[News] The Road to Tyranny in Colombia

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/brittain08192008.html

August 19, 2008


The Road to Tyranny in Colombia


A Third Term in Office

By JAMES J. BRITTAIN

Colombia has been known for having one of the 
most stable democracies of the subcontinent 
which, while it has not undergone the 
dictatorships that other countries have suffered, 
is not very ‘inclusive’. There has been 
considerable progress in terms of civil, 
political, social and cultural rights, which were 
consecrated in the 1991 constitution, but they 
are threatened by the new right in power. The 
present government has proved to be strongly 
authoritarian, which not only tends to eliminate 
the opposition but to ‘de-institutionalize’ 
democracy, relying on the charisma of the president.

Over the past decade, a well-documented rise in 
support for the electoral-left has occurred in a 
majority of countries throughout Latin America. 
Even in a country such as Colombia, the 
presidential elections of 2006 saw magnetic 
results for the left-of-centre Alternative 
Democratic Pole (POLO Democrático Alternativo) 
under the leadership of Carlos Gaviria Díaz. The 
POLO received over twenty-two percent of the 
national vote, a sixteen percent increase from 
Luis Eduardo Grazon’s 2002 run as a 
representative for the former Independent 
Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático Independiente). 
When the official poles closed, the POLO had more 
than doubled the votes that the historically 
influential Colombian Liberal Party (Partido 
Liberal Colombiano, PLC) had obtained, thus 
becoming the second most supported political 
coalition in the country after President Álvaro 
Uribe Vélez’s Social National Unity Party 
(Partido Social de Unidad Nacional, Partido de la 
‘U’). Nevertheless, amidst a regional movement 
attempting to distance itself from neoliberalism 
and un-relinquished US-acceptance, Colombia has 
seen its ruling political establishment 
increasingly entrench right-of-centre, if not 
far-right, reactionary policies to internal and 
regional political-economic change. The Right’s 
‘stabilization,’ however, cannot be seen within 
the classical confines of twentieth century 
authoritarian rule via military dictator as the 
civilian-based Uribe administration enjoys broad 
popular support. Left with this circumstance, it 
is important to analyze what has enabled this 
government to sustain political office, policy, 
and its fervent measures of internal security?

Several times a year Colombians are exposed to 
national popularity polls which attempt to gauge 
levels of support for the state and specifically 
the Uribe administration. It is assumed that 
these surveys offer a representation of faith in 
the government and military, while providing the 
international community an apparent picture of 
stability within the country. Over the years 
these polls have repeatedly showed Uribe’s 
approval rating to be well above the seventy 
percentile during his first term [2002-2006] and 
floating between the mid-eighties and 
low-nineties half way through the second 
[2006-2010]. Such endorsements have led some to 
argue that Uribe garnishes the highest level of 
support of any president in the Americas today. 
With this broad backing, posturing has begun to 
again alter the Colombian constitution so that 
the president may run for head of state a third 
time. In August, five million petitions were 
delivered to election officials supporting an 
amendment to the constitution which would make 
Uribe an eligible candidate. As this details 
extensive support for the president, the context 
to which Colombia finds itself politically, 
socially, and economically is quite perplexing. 
In actuality, Uribe’s power and apparent 
stability is incredibly unique (and somewhat 
puzzling) when considering a variety of factors 
that could otherwise create an environment of 
distrust and political opposition if not 
hostility for any Latin American politician sitting in office.

Aside from standing at the top of the world’s 
list for highest rates of homicide and 
kidnapping, Colombia reluctantly shares the title 
of being one of the most economically inequitable 
countries in the Western Hemisphere. The Andean 
nation is also second only to the Sudan for the 
largest number of internally displaced peoples in 
the world. According to data presented by the 
Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement 
(Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el 
Desplazamiento, CODHES), roughly ten percent of 
Colombians have been forced from their homes and 
communities due to threats from paramilitary and 
state forces. Alongside these deplorable 
conditions has been Colombia’s on-going 
‘parapolitica’ scandal. Since 2006, upwards of 
eighty governors, mayors, military officials, and 
congressional politicians have been alleged or 
found guilty for having direct connections, 
meetings, and/or contracts with Colombia’s most 
notorious paramilitary organization - the United 
Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas 
Unidas de Colombia, AUC). During said 
collaborations hundreds if not thousands of 
oppositional political opponents, 
trade-unionists, and community organizers became 
targets for assassination, were threatened, 
and/or disappeared. As a result of testimony from 
former paramilitary leaders, who admitted links 
with said politicians, countless bodies have been 
found in mass-graves reminiscent of those 
discovered in Germany during the twentieth 
century. Included in this scandal are Colombia’s 
Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón, his 
cousin Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, 
President Uribe’s brother Santiago and their 
cousin former-Senator Mario Uribe, Senator Carlos 
García Orjuela the president of Partido de la 
‘U’, three brothers and the step-son of 
Colombia’s Attorney General Eduardo Maya 
Villazón, and the list goes on. It has even been 
alleged that secret meetings of paramilitary 
forces transpired at the president’s personal 
farm ‘Guacharacas’. The information citing those 
implicated in the scandal has however come from 
surprising sources. Rather than opponents to the 
Uribe administration making statements of 
state-paramilitary activity, the majority of 
revelations have come from long-time supporters of the current administration.

Salvatore Mancuso, the last leader of the AUC and 
one-time neighbour of Uribe, provided a great 
deal of information related to the Colombian 
state’s systemic involvement with paramilitaries 
over the past fifteen years. The informal leading 
commander of the AUC after 2001 and its formal 
leader upon the murder of Carlos Castaño in 2004 
revealed that the actual number of sitting 
politicians linked to paramilitaries rests well 
above those that have been investigated, 
detained, or sentenced. Citing state officials 
alone, Mancuso noted that roughly one-hundred 
paramilitary proxies exist in the Colombian 
establishment. As links between the AUC and Uribe 
became ever clearer in 2008, the president had 
the primary leaders and whistle blowers of the 
AUC extradited to solitary confinement in the 
United States where interviews (and confessions) 
would be difficult. Journalist Matthew Thompson 
wrote that “such testimony and Mancuso’s 
explosive political revelations were aborted near 
midnight on May 12, when, without warning, Mr 
Uribe had the AUC commander and 13 high-level 
colleagues plucked from detention on the 
outskirts of Medellin and extradited to the US”. 
While responsible for the deaths of thousands, if 
not tens of thousands, Mancuso provides an 
excellent example of how the state, without 
hesitation or reprisal, simply uses its power to 
silence any and all who reveal the contradictions 
of Colombia’s political institutions. However, 
Uribe’s measures of silencing are not limited to 
those whom directly committed the crimes 
themselves. While it can be argued whether or not 
Mancuso and Uribe were once allies - even though 
such debates are becoming less and less difficult 
to ascertain - the president has, in fact, 
sanctioned allies within the political structure itself.

Earlier this year Colombia’s Supreme Court and 
Uribe went head to head concerning amendments 
made to the constitution which enabled the 
president to run for a second term in 2006. After 
a thorough investigation, Court officials ruled 
that “the initiative to amend the constitution 
was flawed by criminal acts”. The primary basis 
of this claim was that various government 
ministers, including Uribe, bribed former 
congresswoman Yidis Medina to vote in favour of 
legislation empowering the president to run for 
re-election. As it increasingly appeared as 
though a congressional tie may occur on whether 
to allow Uribe to run for office a second time, 
Medina was approached and was promised a series 
of lucrative jobs and contracts for her vote. In 
April, Medina turned herself in, confessed, and 
provided evidence that of such a campaign and her 
involvement therein. For accepting the bribe and 
following through with the vote Medina was 
sentenced to forty-seven months in prison. In 
June, Uribe responded to the Supreme Court’s 
investigation and report on the illegalities 
concerning the 2006 re-election. The president 
announced that a referendum would be held in 2009 
permitting Colombians to facilitate a repeat of 
the 2006 election. While a referendum most 
assuredly delegitimizes the credibility and 
findings of the Supreme Court, it would 
nevertheless provide Uribe with some image of 
legitimacy. However, Uribistas soon calculated 
that rather than supporting a referendum in 2009 
a push could be made to negate the constitution 
once more, allowing Uribe to seek a second 
re-election. By July, the moral call for the 
referendum was reneged thereby permitting Uribe 
and the Partido de la ‘U’ to dismiss the Supreme 
Court’s legitimacy, bypass a provisional 
election, broaden formal challenges to Colombia’s 
judiciary, and further modify elitist 
protectionist measures within the constitution.

Uribe’s attack has not ceased. Apart from 
physically silencing the AUC’s leadership, Uribe 
has proposed a series of amendments to the 
Colombian constitution that would relinquish 
various powers related to the country’s Supreme 
Court and the capacity to investigate existing 
congressional politicians and state officials 
connected to the parapolitica. Essentially, the 
Court would become powerless in directly 
reviewing, hearing, or trying cases related to 
the scandal. If accepted, the Supreme Court would 
be restricted from any involvement in said cases 
other than through an appeal process. This 
clearly ensures political security for Uribistas 
while the president marginalizes the judiciary’s 
authority (over the current administration). 
Alongside such measures the president has 
increased his rhetoric by accusing officials of 
manipulating the judiciary and claiming it as a 
medium that seeks to demonize his legitimacy. 
Uribe and Senator Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez (under 
investigation for alleged links with the AUC) 
have tried to appropriate the Supreme Court’s 
operations related to the parapolitica by 
flipping the scandal on its head. Both have 
called on the Court to begin investigations 
against various oppositional party members, such 
as Senator Piedad Córdoba (PLC), Senator Gustavo 
Petro (POLO), and other critics of the Colombian 
Right, for allegedly pressuring persons involved 
in the scandal. Supreme Court Judge Iván 
Velásquez has too been slandered. Right-of-centre 
politicos defamed the court justice by accusing 
him of manoeuvring information and testimony 
connected to the parapolitica through bribery. 
Discussions of those involved in the prosecution 
have been surreptitiously taped. Juan Carlos Díaz 
Rayo, a former investigator for the Supreme 
Court, was secretly recorded discussing how some 
evidence related to certain officials connected 
to the scandal could be stronger. The state has 
also attempted to create a counter-scandal 
entitled ‘FARC-politica’ by the popular media. 
Important proponents and activists within the 
sphere of politics, labour, academics, and the 
progressive media have been targeted as members 
or associates of the Revolutionary Armed Forces 
of Colombia-People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas 
Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo, 
FARC-EP). This has greatly scarred and hampered 
the important work of noted activists, 
researchers, and internationally respected 
critics of the Colombian state. Being associated 
with the broadly-defined charge of ‘rebellion’ 
prevents support or actions of solidarity with 
said colleagues for threat of being linked to or seen as a guerrilla.

Rather than seeking truth and facilitating 
justice the Uribe administration and its 
ideological cohorts have clearly become 
preoccupied with silencing systemic corruption by 
targeting those who have spoken out or raised a 
spotlight on officials who have facilitated the 
death and disappearances of the country’s 
citizens. Uribe has shown his true colours as a 
leader within a regime that seeks to dispel 
democratic stability and integrity for the 
continuity of power and dominance. While not the 
only actor within the play of Colombian 
authoritarianism, Uribe, if ‘re-elected’ a second 
time, will most assuredly take Colombia down a 
road far from the rule of law but rather a tyranny secured by despotism.

James J. Brittain is an Assistant Professor of 
Sociology at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, 
Canada and the co-founder of the Atlantic 
Canada-Colombia Research Group. He can be reached 
at <mailto:james.brittain at acadiau.ca>james.brittain at acadiau.ca.


* Mauricio Archila (2007). “Democratizing 
‘democracy’ in Colombia” in The State of 
Resistance: Popular struggles in the global 
south. François Polet (Ed.).London, UK: Zed Books. p.60.




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