENTINA — Military rebellion and rumours of a coup
ON DECEMBER 3, 1990, Argentina was the scene of yet another military uprising, in the course of which military rebels confronted troops loyal to the government. The fighting claimed 21 lives, among them several civilians. The mutineers, who took over the army headquarters and an infantry regiment in the middle of the capital, were demanding the ouster of the army high command and the installation of Colonel Seineldin, currently in gilded exile in Neuquen province, following another military rebellion, as new army chief.
This is not the first such uprising. The first took place in April 1987, two years after the arrival of the constitutional government of Raúl Alfonsin. Then lieutenant Aldo Rico demanded the cessation of all legal proceedings against military personnel guilty of crimes under the dictatorship. Alfonsin engaged in secret negotiations and a few months afterwards promulgated the law of so-called "due obedience", according to which soldiers and officers were only obeying the orders of their superiors when they massacred and "disappeared" 30,000
Argentines between 1976 and 1982.
Further rebellions pushed the Radical government to the point where a "full stop" law was adopted which stopped all proceedings against the military, and changes in the high command. Thus, there has never been a real trial of the guilty among the military apart from that held, as an example, of the members of the former junta — who Menem, the current president, has in any case promised to pardon.
Today, when the country is undergoing an economic debacle (there were 10,850 deaths from hunger in Argentina in 1989, according to official figures), many Argentines see more in this recent coup attempt than a corporate malaise in the army. There is talk of a coup d'etat being organized by a group of army officers, (no doubt supported by sections of the financial bourgeoisie) who can no longer tolerate the government's incapacity and want to step in to halt the decline.
Menem, unlike Alfonsin, has felt the wind and hit back hard against the mutineers, going so far as to threaten them with death. He can hope in this way to increase his popularity with a population which has had more than enough of the repeated capitulations of the civilian governments to the military. On December 6, the traditional Resistance March, organized by the Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo and human rights groups, brought out 60,000 people in Buenos
Aires alone. * were not able to vote, as was any referendum by the "primary constituent" - the population - on the outcome of the Assembly's labours. It was under these circumstances that Gaviria accepted the Supreme Court's advice, at the same time pushing forward with proposals for an agreement with the "extraditable" drug traffickers and putting pressure on the armed groups for negotiations to start before the Constituent Assembly should meet.
At once the clientilist machinery, which has always determined the outcome of Colombian elections, went into operation. All means were employed, including buying votes and spending millions of dollars on a campaign of massive demagogy, and so on. At the same time Gaviria showed how far his convergence with the M-19 leadership had gone, something for which some sectors of the bourgeoisie and army were not able to forgive him.
The so-called opinion polls conducted during the campaign gave the majority to the AD/M19 slate, with the encouragement of the government. This slate got significant media time, while the United 1990
List for the Right to Life, led by Alfredo Vazquez Canzosa, and supported by many left, popular and union organizations was boycotted by the media, and several people from the groups that launched this List were murdered.
The weakness of social resistance to Gaviria's policies has also been a feature of this campaign, along with the divisions on the left, above all in the Simon Bolivar Coordination. The social situation in Colombia cannot be understood if the terrible violence to which the people have been and are being subjected is minimized. During the last four years of the Virgilio Barco government (1986-1990) there were more than 18,000 violent deaths — including thousands murdered by the army and paramilitary groups, 400 "disappearances" and dozens of bombardments of villages. The dirty war encouraged by various bourgeois sectors decapitated the vanguard of the social movements and terrified the population.
Things have not changed under Gaviria, even if he prefers a different language and has been trying to win over some sectors of the Simon Bolivar Coordination to his plans — Gaviria has succeeded with a fac-
of Quintin Lamel. But the overall political project has remained the same. There have been dozens of assassinations during his 100 days in power and he has signed a blank cheque for the army to attack the guerillas and the population. "Under this government, the armed forces do not need to ask the president's permission" said President Gaviria himself, about the bombardments of the headquarters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) on the eve of the poll.
During the general strike of November 14, 1990, called by four union centrals against the new reform of the Labour Code, the privatization of national enterprises and the so-called "economic opening", the president declared that workers who would not work should be sacked immediately, unions would be outlawed and transport sectors who supported the movement would lose their licence. He also forbade the press to mention the protests, while the whole country was put under military control. The M-19 leadership publicly supported all these meas ures.
### Crisis of guerilla organizations
Thus it was only the telecommunications and cement workers who held a national strike, even if the overall number of strikers was higher than during the movement in October 1988. The left political organizations and the guerillas gathered together in the Simon Bolivar Coordination are also undergoing a profound crisis. They have, it seems, missed the moment to try and organize and centralize a confrontation with the government, by, for example, addressing themselves to the five million people who voted for a Constituent Assembly in May 1990.
In the case of the FARC and the Camillist Union/National Liberation Army (UCELN), although, at a meeting of commandants, they decided to support the Constituent Assembly, they nonetheless decided to continue their armed actions without regard for the consequences they might have for the population. Furthermore, they allowed their forces to take part in the vote without any clear political direction, which may be another element of division.
The Coordination has not functioned as a real political leadership. Some militants may well think therefore that, whatever the situation, there is only one political line - direct confrontation with the state.
The Union Patriotica (UP) and A Luchar (which supported the List for Life) also have internal problems and their poor results in the elections will lead some of their militants to question their political projects. There is a temptation to retreat into local work which can only work to the detriment of an independent national project and social self-organization.
Waiting for war
ON November 9, 1990,