1. The Colombian Paradox: Pacts, Violence, and Political Stability
Max Cameron
Poli 332

2. Structure Bogota a vice-royalty of New Granada
Majority mestizo and indigenous population
Strong localism, regionalism (“patrias chicas”)
Estates and plantations: coffee, bananas, livestock

3. Historical Periods Independence to War of a Thousand Days (1819-1902)
Conservative oligarchy ( )
Failed populism, and violence ( )
National Front ( )
Breakdown of the National Front and Constitutional Reform ( )
Current Era (1991- ). No left turn

4. Modal Patterns I, Pact Variation
19th C to 1930
2000-
Agro-ex economy
ISI & Incorp.
Exhaustion of ISI
Neoliberalism
Left turns
Pattern I
Long
period of
Anarchy
Conservative
oligarchy
( )
Failed populism,
violence &
National Front
Pact (1958-
1978) - FARC
Breakdown and
constitutional
reform (1991)
Peace
Accord?

5. 1. Independence ( )
Independence declared in 1810, not completed until 1819 when Spanish defeated by Bolivar.
Former viceroyalty of Gran Colombia united under one constitution.

6. Social Structure
The majority of the population was indigenous and mestizo with a small creole dominant class.
National territory was broken and there was not yet real systems of communication and transportation.
Exports: gold, cacao, and especially coffee & tobacco.
Agriculture was backbone of economy: esp. potatoes, corn and wheat.
The best lands in large estates (often producing livestock) beside small peasant plots.
Large estates used sharecroppers and renters, day laborers. There were many abuses, including forms of debt peonage, but slavery was almost nonexistent, and overt coercion of rural labor was not typical. Landowners were the law.
German Colmenares: Formas de la conciencia de clase en la Nueva Granada de 1848.

7. Failure of Gran Colombia
The failure of Gran Colombia revealed a commitment on the part of the Colombia elite to civilian rule that was to limit military dictatorship to only one in the nineteenth century and one in the twentieth century, in contrast to other countries in Latin America.
The military establishment that brought independence was not Colombian but mostly Venezuelan.
The civilian elite in Colombia, unlike that in other countries, had not been destroyed by the wars of independence
The military men who brought independence were not only Venezuelan but often men of color and therefore unacceptable to the white “gente decente” of Bogota. (Mark Ruhl)

8. Clientelistic Parties
High level of fragmentation, violence: Politics was personalistic and volatile. Dominated by strong personalities and individual leaders more than ideology.
Liberals and Conservative Parties fought over
The role of the Church, religion
Free trade, commerce
Power of rural landlords
Federalism
Views of Bolivar
War of the “Supremes” ( ) or regional caudillos

9. Mid-Century
By mid-19th Century, rise of merchants and artisans began to change the class structure
Rising merchant class bolsters Liberals
1851 emancipation of small slave population (20k). Caused revolt of conservative landlords in some regions
Liberal and Conservative parties become more organized. A key cleavage: clerical/non-clerical
Parties multiclass and nation-wide
Continuing conflict at the local level through this period. Politics remains chaotic: between there were more than 50 insurrections

10. War of A Thousand Days (1899-1902)
Liberal revolt to unseat Conservative government, spread to other departments.
15,000 government troops defeated 14,000 rebels at cost of deaths, many injuries, economy and communications disrupted.
Partisan politicization of campesinos. Class cleavage emerges
Yet both parties preferred democracy over military rule. A strong military could be used by one party against the other.
For same reason, parties preferred a weak state.
1980, Kline. “The National Front: Historical Perspective and Overview. In Politics of Compromise: Coalition Government in Colombia.

11. Panama Canal
The Colombian state refused to ratify a treaty with the US for the construction of a canal in the department of Panama.
Roosvelt encouraged a rebellion and prevented Colombian troops for reaching Colon.
USA recognized the new Republic of Panama and signed a treaty for the canal. The following years Colombia became increasingly dependent on the US (which provided compensation & loans for canal)
The United Fruit Company set up “banana enclaves. Colombian troops suppress unions.

12. 2. Consolidation of Conservative Oligarchy (1903-1945)
Change in party hegemony. Increasing repression in banana plantations
Growing popular discontent
Emergence of the “social question,” gradual recognition of union rights, voting rights, spending on education increases
Development of a “spoils system”

13. 3. Failed Populist Irruption
Election of 1946 the liberals had two candidates: a moderate (Gabriel Turay) and a radical Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, lower middle class, mestizo.
Gaitan was a populist who made the distinction between the “pais politico” (political elite) and the “pais nacional” (the real country). He made the term oligarchy a household word in Colombia. Oligarchs were in both parties, they compete for the spoil system ignoring the needs of the people.
Half Colombians were illiterate, 3% of landowners owned half of the land. Gaitan introduced two reformist issues in the agenda:
Economic redistribution
Political participation.
Assassinated in 1948: popular protest at the national level El bogotazo, and thus began the period known as La Violencia – the violence.

14. La Violencia ( )
Urban riots spread to the countryside – continued for 20 years
Much of the conflict was over land, with peasants linked to the parties seizing each other’s land. The semiliterate peasantry had almost no notion of what was actually happening at the national level.
The most important cause was the inherited partisan rivalry. However the intensity of the violence would have been unthinkable if the level of rural social and economic development had been higher.
Difference with 19th century civil wars: violence was incited by political leaders and landowners who did not participate in the conflict. Campesino violence against landowners was not frequent.
100, ,000 deaths
Weakness of military meant little law enforcement in many areas
Upper class groups remained safe in the cities.

15. Rojas Dictatorship (1953-1958) “The failure of military populism”
“Estado Cristiano y Boliviariano”
Heavy handed, attached press, silenced dissent
Failed to stop violence. Offered amnesty but hard core of guerrillas refused. Formation of self-defense forces
Violence normalized, some participants become more class-oriented, revolutionary
During La Violencia, economy continued to grow, mainly due to exports (e.g. coffee)

16. 4. National Front Era ( )
Failures of Rojas leads to Liberal-Conservative pact, institutionalizing bipartisanship
Pact like Punto Fijo: two traditional parties agreed to share power.
The agreements were submitted to the people of Colombia, who approved them as constitutional amendments in 1957 plebiscite. Soon after that congressional elections were held.

17. National Front – Key points
Presidency alternate every 4 years between the traditional parties
Legislative bodies (congress, departmental assemblies, municipal councils) divided equally between Liberals and Conservatives regardless electoral results. Within each traditional party, seats would be assigned by PR.
Same rule of parity was applied to administrative appointments not under civil service (governors, mayors, presidential cabinet)
No other parties allowed to compete
Partisan criteria would not enter into the selection of civil servants.
Legislation had to be passed by a 2/3 in the Congress (later amended)
10% of national budget to education.
Women were to have equal political rights.

18. 5. Breakdown of National Front
Ends violence caused by partisan competition
Policy immobilism – limited policy options
Easy for economic groups to block policies, hard to make fundamental reforms.
Economic gains: strategy of ISI with export promotion (avoids debt crisis)
Excluded left, fuels violence & emergence of FARC, ELN, M-19
Conflict claims over 220k lives over 50 years

19. Emergence of Guerrillas: FARC, ELN, M-19
Social context
Growing inequality in countryside
Displacement of peasants
Depressed prices of coffee
Rapid growth of teachers
FARC was an outgrowth of self-defense forces established during the Violencia. FARC extended operation and served as protector of peasants, squatters, and frontier colonists.
Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN). Fidelista. Lacked FARC’s peasant base. Camilo Torres: a priest who join the guerrilla.
A third major revolutionary force was the M-19. Nationalistic, like the Tupamaros in Uruguay

20. Drug Bonanza/Drug War
During 1980 Colombia becomes major drug producer/exporter
Small cultivators in 1970s grew marijuana for export. Turbay undertook eradication efforts urged by the US.
Production shifted to coca. Colombia was not a major producer of coca plant. Bolivia and Peru cultivated the leaf, shipped laboratories in Colombia. Colombians distributed to the US market.
By mid-1980s cocaine more important than coffee
Emergence of “Medellin Cartel”. Escobar became one of the wealthiest men in all Latin America.
Judges, police officers, others involved in law enforcement accepted bribes to ignore illegal activities. Thus, drug industry was accompanied by spreading corruption.

21. Para-Military Organizations
Drugs threaten inflation, affect money supply, drain treasury, raise cost of borrowing, inflated land and property values, and paralyzed justice system.
Mafias grew up around illicit drugs. At a national convention held secretly in 1981 drug-gang bosses created a death squad called Muerte a a Secuestradores (MAS) or Death to Kidnappers. The squad purpose was to put an end to the guerrilla practice of kidnapping people.
Para-military organizations often collaborated with the military
1984 state of siege was decreed for the entire country.

22. Shift from Barco to Gaviria
Barco’s ( ) presidency one of the bloodiest of Colombian history. Guerrillas and paramilitaries –assisted at times by the government- confronted each other, other paramilitary groups of the drug dealers fought the guerrillas and the government. The so called cleansing squads –private citizens, young male of the upper class- conducted sweeps to rid the cities of “undesirables” (gays, addicts and homeless). The government was weak to control these groups, killing kidnapping were common.
Gaviria ( ) offered to reduce penalties for any drug trafficker who turns himself in. No extradition. Pablo Escobar turned himself in on June 1991, and was incarcerated. Gaviria’s drug policy did not end drug trafficking but ended terrorism. After Escobar’s escape there were only a few notable cases of drug terrorism, Escobar killed in a gun battle in 1993.

23. The New Constitution, 1991
On May 1990, Colombians voted on holding a constituent assembly.
Won by 4,991,887 vs. 226,451 votes.
July 1990, Gaviria proposed the following topics for the Assembly:
1)Congressional reform, a new system of election, national electoral district for guerrilla groups observing truces
2) changes in the justice system, including plea bargaining, protection of the identity of judges and witnesses.
3) democratization of public administration system
4) protection of human rights
5) status to regulate political parties and opposition, including financial control
6) mechanisms to give citizens more rights to participate in political economic administrative and cultural issues, including the referendum

24. Neoliberalism
Neoliberal restructuring did not begin until 1990, under President Cesar Gaviria
Colombia never abandoned its export-orientation
No debt crisis
Coffee is leading legal export (superseded by crude petroleum in recent years)
Economy today is predominantly a primary sector one and services sectors.
Plan Colombia increases US influence and leverage
Jasmin Hristov. Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia.

25. 6. Current Era – No Left Turn
1994. Ernesto Samper – implicated in drug financing
1998. Andres Pastrana attempts to negotiate with FARC & ELN
2002 President Alvaro Uribe elected (re-elected in 2006)
Parapolitica scandal
“False positives”
Constitutional Court rejects third term for Uribe
2010- Juan Manuel Santos No “pink tide” – due to violence?
Peace talks with FARC
Referendum 2016

26. Lessons
High level of repression and violence within the framework of regime stability
Key factors:
Exclusion and repression
Two-party system with old, clientelistic parties
Tradition of formal legalism & democracy combined with high levels of social violence
Stable but exclusionary/repressive democracy