Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil-Military Relations in Colombia (Suny Series in Global Politics)

Global Capitalism, Democracy, and Civil-Military Relations in Colombia

SUNY series in Global Politics

James N. Rosenau, editor

GLOBAL CAPITALISM, DEMO CRACY, AND CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN COLOMBIA

찞 WILLIAM AVILÉS

S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2006 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Christine L. Hamel Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Avilés, William, 1971– Global capitalism, democracy, and civil-military relations in Colombia / William Avilés. p. cm. — (SUNY series in global politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6699-X (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Democracy—Colombia. 2. Civil-military relations—Colombia. 3. Colombia— Politics and government—1974– 4. Colombia—Economic policy. I. Title. II. Series. JL2881.A95 2006 322'.5'09861—dc22 2005012802 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Tables and Figures

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

1

Globalization, State Theory, and Civil-Military Relations

7

2

Counterinsurgency, Civil-Military Relations, and Low-Intensity Democracy: A Historical Context

25

Civil-Military Relations and the Reform of Low-Intensity Democracy

51

The Preservation of Civilian Authority in the Samper Administration

71

5

Military Impunity and Symbolic Reform

89

6

Parastate Repression and Civilian Tolerance

105

7

The Continuation of Low-Intensity Democracy: The Pastrana and Uribe Administrations

123

3 4

Conclusion

141

Notes

149

References

165

Index

187 v

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List of Tables and Figures

TABLES

3.1

The Transnational Elite in the Gaviria Administration (1990–1994)

56

Presidential Commission for the Reform of Public Administration

63

3.3

Civilian Advances in Military and Security Policy, 1990–1994

64

4.1

The Transnational Elite in the Samper Administration (1994–1998)

73

4.2

Colombian Defense Budget, 1990–2000

84

6.1

Share of Responsibility for Noncombatant Deaths and Forced Disappearances

111

The Transnational Elite in the Pastrana and Uribe Administrations (1998–2006)

126

Top Contributors to Federal Election Campaigns by Transnational Corporations with Investments in Latin America, 1995–2000

133

3.2

7.1 7.2

FIGURE

5.1

The Growth of the Guerrilla Movement, 1980–1999

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to the friends, family, colleagues, and institutions who helped me with this book. The financial and academic support that I received as a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Riverside was vital to the research that I conducted. I would specifically like to thank my graduate advisors, David PionBerlin, Ronald Chilcote, and Gonzalo Sánchez, for their advice, time, and insight. David Pion-Berlin’s support since the very beginning of this project has been essential, and I am grateful for his continued support. I would also like to thank George A. Gonzalez, Richard Avilés, Soleimain Kiasatpour, and Susan E. Honeyman, who all read significant portions of this manuscript and provided invaluable feedback. The recommendations that I received from the anonymous reviewers significantly improved the manuscript, and I greatly appreciate their input. I also thank Dr. Michael Rinella, Christine Hamel, and Camille Hale of SUNY Press for their assistance in the completion of this manuscript. Many of the ideas that guide this work were stimulated by the years of debates, arguments and discussions that I have had with George A. Gonzalez. I am thankful for his friendship and intellectual support. I thank my partner, Susan E. Honeyman, for her love, patience, and support during the writing of this book. I also want to thank Kenneth Fernendez, whose constant assistance and encouragement will always be appreciated. A special thanks is due to the Bogotá universities that allowed me to utilize their libraries to conduct research, specifically the National University, the University of Los Andes, and the Externado University. My family members in Colombia were extremely generous and supportive during my research trips, and I am grateful to them. I greatly appreciated the hospitality of the many other Colombians who went out of their way to assist me upon hearing about my project.

ix

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the faculty members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, Kearney (UNK), for their constant encouragement, support, and good cheer. The financial support of the Research Services Council at UNK was instrumental in the completion of this project and is greatly appreciated. Finally, I would like to thank the journal Latin American Perspectives for permitting me to reprint portions of chapters 2 and 6, which initially appeared in my article “Institutions, Military Policy, and Human Rights in Colombia” (2001, vol. 28, no. 1: 31–55) as well as portions of chapter 4, which initially appeared in my article “The DemocraticPeace Thesis and U.S. Relations with Colombia and Venezuela” (2005, vol. 32, no. 3: 33–59). This book is dedicated to my parents, Frank and Nancy Avilés and to my late uncle Laude Hundek Cabello, whose laughter has been missed.

Introduction

In the last two decades of the twentieth century and the first four years of the twenty-first, over fifty thousand Colombians have died in political violence, over two million have been displaced and thousands have disappeared (Livingstone 2004, 5; Giraldo 1996, 17; Murillo 2004, 35).1 Human rights activists, leftist party members, peasants perceived as supporting guerrilla forces, and trade unionists have made up the vast majority of the victims. Paradoxically, this violence took place during a period of extensive political and economic liberalization. The expansion of political and civil rights and democratic accountability included the replacement of a military officer with a civilian at the head of the defense ministry, the establishment of elections for state governors and mayors, and the construction of a new constitution. The new constitution established special rights and protections for Colombia’s indigenous and Afro-Colombian minorities, as well as allowed citizens to launch special court actions (tutelas) to receive compensation for alleged violations of human rights, among other reforms (Cepeda 1998, 71–95). Economic changes included a series of policies associated with “neoliberalism,” such as privatizing state-owned enterprises, liberalizing financial markets and foreign exchange, lowering tariffs upon imported goods, and weakening labor protections. In explaining Colombia’s civil-military reforms the focus has been placed upon the changing mindset of military leaders, their greater willingness to accept a diminished role (Leal Buitrago 1994, 135–37). The civil-military reforms that were implemented during the late 1980s and early 1990s included the appointment of the first civilian defense minister in forty years, the establishment of a civilian controlled national security agency, and the establishment of civilian controlled agencies to monitor the growth of military budgets. This expansion of civilian authority took place after the strengthening of the military

1

2

INTRODUCTION

capabilities of guerrilla armies that had been challenging the state for decades. Precisely at a time in which one would expect the expansion of military autonomy and political responsibilities in the face of an internal threat to state power, the reverse happened. How can we explain the expansion of civilian authority over the armed forces in the face of a growing challenge to the Colombian state? Has this institutional change been conducive to reducing the human rights violations committed by the state? Is it sufficient to limit our analyses to the strength, structure, or mindset of state actors or even to the borders of nation-states? This book demonstrates the centrality of a state’s social and international context to understanding the direction and limits of democratic reform, specifically the reforms of civil-military relations. These questions can best be answered through the theory of “global capitalism.” An emerging field within sociology and international relations has stressed the importance of international economic changes as well as the diffusion of specific ideologies in transforming states throughout the world (Robinson 1996a, 2003; Sklair 1995, 2002; Gill 1990, 1993; Cox 1986, 1987). Capitalist globalization has not only meant the decentralization of capitalist production and the diffusion of neoliberal economic policies, but it is also transforming the organization of nation-states. As William Robinson argues, the “nation-state is neither retaining its primacy nor disappearing but becoming transformed and absorbed into this larger structure of a transnational state” (2001, 158). A transnational state is a set of institutions (based nationally and supranationally) that operates in order to advance the interests of an emergent global bourgeoisie (transnational corporations), with national states becoming “components” of a larger economic and political project. The United States has played (and plays) a central role in the construction and strengthening of this transnational process, actively promoting the linkage between free-market economic reforms with the expansion of formal, institutional democracies (McSherry 2000, 26–34; Robinson 1996a; Smith 2000; Gills, Rocamora, and Wilson 1993). These “democracies,” or low-intensity democracies, are largely procedural democracies that allow political opposition, greater individual freedoms, a reduced institutional role for the armed forces, and a more permeable environment for the investments of transnational capital (Gills 1993; Gills 2000; Robinson 1996a). This type of “democracy” is viewed favorably by transnational corporations and the U.S. government for its ability to coopt radical movements that challenge the dominant political and/or socioeconomic order, as well as its perceived greater effectiveness in obtaining the consent necessary for capitalist globalization (Robinson 1996a, 38). Furthermore, a tendency by military regimes toward nationalist policymaking that potentially could undermine the free operation of markets and exchange is mitigated through the more transparent and permeable political institutions of low-intensity democracies.

INTRODUCTION

3

This process of democratic and economic change is an ongoing process— and one that does not represent a linear one by any means. Political and economic strategies take place within a context of struggle and resistance from subordinate actors seeking alternative forms of political and economic development. The neoliberal economic policies associated with low-intensity democracies have exacerbated economic inequality and poverty in Latin America, creating a potential source of political instability and challenges to the continuation of these regimes.

CAP I TALIST GLOBALIZ AT ION, CIVIL-MILI TARY RELAT IONS, AND DEMO CRACY IN COLOMBIA

I submit that capitalist globalization was central to the initiation and to the continuing limitation of democratic reforms in Colombia’s civil-military relations. Dramatic changes in the structure of the global economy, the political efforts of intellectuals linked to business policy-planning organizations, and shifts in U.S. foreign policy strategies toward “democracy promotion” (i.e., promoting low-intensity democracies) represented key contextual variables preceding and occurring during this reform process in Colombia. The emergence of globalizing technocrats and politicians (a transnational elite)2 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, policy-planning connections between U.S. and Colombian policy makers sharing similar intellectual and policy priorities, and the influence of transnational corporations (TNCs) have been key to Colombian democratization in the midst of escalating political violence. The transnational elite that rose to power in Colombia during the 1990s initiated and implemented political and economic reforms, in part, to create a business environment amenable to the needs of transnational corporations. This environment is being constructed through reform and violence. The political strategies and changes also reflected an effort to integrate an armed opposition into the formal political process. Peace negotiations with the insurgents, new institutional arrangements, and electoral reform did contribute to co-opting sectors of the armed opposition (i.e., the M-19 in 1990 and the Ejercito Popular de Liberación [EPL] in 1990). Yet these reforms and negotiations failed to win over the largest guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), thus requiring reliance upon state and parastate repression. The FARC’s military capabilities have allowed it the option to demand more extensive concessions from the state, which include socioeconomic reforms (substantial income redistribution or land reform) inconsistent with neoliberalism or the interests of transnational corporations. Contrary to claims of the administrations that came to power during the 1990s as well as the administrations that have followed, the Colombian state

4

INTRODUCTION

was still very much involved in the business of political repression. Colombia’s political and economic elite have continued to govern in a manner inconsistent with the interests of a majority of Colombians, despite democratic reform. Due to the changed international context and the rise to power of a transnational elite, they exerted greater efforts to limit the state’s direct participation in repression in exchange for a more subdued and indirect role. What actually has occurred in Colombia has been the privatization of repression, whereby the actual responsibility of persecuting individuals and communities with suspected sympathies for the guerilla movement was in large part shifted to private groups of armed civilians otherwise known as paramilitaries. Paramilitary forces have been engaged in the massacres and assassinations of the perceived supporters of the guerrillas and were responsible for over 70 percent of politically motivated killings during the 1990s (Echandía Castilla 1999, 65; Livingstone 2004, 6–7). The victims of the paramilitary groups have been members of any group deemed as “subversive.” Specifically, trade unionists, human rights activists, peasant and student leaders and political militants from the left have been targeted (Human Rights Watch 1996; Amnesty International 1994; U.S. State Department 1998; Gallón 1999, 1; Washington Office on Latin America 1989, 2–3). Officially, elected civilian authorities denounced the paramilitaries as outlaws, grouping them along with the guerillas as equal threats to the nation’s internal stability and security. Unofficially, however, the state’s armed forces were very much involved in supplying, assisting, transporting, and protecting paramilitary forces in their counterinsurgency efforts. While the armed forces focused on the direct struggle with the armed insurgency, the paramilitaries engaged in a persecution of suspected guerilla sympathizers. In this endeavor, they were heavily financed by agrarian elites (traditional hacendados, cattle ranchers, narcotraffickers, agro-exporters, regional party leaders) who opposed efforts to politically liberalize the state and/or negotiate with the insurgency. Paramilitaries allowed the military to indirectly support the repression of noncombatant civilians while the state denied any culpability. They fulfilled a role that, given the changed international context, state security forces could no longer play in the overt and official manner practiced in previous decades. Colombia’s transnational elite publicly condemned these forces, only to accomodate and/or tolerate their role within the state’s counterinsurgency war, contrary to the popular image of democratic reformers under assault from extrainstitutional actors from the “right” and the “left.”

OVERVIEW OF BO OK

This book examines democratization and civil-military relations in Colombia in order to explicate how social and international forces contributed to the

INTRODUCTION

5

ostensibly contradictory outcome of democratic and economic reform coinciding with political repression. In chapter 1 I advance an argument for the application of the theory of global capitalism and demonstrate how this approach advances our understanding of civil-military relations and democratic change. Chapter 2 presents a brief historical context, examining the various changes in Colombia’s political economy and civil-military relations preceding the consolidation into national power of a transnational elite. Chapters 3 through 7 represent the cases that I examine in order to establish the relevance of the theory of global capitalism to Colombia. The political reforms initiated in the Cesár Gaviria administration (1990–1994) to weaken the role of the armed forces, despite the increasing threat of a guerrilla insurgency, were initiated and formulated by globalizing bureaucrats and intellectuals (Colombia’s transnational elite) concerned with expanding formal, institutional democracy and free markets (chapter 3). The increase of civilian institutional authority over the armed forces continued into the presidential administration of Ernesto Samper (1994–1998). This advancement survived despite organized efforts within the military to have Samper removed and congressional investigations into presidential misconduct (chapter 4). In both cases, Colombia’s transnational elite, representatives of the U.S. government, and/or transnational corporations worked to reduce the institutional influence of the military and preserve civilian authority over the armed forces. The 1990s are important because they represent an era of neoliberal economic reform, as Colombia enacted a number of laws consistent with capitalist globalization. The period is also significant because of the simultaneous implementation of civil-military reforms corresponding with the growth and consolidation of paramilitary armies within Colombia’s counterinsurgency strategy. Furthermore, the governments in power during the 1990s represent cases in which the initiation, formulation, and implementation of policy can be observed in two different contexts in regards to political legitimacy and U.S.Colombian relations. The Gaviria administration was generally popular during his administration and enjoyed good relations with the U.S. government. In contrast, the Samper administration began and governed under the shadow of scandal, congressional investigations, and terrible relations with the United States. The worsening political conditions of the Samper administration represent a case in which the continued subordination of the armed forces to civilian authority would be unexpected, yet the progress in civilian authority over the military was maintained throughout the scandal-ridden government. In my examination of these administrations I am most concerned with the executive branch, given its broad responsibility in security issues, as well as certain executive-level committees formed to develop policies related to security and defense. The president is charged with maintaining national security, declaring war (with the permission of the Senate), and directing war operations

6

INTRODUCTION

as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Colombia’s National Security Council and the defense ministry within the executive branch are also examined given their responsibility in developing and implementing policies. Agencies of the U.S. government that directly affect these policies, such as the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Drug Enforcement Agency are discussed where relevant. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 address a central question of this project—what has institutional change meant in regards to the human rights violations committed by the state? These chapters demonstrate that the institutional changes that are ostensibly conducive to democratic consolidation have had little impact upon the degree of human rights violations committed by the Colombian state. The reduction of the military’s institutional prerogatives and responsibilities has not meant the consolidation of democratic behavior. The military continues to be granted a decisive degree of autonomy over internal security and order. The very civilian leadership that was central to the initiation and preservation of Colombia’s democratic gains has been key in reinforcing the internal security activities of the Colombian armed forces and/or accomadating to paramilitarism. The Colombian armed forces have been central to the political violence and human rights violations that have led to the deaths of thousands of Colombian citizens. Many of the military officers that have been investigated or accused of committing human rights violations have been protected by military courts. Civilian authorities have consistently been unwilling to reform the military justice system in order to end this impunity (chapter 5). Chapter 6 examines the development and integral role of paramilitary groups in Colombia’s counterinsurgency strategy. This chapter details the toleration of paramilitarism by democratic reformers within the Colombian state, as well as within the U.S. government. Chapter 7 establishes the degree that civil-military reforms continued to be maintained under the neoliberal governments of Andres Pastrana (1998–2002) and the administration of Alvaro Uribe (2002–2006) along with the continued role of paramilitary organizations and/or the armed forces in political repression. Finally, a concluding chapter summarizes the evidence presented and makes some preliminary statements about the comparability of my analysis to other cases in Latin America. The contradictory direction of civil-military relations in Colombia, the progress in reducing military power despite an increasing threat to the state, cannot be adequately explained with institutionalist and nation-state centered models. Only through an examination of the transnational and global political economy factors that were central to civil-military reforms and continue to reinforce these changes within the Colombian state can one have an understanding of the continuing limitations to democratization.

ONE

Globalization, State Theory, and Civil-Military Relations

T

HE PREVAILING DEMOCRATIZATION literature considers the reduction in the institutional and political power of the military within a state to be a central requirement in the establishment and maintenance of democracy. According to J. Samuel Fitch (1998, 36) “democratic theory does not admit the possibility that any group—military or civilian—possesses greater legitimacy than the will of the people, democratically determined through free and inclusive elections and tempered by the interplay of constitutionally established institutions.” Within such systems the military must remain subordinate to the constitutionally designated civilian authorities, and there can be no “enclaves” of power or policymaking that are not accountable to democratic control. David PionBerlin (2005) argues that democracy requires the avoidance of “. . . undesirable military behavior, be it intense pressure, provocation coup threats, or actual coups.” The emphasis of institutionalist/state-centered models upon the balance of prerogatives within the state is reflected in studies of democratization and civil military relations in Latin America. In these analyses institutions pertain to specific political organizations as well as systems of rules that structure and stabilize relations between actors. This perspective insists upon the potentially autonomous role for political institutions and argues that policy outcomes mostly reflect the design of these institutions.1 For example, for some the bureaucracy, the executive agency, or the army is considered to be a collection of standard operating procedures and structures that define and protect interests (March and Olsen 1983). The degree of powers wielded by a state agency, the level of training, and the existence of a specific doctrine determining the priorities of state actors are stressed in institutionalist/state-centered models as

7

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CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN COLOMBIA

central in understanding state behavior. Others affiliated with this approach have emphasized a historical legacy that a state’s institutional structure can carry in limiting the options available to current and future political actors.2 For example, the Transitions to Democracy volumes stresses the importance of the specific choices of political elites (military and civilian) in understanding the success or failure of democratic transitions. The competition between “hardliners” and “softliners” within the state and/or “radicals” and “moderates” within the opposition during specific periods of time were given important power in explaining democratic change. The institutional outcome of this transition within specific states—the division of political prerogatives between military and civilian authorities—set these countries upon a specific “path” that depending on the power of the armed forces during the transition determines the degree democratic consolidation can be achieved in a respective nation-state (see Karl 1990; Agüero 1995). Contemporary studies of civil-military relations generally examine the armed forces as a body in which the process of professionalism and training, routinization and indoctrination can effectively insulate the military from the dictates of civil society or the petty political interests of society’s respective social classes (Pion-Berlin 1997; Rial 1990; Fitch 1989, 1998; Norden 1996; Hunter 1997; Stepan 1988). The existence of electoral competition (Hunter 1997), the relative power between civilian authorities and the military (Stepan 1988; Agüero 1995), and the corporate interests of the armed forces (Nordlinger 1977) are central in understanding the extent of civilian control within a respective nation-state. For example, Wendy Hunter’s analysis of civil-military relations in Brazil utilizes a “rational choice institutionalism” that focuses upon the “strategic choices” of civilian and military authorities in Brazil (2001, 40). Changes in institutional structures (i.e., the introduction of elections) changed the incentives and choices available to civilian authorities, which led them to erode military prerogatives (Hunter 1997, 2001). David Pion-Berlin (1997) has argued that the degree that power is concentrated in the hands of civilian authorities within a specific agency, as well as the degree that the military can influence the direction of a specific issue, contributes to success or failure in eroding military power. Felipe Agüero (1995) has posited that the balance of power between civilian and military authorities within the state is a consequence of the prior balance of power in democratic transitions that established an institutional path, which permeates present-day civil-military relations. Finally, Michael C. Desch submits that “. . . if a country faces a significant internal threat, the institutions of civilian authority will most likely be weak and deeply divided, making it difficult for civilians to control the military (1996, 4). Institutional contexts and strategic decisions, the balance of prerogatives within the state, as well as civilian/military perceptions of threat or doctrines have all been emphasized in civil-military studies in order to explain shifting patterns of civilian control and military autonomy within specific nation-states.

CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS

9

The literature that has examined democratization and civil-military relations in Colombia has generally replicated the nation-state/institutionalist bias found in the larger literature. At the end of the 1980s Colombian and U.S. scholars focused their attention on the failures of Colombia’s political institutions to create space for political participation and competition (Archer 1995; Arocha and Sanchez 1987; Leal Buitrago and Zamosc 1990; Leal Buitrago 1989; Hartlyn 1988; Kline 1995; Martz 1996; see chapter 2). These works focused on the consequences that a lack of political openness had in influencing the development of informal, violent and nonviolent political movements that arose to challenge the state. The process of constitutional reform that took place between 1990 and 1991 was viewed as an important step in liberalizing Colombia’s politics and undermining the two-party dominance that has long been a part of its history. The successful construction of a new constitution has been viewed in part as a political strategy of political elites within the state and/or a response to a deterioating social situation (narco-trafficking violence, a strengthening guerrilla insurgency, increasing civic strikes and voter abstention, etc.) (Dugas 1994; Safford and Palacios 2002, 336). A related, but also common focus of studies on Colombian politics has been an emphasis upon the “absence,” “weakness,” and/ or “ineffectiveness” of state institutions, specifically the lack of a coercive presence throughout the country (Pizarro 1999; Rangel Suarez 1998; Graham and Scowcroft 2000). The argument is that the public forces require more resources and effective tactics in order to efficiently combat the guerrilla insurgency (Rangel Suarez 1998, 145–77; Dávila 1999, 338–45; Zackison and Bradley 1997). A stronger state could establish the “law and order” necessary to create a stable environment for business investment and development, while at the same time removing opportunities for guerrilla and paramilitary legitimation through their substitution of the state. State behavior is conceptualized as largely an institutionalist process, taking place within the confines of the nation-state. The focus upon the nation-state is also apparent in Colombian civil-military studies (Leal 1994; Pizarro 1995; Davila 1998; Davila 1999; Borrero 1989; Premo 1982; Ruhl 1980; Romero 2003b, 225). For example, Mauricio Romero (2003b, 225–26) argues that conflicts between the presidency and the armed forces during the 1980s and 1990s over a negotiated resolution of the internal conflict are the result of a “path dependency” of institutional conflict that was established in the Betancur administration (1982–1986). In explaining the institutional change of the early 1990s Francisco Leal (1994) emphasizes the changing mind-set of military leaders, who ostensibly developed greater confidence in civilian leadership, to explain the success of civilian initiatives to reduce military prerogatives. This confidence was based on some success in negotiations with smaller guerrilla armies in the late 1980s, as well as increasing funds for military budgets. Leal argues that the emergence of narcotraffickers as enemies of the state (not simply guerrillas), as well as negative human rights reports and corruption allegations, contributed to a greater acceptance by the military of a

10

CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN COLOMBIA

reduced political role (Leal Buitrago 1994, 135–37). Andrés Dávila’s work on the history of civil-military relations in Colombia focuses upon the character of the military’s subordination to civilians at the beginning of the National Front (a power-sharing arrangement between the two parties that existed from 1958–1974), which institutionalized its autonomy over internal defense, without the responsibility of governing (Dávila 1998, 172–73). According to Dávila this “relative subordination-autonomy” continues to mark civil-military relations, contributing to political tension and conflict between civilian authorities and the military leadership (ibid.). These examinations of political violence and civil-military relations will often take note of the influence of the United States on the military’s security doctrine or the pressures of the U.S.-sponsored “drug war” upon the country’s civil-military relations; however, these variables do not hold a central place in their analyses. The role of capitalist globalization and the integration of the Colombian state into a larger transnational order is generally not even considered. The study of political violence and disorder within Colombia has not all been focused upon state institutions. Others have concluded that Colombia’s social structure plays a central role in the continuation of guerrilla warfare and violent reaction from the state and its paramilitary allies (Ahumada 1996, 2002; Romero 2003a, 2003b; Richani 2002; Medina Gallego 1990; Giraldo 1996). Consuelo Ahumada (1996, 2002) concludes that neoliberal reforms required the establishment of political institutions that centralized political control in the hands of Colombian executives and limited social protest. Ahumada suggests that the various policies associated with neoliberalism (privatization, reduction of protections for domestic industries, the curtailment of the state’s welfare role) created the need for authoritarian measures, benefitting a “neoliberal elite” over a “traditional elite” that supported a continued role for the state and nationalist politics. Nazih Richani’s work on Colombia’s “war system” integrates the role that economic elites have played in maintaining the internal conflict (2002, 133–56). Richani distinguishes between the needs of Colombia’s “agrarian elite” and its more modern, internationally integrated economic elites, arguing that the costs of the war upon these sectors plays a central role in the strategic options chosen by the state: to contain the insurgency, to build up a massive military response, or to negotiate a resolution (Richani 2002, 133–55). He argues that a “positive political economy” has been created in which guerrillas and the armed forces have acquired new wealth to maintain and intensify their war activities, creating a situation in which “war” is more beneficial than peace. Though these works share similar interests regarding divisions within Colombia’s political/economic establishment I complement their contributions by directly linking these divisions to transformations within the global economy. My interest is not only in the degree to which specific class factions are able to influence the state, but also in the degree to which state leaders have internalized transnational interests

CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS

11

as their nation’s own. Furthermore, the interventions of international financial institutions (IFIs) and the United States in promoting the political/economic conditions for Colombia’s limited political liberalization and para-state repression are addressed. In the end, institutionalist/nation-state analysis may help in explaining the military’s acceptance of the reforms, but why did the reforms take place when they did? Why would civilian authorities initiate them? It is unclear as to how the military’s confidence in civilian authority could be obtained, given the failure of negotiations with much larger guerrilla armies or why the armed forces of the late 1970s pressed, and received from civilian authorities, increasing institutional power in the face of a considerably weaker and regionally isolated threat. What had changed in terms of the state’s social and international context that led to the reduction of the military’s institutional role in the early 1990s? Why have we not seen a reversal of these changes with the intensification of the internal threat? Clearly, the “fragmentation” or “weakness” of the state is an important element in understanding Colombia’s political situation; although how have the decisions of political and economic elites created and/or exacerbated this situation? The moment of policy change and the direction that this change took in Colombia cannot be easily explained through the use of institutional or nationstate, based models of political behavior. The inability of traditional approaches to explain the apparent paradoxes in Colombian civil-military relations reflects an understanding of nation-states that first isolates nation-states from their international context, and second assumes a degree of state autonomy. A conception of the state that recognizes the importance of class relations of a given national/international society to state behavior can better explain policy outcomes in Colombian civil-military relations. As Laurence Whitehead has submitted in reference to democratization that “it may be artificial to dichotomize the analysis into domestic and international elements..” and “there is no such thing as democratization in one country” (Whitehead 1996, 23–24, emphasis mine; see also Yashar 1999). Broader social forces outside of the nation-state itself work to reinforce societal divisions of power that influence the behavior of politicians and military officers within a nation-state. This book adopts what William Robinson refers to as “transnational” or “global” perspective (Robinson 2001), one that does not limit our analyses solely to the “key decision-makers” or “central policy decisions” within nation-states, but integrates actors outside of nation-states, as well as highlighting how the transformation of nation-states within an era of capitalist globalization affects politics.

GLOBAL CAP I TALISM AND TRANSNAT IONAL STATES

Capitalist globalization refers to the accelerating internationalization of capital, technology, and the spread of capitalist production lines on a global level,

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a process that coincides with the decline of the regulatory influence of states and labor. Robinson and Leslie Sklair have argued that capitalist globalization has contributed to the restructuring or reorientation of nation-states into central actors within “transnational states” (Robinson 2003) or as a part of a “transnational capitalist class” (Sklair 2002). Transnational states are actors and institutions that facilitate capitalist globalization and the interests of transnational corporations. Nation-states are increasingly becoming a central component of this set of transnational actors, not only because of international pressure or coercion from international financial institutions or powerful states but because leaders have come to power within these states who equate national interests with transnational interests. These national states are joined in their efforts by various supranational political and economic institutions that are also guided by the need to expand free markets and the political liberalization that is viewed as complementary to this process. The leadership position of transnational corporations within the world economy has been central to the unfolding and development of this process. Transnational corporations (TNCs) are corporations that maintain headquarters in one country as well as operations in other nations. According to a United Nations Center on TNCs, by 1992 their investment patterns were driving the evolution of the world economy, and by 1995 two-thirds of world trade was being carried out by TNCs,3 and some 400 TNCs owned two-thirds of the world’s fixed assets (Robinson 1996c 20; Mansbach 1997, 204–11). By the year 2000 one-third of the world’s fifty largest economic entities were transnational corporations (Robbins 2002, 123–24). The increasing mobility of capital and the decentralization of the production process is being promoted by the competitive activities of transnational corporations seeking the business environment most acceptable to their interests (few protections for the environment, cheap labor, low taxes, as well as weak protections for labor). This business environment is being established throughout much of the third world, steadily increasing levels of foreign investment from transnational corporations. Foreign direct investment from transnational corporations into the third world increased fivefold between the early 1980s and the early 1990s (International Labor Organization 1997, 2). By 2001 foreign direct investment from transnational corporations was the most important source of external capital in developing countries, and between 1991 and 2001 the number of countries deemed “favorable” to foreign direct investment had increased from 80 to over 140 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2001). However, this direct investment abroad has been increasingly overshadowed by the levels of portfolio investments (stocks, mutual funds, pensions, insurance) engaged in by transnational capital. In 1975 almost 80 percent of foreign exchange transactions were linked to the production of goods and services, while in 1998 only 2.5 percent of these transactions were connected to goods and services,

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with 97.5 percent related to portfolio or financial flows (Henwood 1999, 31). The reduction of capital controls throughout Latin America has accelerated the ability of liquid capital to enter and leave specific markets in response to perceptions that an economy cannot meet the targets and objectives associated with the neoliberal model (i.e., overvalued currencies, increasing fiscal deficits, or inflation). Financial deregulation on portfolio investments led to an increase in flows of short-term capital that could enter and leave the region quickly, leading to national crises and banking collapses in different countries in Latin America during the 1990s (Green 2003, 58). TNCs have been aided in their efforts in creating a business environment consistent with their investment needs by an array of different actors. According to Leslie Sklair (2002, 9) there exists a “transnational capitalist class” of multiple actors committed to a set of policy objectives consistent with the goals of transnational corporations. Sklair divides the transnational capitalist class into four fractions, “1) Transnational corporate executives and their local affiliates (corporate fraction); 2) Globalizing state and inter-state bureaucrats and politicians (state fractions); 3) Globalizing professionals (technical fraction); and 4) Merchants and media (consumerist fraction)” (2002, 99). Sklair argues that this class “consists of those people who see their own interests and/or the interests of their social and/or ethnic group, often transformed into an imagined national interest, as best served by an identification with the global system” (2002, 9).4 Or as Robinson argues, the fact that increasingly political elites in power in Latin America constitute a “transnational fraction means that their material interests and identity lie with integration into the emergent structures of global capitalism and with the rationalization and modernization of both accumulation and domination” (2003, 117). Sklair’s “transnational capitalist class” and Robinson’s model of a “transnational state” both view the state as being a part of a larger structure of political and economic power that is emerging to faclilitate capitalist globalization internationally and the interests of transnational corporations specifically.5 Transnational policy-making institutions (such as the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Interamerican Dialogue, or the World Economic Forum), the governments of core capitalist states, and international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all worked to expand free trade, reduce regulations upon the investments of transnational corporations, and accelerate the integration of markets through economic blocs (such as the North American Free Trade Association or the European Union). In Latin America this process of economic reform and the integration of Latin American states into components of transnational states has been taking place since the mid-1970s. The shift to market-oriented economic strategies followed decades in which the developmental model in Latin America was state-led development through import-substitution-industrialization

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(ISI). The various ISI policies pursued by Latin American governments involved a significant role for state spending, financing that was increasingly obtained in the 1970s through loans from banks based in industrialized nations, banks that viewed the Latin American market as a safe location for their investments. The U.S.-instigated recession of the early 1980s in response to continuing inflation in the U.S. economy coupled with increasing energy prices undermined the ability of governments in Latin America to maintain their debt payments to international banks, with countries in the region threatening to default on their debts. In response, international credit dried up for Latin American governments, and the resulting economic crisis, which coincided with increasing domestic pressures for democratization, led to the withdrawal of military governments throughout the region (Remmer 1992/1993). The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank offered these states the necessary loans but required them to implement “stabilization” and “structural adjustment” policies in order to receive them. The region’s debt was used as a lever to press for “economic reform.” “Stabilization” represented a set of policies designed to create fiscal surpluses, reduce inflation, and reduce domestic demand for imports, all in an effort to improve the ability of these governments to pay down their debts (Green 2003, 270–71). Structural adjustment policies were policies such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, the shifting to export-led development, the removal of capital controls on foreign investments, and the weakening of labor protections in order to create a business environment welcoming to transnational corporations (ibid.). These policies have established, and are establishing, the basis for neoliberal economies, which have had a devastating impact upon the majority of Latin Americans. In 1980, 118 million Latin Americans were poor, but by 1990 that number had increased to 196 million and to 230 million by 1995 (Vilas 1996, 16; Robinson 1998/1999, 118). Between 1980 and 2000 both social inequality and poverty increased despite a 52 percent increase in total GDP for the region, as Latin America’s wealthiest benefited the most from neoliberalism (Green 2003, 151–54). Unemployment increased by one-third between 1991 and 2001 to reach 8.4 percent for the region, while millions joined Latin America’s growing informal labor market (ibid., 156–57). The emergence of neoliberal economies was not simply the result of international pressures but also reflected the hegemony of neoliberal ideology among a faction of Latin America’s political and economic elite. Gramsci, International Hegemony, and Policy-Planning Organizations Not only has capitalist globalization weakened national boundaries through a global system of production and the various institutional agreements that work to facilitate this process, but national boundaries have also been eroded

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by transnational policy networks linking intellectuals and politicians across borders. These intellectuals represent a global community of like-minded “modernizers” committed to a similar set of ideas believed necessary to create both the economic and the political conditions for transnational capital within their (as well as others’) respective nation-states. Antonio Gramsci (1971) argues that “hegemony” is a relation between social classes, in which one class fraction or class sector takes a leading role through gaining the willing consent of other classes and groups.6 The schools, churches, political parties, and media are examples of institutions that socialize the consent of subordinate classes to the rule of dominant classes. Gramsci also argues that “historic blocs” fuse different classes under one hegemonic order, established by the leadership of that “bloc,” as a variety of social forces (such as intellectuals, party leaders or the military) come together to maintain that order. In other words, the hegemony of a dominant class is not simply attained through the coercive force of the state (the police, the military, courts) but is also maintained by obtaining the consent of subordinate actors through consensual mechanisms (elections, interest group involvement, the dispersion of dominant ideologies). The rise of transnational corporations and elites internationally and the mechanisms utilized by these actors to develop a “historic bloc” internationally across all states in the international system has been emphasized within the “Gramscian School of International Relations” (Cox 1983, 1986, 1987; Gill 1991, 1993; Robinson 1996a). Robert Cox (1983, 1986, 1987) argues that the growing internationalization of production and exchange represents the potential basis of a transnational historic bloc. Following Gramsci, these scholars explicate the ideological and political tools that are in place to make the international hegemony of transnational capital a reality. The establishment of this “hegemony” is being accomplished through the influence of ideas and policy-planning groups. The ideas and details of the programs and laws of any national government generally require some type of planning, development, and thought in their creation. Policy planning organizations, universities, or think tanks have often played a role in the development of these ideas and policy agendas. These institutions introduce reports and proposals on major issues, and often members from these groups are appointed to central decision sites within the state (Robinson 1996a, 26–28, 41–44; Domhoff 1978, 63; Barrow 1993, 33; Gonzalez 2001; Centeño and Silva 1998; Petras and Morley 1992, chapter 7). Beyond the development of policy ideas, these organizations also “provide a setting in which an informed selection of members of the upper class and corporate community capable of serving in government can take place” (Domhoff 1980, 193).7 These academics and technocrats bring their various biases and ideological positions to their research and policy initiatives. These biases are a result of a number of factors including the social composition of the intellectuals themselves and/or the institutional conditioning of the university or think

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tank, which operates to remove or marginalize those academics who share a political position or bias that is inconsistent with the dictates of the people who control the research and/or institution (i.e., trustees, government or corporate wielders of grants, etc.) (Barrow 1990, 31; Touraine 1997). Stephen Gill (1991, 51–52) posits that “intellectuals are not simply the producers of ideology, they are also the ‘organizers of hegemony,’ that is they theorize the ways in which hegemony can be developed or maintained. Thus intellectuals are a steering force in the political rule of a dominant class fraction in a given historic bloc.” In an era in which changes in the international economy have prioritized neoliberal economic solutions as the key to economic growth Latin American governments have increasingly been led by those actors who demonstrate their integration (intellectually and politically) with this changing social order. Changing conditions within the international economy have created a policy environment in which those economists, technocrats, and other intellectuals promoting the ideals of the free market and capitalist competition have an opportunity to enact their policies (Petras and Morley 1992, 145–78; Petras 1999, 58–79). Throughout Latin America an emerging group of globalizing technocrats came to hold positions of national power over the economy and the state itself over the last two decades (Green 2003, 35–38). Jorge Dominguez and Richard Feinberg (1997) have examined individuals who have obtained leadership positions within Latin American governments and successfully promoted economic and political liberalization. They refer to these individuals as “technopols,” “technically skilled and politically savvy leaders who held key positions during critical periods of change” (Feinberg 1997, xiii), as opposed to “technocrats,” individuals with highly specialized training holding decisionmaking power within the state. In Technopols, different contributors focus upon the individual lives of specific technopols (such as Fernando Cardoso, Javier Corrales, and Alejandro Foxley) and explore how these actors have made neoliberal economic policies “acceptable” to the broader public (Dominguez 1997, 4). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s technopols throughout Latin America worked to “foster freer politics and freer markets” (Dominguez 1997, 2). In other words, these leaders worked to establish the hegemony of these economic and political ideas. The technopols whom Dominguez’s volume examines embrace democratic politics because, according to Dominguez, “democratic regimes” provide assurances that the rules and institutions that guide economic policies will endure over the long-term (ibid., 13). Of course, this only works if both “government and opposition are committed to the same broad framework of a market economy” (ibid.). Technopols also were a part of, or organized, various institutes, policy-planning groups, and economics teams in which they worked to develop and transmit their ideas, as well as to “colonize state agencies” in order to establish the transnational agenda of market democracies

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(ibid., 19–20). They represent key parts of modernizing policy coalitions which have competed and attained national power throughout the region. Catherine M. Conaghan and James Malloy focus on comparable policy coalitions in their analysis of neoliberal experiments in the Andes (1994). They stress the importance of not examining the state as a unitary actor, but preferring to view “. . . how conflict inside the ranks of state institutions and among societal actors can affect policy outcomes . . . the making and unmaking of policy is shown as highly contingent on concrete political struggles among power contenders that include classes and their organizations, bureaucratic agencies, technocratic cadres, and politicians and their parties” (Conaghan and Malloy 1994, 10). Others such as Eduardo Silva (1993) and Jeffrey Frieden (1991) have also examined these types of coalitions, concluding that if a specific coalition is dominated by economic interests with fixed investments producing only for a domestic market this coalition would differ in its ideological position than a coalition dominated by banking interests oriented to attracting greater international investment. In the case of Latin America not only have transnational corporations been important, but the support of the U.S government and international financial institutions has facilitated the emergence of these neoliberal coalitions, granting those groups and individuals deemed competent enough to carry out the necessary market reforms a degree of international and domestic political legitimacy (Dominguez 1997, 27). U.S. Foreign Policy and Democracy U.S. foreign policy has been (and is) engaged in a new type of political intervention in Latin America. Rather than endorse authoritarian systems of governments, as it has historically done, the United States has emphasized the expansion of democratic institutions in the last two decades as a more effective means in managing social protest and resistance, as well as in ensuring transnational investments (Robinson 1996a). The relationship between the U.S. state and TNCs has played an important role in this endeavor. Ronald Cox and Daniel Skidmore-Hess delineate the rise of transnational corporations within the U.S. government and their control over the two major political parties, replacing nationally oriented capitalists and labor in the overall policy direction of the U.S. state. Cox and Skidmore-Hess find that “some of the most important and influential political coalitions behind the long-term processes of globalization have been based in the United States and have long exported an ideological and political vision of the limits and possibilities of globalization to other parts of the world” (Cox and Skidmore-Hess 1999, 1–2). The United States has promoted a neoliberal economic and political liberalizing agenda, directly and indirectly, through free trade pacts in Latin America and in Africa, as well as its role in the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the IMF.8

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“Democracy Promotion” has become the centerpiece for U.S. foreign policy, as the U.S. foreign policy establishment has committed itself to expanding “market democracy” (McSherry 2000; Robinson 1996a; Smith 2000). The failure of authoritarian regimes to maintain their legitimacy in the face of significant popular challenge coupled with the end of the Cold War and the cooptive effect of democratization has contributed to this shift in U.S. foreign policy (Gills et al. 2003, 8–12). The development of “democracy promotion” agencies, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the use of aid conditionality that ties foreign assistance from the United States to institutional changes within the country’s politics are important indications of this policy.9 The NED argues that it is “guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures, and values” (National Endowment for Democracy 2001). Its work has been complemented by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and funded by the NED which “works to build democracy and market economies throughout the world” (CIPE 2000).10 The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), another arm of U.S. democracy promotion, has argued that “democracy promotion” is “complementary to and supportive of the transition to market-oriented economies” (as cited in Robinson 1996b, 634).11 In the case of Latin America, Thomas Carothers has argued that the promotion of democracy “has become a central element of U.S. policy . . . and is seen as essential to a positive security environment” (1995, 13). Between 1990 and 1999 Latin America was the region that received the second largest amount of “democracy promotion” assistance from USAID (Carothers 1999, 51). The work of these organizations has been complemented by a variety of military programs designed to foster democratic culture within Latin American militaries, with Samuel Huntington even arguing that such types of training “have been major factors in the diffusion and acceptance by military officers elsewhere of the liberal democratic norms of military professionalism and control” (1996, 7). By the mid-1990s all nations in Latin America, except for Cuba, could be formally considered “democracies,” and U.S. policymakers took at least partial credit for this success. The democratic outcomes sought by different U.S. governments have been the establishment of low-intensity democracies. Low-Intensity Democracy and Capitalist Globalization Low-intensity democracies are limited democracies in that they achieve important political changes, such as the reduction of the military’s formal institutional power or greater individual freedoms, but stop short in addressing the extreme social inequalities within Latin American societies (Gills, Rocamora, and Wilson 1993). “Democracy” is equated with a particular set of

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procedural criteria, a “procedural minimum that includes “contestation over policy and competition for office, participation of the citizenry through partisan, associational, and other forms of collective action, [and] accountability of rulers to the ruled through mechanisms of representation and the rule of law” (Karl 1990, 2). This democratic model exemplifies a U.S. model of democracy, where the “focus is upon electoral rights, with little consideration paid to the wider socioeconomic power structure,” in order to develop “a type of state apparatus required by neoliberal economics” (Smith 2000, 75–77). Low-intensity democracies effectively serve two functions. First, they provide a more transparent and secure environment for the investments of transnational capital, protecting them from the potentially nationalist imperatives of a military state, populist-corporatist regimes, or the corruption often associated with one-person rule. Second, these regimes function as legitimizing institutions for capitalist states, effectively co-opting the social opposition that arises from the destructive consequences of neoliberal austerity, or as Cyrus Vance and Henry Kissinger have argued, the promotion of “pre-emptive reform” in order to co-opt popular movements that may press for more radical, or even revolutionary change (as cited in Robinson 1996a, 201). John Dryzek (1996) in part refers to this “pre-emptive reform” by emphasizing the sometimes symbolic character of democratization and its effectiveness in weakening oppositional forces. The shift to “low-intensity” democracies reflects one element of a hegemonic process in which the focus is upon obtaining the consensual acceptance of the neoliberal order. As Barry Gills and colleagues argue, “the paradox of Low Intensity Democracy is that a civilianized conservative regime can pursue painful and even repressive social and economic policies with more impunity and with less popular resistance than can an openly authoritarian regime” (1993, 8–9). However, a role for a repressive state or para-state response within a Low-Intensity Democracy continues to be necessary for those subordinate actors that continue to resist capitalist globalization. Jorge Nef argues that limited democracy, with its narrow mobility opportunities and exclusionary agendas, provides a thin cushion against the deep structural problems once controlled by repression . . . in the absence of tangible rewards to buy legitimacy, violence (insurgent, repressive, institutionalized, as well as criminal) has become the most common form of political interaction. Under the veneer of normality, violence itself—including banditry, terrorism, repression, official abuses by security forces, and generalized lawlessness—remains the region’s dominant mode of conflict management. (1995, 94)

In the case of Latin America, and Colombia specifically, the pursuit of a series of economic policies to open up the economy to greater international

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competition has simply exacerbated social and economic inequality. This has contributed to conditions amenable to strengthening coercive sectors of the state, as well as expanding paramilitary operations in response to escalating challenges to the state’s legitimacy.12 The transitions to “democracy” in Latin America or Colombia’s political liberalization represented not a consolidation of democratic practices but an alternative form of elite rule.13 In Latin America, the political institutions that have been established over the last two decades have been highly centralized, with the executive wielding a great deal of power (O’Donnell 1994). Economic policymaking in particular is restricted to specific technocrats that have embraced the ideologies of neoliberalism and/or enjoy connections with modern sectors of capital and the international financial institutions that promote the agenda of transnational corporations. The internationalization of capital markets and the restrictions upon economic behavior monitored by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have furthered the maintenance of low-intensity democracies. These restrictions of global capital (see Gill and Law 1988) reduce the necessity of military rule to ensure economic strategies amenable to the interests of local and international economic elites. The collapse of the socialist bloc with the end of the Cold War further limited options, as the loss of this ideological and political alternative to capitalist globalization undermined pressures for radical change. The above structural context creates the conditions for the successful reduction of the military’s prerogatives by transnationalized states. The existence of a relationship between democratization and the interests of specific classes has been noted by a number of different scholars (Moore 1966; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992). Catherine Conaghan and James Malloy (1994, 22) find in their analyses of neoliberal reform in the Andes that domestic business elites promoted democratic reform, as business elites viewed democracy as “a means to secure steady access to policy makers and to guarantee more predictability and probusiness postures in economic policy.” Jeffrey Paige’s (1997) and William I. Robinson’s (2003) works on political liberalization in Central America associate democratization with the rise of modern sectors of the capitalist class (finance, agro-industrialists, capital-intensive factions, internationalized linked business sectors) to a position of dominance in these respective societies. For example, Paige finds that the revolutionary challenges of the 1980s in Central America worked to weaken the landed oligarchy (the owners of large landed estates) and strengthened agro-industrialists (who profited most from the processing of coffee) within these societies, a sector less reliant upon authoritarian power for capital accumulation (Paige 1997, 315–25). Representatives of the region’s landed oligarchy have been in opposition to political liberalization, working to maintain their control over the state or sectors of the state (such as the armed forces) in order to ensure a large, stable, and repressed workforce. The integration of

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these economies into capitalist globalization has worked to strengthen those modern sectors most effectively positioned to benefit from the international change (Robinson 2003, 66–71). In the end, I stress the importance of actors and forces outside of the “formal” state, emphasizing the emerging trend of governments equating their national interests with transnational interests as one component of a larger transnational state. The study of capitalist globalization is important in the analysis of civil-military relations in that its promotion internationally is related to the establishment of political regimes that can only be referred to as limited, formal, or “low-intensity” democracies. These are democracies that are more concerned with maintaining control, rather than establishing the basis for substantive democratic change in the lives of Latin Americans. These global developments have conditioned political and economic change in specific nation-states and are directly related to democratization and civil-military relations in Colombia. Colombia’s Neoliberal State and Low-Intensity Democracy Colombia’s neoliberal state emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A transnational elite, Colombia’s version of “technopols,” were elected and/or appointed to key decision-making positions within the state during this period. This transnational elite not only focused on shifting the country’s economy in a neoliberal direction but also on reforming its politics in an effort to co-opt the state’s political opposition. Efforts were made to negotiate the surrender of armed opponents, utilizing the possibility of institutional reform as an incentive for their inclusion into formal political competition. The remaking of Colombia’s politics also included a number of reforms to Colombia’s civil-military relations, as well as the introduction of a new constitution in 1991. In contrast to most of Latin America, these reforms did not follow a transition from authoritarian rule. Colombia has maintained a restricted system of electoral competition for much of the twentieth century. The institutional reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s were in part a response to increasing levels of social agitation for political change, as well as escalating political and social violence that the Colombian state found difficult to control. Relatedly, Colombia’s international context consisted of the regional diffusion of free market democratization, actively promoted by the United States and IFIs, with Colombia’s own representatives of a transnational elite supportive of this agenda. The reforms of the country’s civil-military relations during this period included the placement of a civilian (replacing the commander of the armed forces) at the head of the defense ministry, the creation of special civilian-led agencies with responsibility over the military’s budgets, and the enactment of

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special human rights training and education programs for the armed forces. These political changes were coupled with a number of neoliberal economic reforms that opened up the country to greater investments from transnational corporations, privatized state-owned enterprises, deregulated labor markets, and lowered tariffs upon imported goods. The Colombian reforms reflected the regional trend of establishing elite rule, as political liberalization has only gone so far, largely restricted to shifts in institutional prerogatives and the formal expansion of civil/political rights. The continued legal and extra-legal opposition from civil society and guerrillas to neoliberal economic reforms, and/or demands for more substantive change, has continued. Political violence by the state and paramilitary forces have represented one of many responses to this resistance, as a “dirty war” was, and continues to be, launched against the perceived supporters and sympathizers of the guerrilla insurgency, as well as representatives of organized popular movements. Colombian trade unionists have been at the forefront of resisting privatizations of specific state enterprises, or the further removal of protections and benefits for organized labor, and have suffered greatly for this opposition (Ahumada 1996, 219–51; Higginbottom 2003; International Confederation of Free Trade Unions [ICFTU] 2004). Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist, as almost 4,000 were assassinated between 1986 and 2003 (ICFTU 2001; U.S. State Department 2003; Livingstone 2004, 12–13). In 2003, 90 of the 129 murdered trade unionists in the world were killed in Colombia (ICFTU 2004). Most of the killings of these trade unionists during this period have been attributed to paramilitary groups. The terror of paramilitarism has been complemented with the formal, institutional restrictions upon legal resistance to neoliberalism. Colombia’s neoliberal leadership through presidential decrees and articles in Colombia’s new constitution (1991) have made it easier for governments to ban strikes in specific industries, with governmental leaders frequently charging labor leaders with terrorist acts when they engage in social protest (Ahumada 1996, 223–37). The National Labor College reported that between 1996 and 2000 there were 146 arbitrary arrests of trade unionists and 128 arbitrary arrests of union members during the first six months of 2002 (Escuela Nacional Sindical 2000, 2002). The government prohibits strikes in a wide range of public services that are not necessarily essential, has the authority to dismiss trade union officials who have participated in an illegal strike, and can dismiss legal organizers after six months following a labor dispute or strike (United States Department of State 2003). The leftist political party, the Union Patriotica (UP), which was created by the FARC in 1984 as a part of agreements with the government to allow legal, leftist electoral competition was simply decimated in Colombia’s “dirty war.” Over three thousand of its members were killed by sectors of the Colombian security forces, rightwing death squads, and paramilitary armies in the first ten years of its exis-

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tence leading to its virtual extermination as a political party (Dudley 2004, 11; Ortiz Palacio 1999, 13, 70–71). The internal conflict that has been ongoing in Colombia since the 1960s has escalated in the last two decades, as the largest guerrilla army facing the Colombian state, the FARC, more than doubled its numbers during this period to almost twenty thousand soldiers (Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 26–27). The FARC, which promotes a nationalist, social democratic perspective in its rhetoric and political documents has been highly critical of Colombia’s neoliberal direction, the continuing limits within the political system, as well as the influential role played by the U.S. government in Colombian politics. It has also been an effective military force, spreading its units throughout the countryside, utilizing its resources from kidnappings, taxing the drug trade, and extortion to establish de facto control over many regions of the country. The integration of the Colombian state into the political and economic forms of capitalist globalization has contributed to the FARC’s growth but has also created the conditions for its possible weakening. The growth in Colombia’s informal labor pool and rural unemployed, in part a consequence of intensified market competition, has increased the number of potential recruits to the FARC movement (López Michelson 1997b, 1B). A part of this informal labor pool has survived through the growing of coca, creating an increasing source of economic benefits to the FARC through its taxes of this illegal economy.14 However, the FARC’s reliance on this economy and its military successes has created an opportunity for greater U.S. political intervention within Colombia’s counterinsurgency campaign. The U.S. “drug war” represents the ideological and symbolic justification for escalating U.S. military aid and political pressure upon Colombian governments to increase their military pressure upon the insurgents. In addition, the increasing reliance upon the foreign investments of transnational corporations has created additional pressures upon the Colombian state to establish the stability necessary for these investments. In response to these pressures, between the late 1990s and 2004 the military power and presence of the Colombian state have been (and are being) strengthened, in part to allow for and protect the investments of transnational capital in those regions were the FARC is dominant. The increasing military strength of the Colombian state complements the existing strategy of paramilitarism that has effectively arrested (and reversed) the spread and consolidation of guerrilla power in certain regions of the country. The state’s paramilitary allies have effectively recruited from the same populations as the FARC and have also effectively taxed the drug trade in their war against the insurgency. By 2001 paramilitary groups had a presence in 40 percent of the country’s municipalities and held de facto control over much of the northern part of the country (Lucia Pinzon 2001; González, Bolivas, and Vázquez 2002, 64). This political and social struggle takes place within a national context of extreme socioeconomic inequality.

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Wealth and economic power are wielded within Colombia by large landowners, cattle ranchers, drug traffickers, large multisector and globally linked conglomerates (Economic Groups)15 and exporters tied to Colombia’s leading exports minus oil (coffee, bananas, and cut flowers).16 In July 2004 the country’s comptroller-general found that 64.3 percent of Colombians live below the poverty line, and in rural areas that number increases to 85.3 percent (Contraloría General de la República de Colombia 2004, 43). The wealthiest 10 percent of Colombians earned 80.27 times more than the poorest 10 percent in 2003 (ibid., 48). Another Colombian government study found that 0.4 percent of landholders (15,273 holdings) account for 61.2 percent of registered agricultural land, while 97 percent (3.5 million landholders) share only 24.2 percent (as cited in Calligaro and Isacson 2004). Economic elites (large landowners, agro-exporters, economic conglomerates, narcotraffickers) have utilized their economic power as a resource in influencing sectors of the state to protect and/or advance their interests. The accommodative relationship between economic elites and the Colombian state is maintained through financial contributions, interpersonal relations, the financing of policy-planning groups, and/or directly taking positions within the state.17 The affect upon policymaking has often reflected the capitalist faction being represented and/or the changing circumstances of the internal war. Internationally linked, emerging transnational sectors (such as the economic groups) have often worked directly to support and facilitate the political and economic values associated with capitalist globalization, while traditional, primarily nationally based economic elites (especially agrarian elites such as large landowners and cattle ranchers) have prioritized their security and the elimination of the popular and armed left. The continued challenge posed by the FARC to the Colombian social order, though unable to create a revolutionary situation, facilitated a political compromise in which democratic reformers tolerated paramilitary violence as a central component of the state’s counterinsurgency strategy. On a regional level agrarian elites worked to achieve their goals via paramilitarism, while on a national level Colombia’s transnational elite rhetorically condemned but tolerated and sometimes assisted these counterinsurgency actors. The emergence and consolidation into national power of a transnational elite contributed to political reform within Colombia (the civil-miliary reforms being an important indication of this reform) but not the construction of a popular democracy that would challenge social and economic inequalities or that would allow real political space for oppositional forces within the state. The requirements of capitalist globalization and the maintenance of Colombia’s highly stratified class structure conditioned “democratic reform” and the relevance of institutional change.

TWO

Counterinsurgency, Civil-Military Relations, and Low-Intensity Democracy A Historical Context

THE COMPETITION BETWEEN the Liberal and Conservative political parties

has marked Colombia’s politics throughout the twentieth century. These two political parties historically have been enmeshed in policy networks with different sectors of the economic elite, employing violent, clientelistic, and/or institutional mechanisms to exclude or co-opt popular opposition to their control. This has led a variety of Colombianists to characterize Colombia’s “democracy” as elitist and exclusionary (Dix 1987, chapter 4; Martz 1998, 467; Hartlyn 1985; Bagley 1979; Wilde 1978). Politics since the country’s independence has been dominated by a history of “conversations among gentlemen” (Wilde 1982), “gentlemen” leading parties controlled by the “upper class” (Dix 1967, 404).1 This chapter illustrates the patterns of elite control that have existed throughout the twentieth century, demonstrating the degree to which the political regime that emerged in the 1990s, and that exists today, reflects a continuation of the fluctuating efforts by Colombia’s political and economic elite to establish its hegemony. Political patronage, constitutional reforms granting formal rights to disenfranchised groups, or amnesties for political opponents have been employed to coopt political opposition, while at other times direct and indirect repression from the armed forces have represented a repressive response. The military has

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been an essential institution in successfully preserving the political and economic elite’s control over the state. Historically, the armed forces have played a subordinate role to the dictates of civilian authorities, with political representatives from both parties wary of giving too independent a role to the military during the nineteenth century. The military would become more prominent in the twentieth century, working effectively to eliminate the challenges to elite domination from workers, students, peasants, and armed insurgents. However, the character and direction that reform and repression have taken throughout the twentieth century, as in the 1980s and 1990s, have not only reflected the domestic interests of, and conflicts between, groups within Colombia, but have also been consequences of a changing international context. That international context has included shifts in the global economy, the interests of the United States, as well as the pressures of international financial institutions and transnational corporations working to “globalize” the state. The first part of this chapter examines the relationship between Colombia’s entry into the world economy from the turn of the century to the 1950s and its influence upon political development and civil-military relations. I follow this section with a discussion of the National Front and the emergence of a guerrilla insurgency. Finally, the 1980s is the final focus of this chapter, as the expansion of the U.S. “war against drugs” and the concomitant opening of the country’s economy are addressed, setting the stage for the neoliberal governments that would come to power in the 1990s.

DEMO CRACY AND STATE-SO CIET Y RELAT IONS, 1900–1929

Political and social stability reigned in Colombia in the first few decades of the twentieth century largely on the basis of Colombia’s coffee economy, which became the central engine of economic development.2 The export of coffee to the world market (largely to the United States) created the incentives for the establishment of transportation and communication networks, as well as increasing levels of foreign investment. The country became increasingly integrated in order to facilite the production and export of this important crop (Safford and Palacios 2002, 266). The growth of the Colombian coffee economy3 allowed the country to incrementally industrialize, as the income from exports paid for the imports of machinery and raw materials. The production of coffee was largely in the hands of Colombian growers, with small and medium-size cultivators competing with large haciendas. However, the commercialization, financing for export, and granting of credit to small farmers remained in the hands of the richest Colombians (Hylton 2003, 57). The industrial processing of coffee, textiles, and beer, as well as improvements in road and rail transport were

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financed with monies earned through coffee production. U.S. capital increasingly invested in the Colombian market, with United Fruit establishing a banana enclave on the Caribbean coast and Tropical Oil (a subsisdiary of Standard Oil) exporting oil from Barrancabermeja being two important examples of this investment.4 Increasing levels of urbanization, employment of workers in industries, export enterprises (such as in the export of bananas and oil), and the expanding rail service set the stage for increasing labor organizing efforts for greater benefits and support. Unionization was legalized in 1919, while socialist and anarchist ideas came to gain greater currency amongst the Colombian working class. The increasing use of strikes as a weapon began to increase during the 1920s. In addition, peasant leagues began spreading their activities, placing pressure on landowners for more land (Pearce 1990, 40). Political leaders such as Jorge Eliécer Gaitán led efforts to raise the consciousness of the masses in an effort to undermine the elite-dominated politics of the Conservative and Liberal Parties.5 This period of economic growth, urbanization, and social conflict is often referred to as the “Conservative Republic” (1885–1930). The Conservative Party maintained electoral control over the government, with the support of a faction of the Liberal Party. The party successfully resisted the various efforts at shifting power away from what Jenny Pearce refers to as “traditional forces,” an economic oligarchy led by large coffee producers and exporters but that also included sugar producers, commercial farmers, bankers, and traditional ranchers (1990, 32). The use of electoral fraud, manipulation, and the inherited commitments of many Colombians to one of the two parties contributed to the maintenance of their control over the political system (Pearce 1990, 35). The interlinkages among landowners, coffee exporters, and urban industries were extensive, undermining the development of a populist coalition between industrial capitalists and the urban working class against traditional landowners and simultaneoulsy maintaining a firm commitment to economic liberalism and free trade (Dix 1987, 32; Silva Colmenares 1992; Pearce 1990, 33). The continuation of this hegemony was facilitated by the instrumental use of the armed forces. Both the Conservative and Liberal Parties strengthened the subordination of the military to civilian authorities and contributed to an antisocialist and antilabor mission within the military.6 The armed forces were consistently utilized by the government to repress and quell labor, socialist, and peasant protests throughout the 1920s and 1930s (Oquist 1980, 157).7 Atehortúa Cruz and Vélez Ramírez (1994, 101) argue that this was a period when “the exercise of repression replaced the absence of institutional integration and the social legitimacy of the state with force and violence” (translation mine here and hereafter). The subordination of the armed forces to this mission was facilitated by a history in which civilian leaders had effectively marginalized the military as a political force, keeping its numbers and budgets

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small since independence (Dix 1987, 135). However, as social and political conflict intensified in the 1930s and 1940s the role of the armed forces expanded. Party leaders could no longer simply rely upon electoral manipulation or partisan attachments in order to maintain power.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND CHALLENGES TO THE ESTABLISHED ORDER , 1929–1958

The Great Depression of 1929 and a split within the Conservative Party contributed to the successful election of a Liberal presidential candidate in 1930. The economic crisis also opened the door for reformist factions within the Liberal Party to obtain greater influence over state policy. Alfonso López Pumarejo, elected president in 1934, represented this reformist faction. Lópex Pumarejo was a banker and son of a wealthy coffee exporter, who felt that the Liberal Party could strengthen its political power by addressing some of the concerns expressed by Colombian workers. He was commited to assisting the industrial development of the country, as well as coopting a growing urban workforce through such policies as the establishment of an eight-hour workday, universal male suffrage, and constitutionally protecting the right to organize unions in 1936 (Pearce 1990, 37; Bergquist 1986, 348). However, little social progress was achieved during this period as the López reforms were of an extremely moderate character, with the real wages of workers actually declining from 1935 to 1950 (Pearce 1990, 37). Workers were left with little from the policies of the Liberal Party’s reformist faction, but peasants also experienced little assistance from the “reformist” Liberal governments. Traditionally and to this day conflicts between poor farmers and wealthier farmers have been resolved via increased colonization of new frontiers by poorer peasants. As Fernan Gonzalez argues, “Colombia failed to implement agrarian reform to redistribute land ownership. Instead, a constant expulsion of poor campesinos towards areas of unclaimed frontier occurred, where the presence of the central state’s regulatory institutions and interaction with the rest of society and the national economy was minimal” (Gonzalez 2003). Other options for landless peasants included directly challenging the power of large landowners or migrating to expanding urban areas. The Great Depression and the subsequent end of the coffee boom led to thousands of public sector workers returning to the countryside, adding to the many peasants struggling with large landowners over the control over land and the right to grow coffee (Pearce 1990, 39; Berquist 1986, 325–28). The Liberal governments of the 1930s attempted to control the growing unrest in the countryside by allowing peasants to organize unions as well as implementing very limited agrarian reform (Law 200 of 1936) but with little effect on the lives of most peasants.8

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Despite the moderate nature of this reform period, sectors of the economic elite and the leaders of the Conservative Party viewed the López government as “radical” and as a threat to the social order. For example, the Asociación Patronal Económica Nacional (APEN, National Economic Employers Association), a coalition of mostly large landholders and entrepreneurs set up by the coffee growers association, FEDECAFE (National Federation of Coffee Growers, Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia), focused most of its efforts at undermining the agrarian reform initiatives of López, labeling them “socialist” and López himself as a “Bolshevik” (LeGrand 1986, 148). It launched a public campaign against López and directly called upon the army to overthrow him. Atehortua Cruz and Vélez Ramirez (1994, 141) argue that “the APEN—more than anything were the forces that advanced within sectors of the army the political and/or conspiratorial temptation.”9 Between 1944 and 1946 many of the limited reforms of the López government were reversed, as Liberal and Conservative landowners attacked these reforms in Congress as well as in the countryside through violent repression of peasants ostensibly occupying their land (Bergquist 1986, 355).

L A VIOLENCIA

The attainment of Conservative control in 1946 after sixteen years of Liberal governments exacerbated partisan violence, as Conservatives imposed their hegemony in the countryside.10 A victory in a given election meant the victorious party could ensure that all of the offices below that executive position would be filled by its own party, thus displacing the losing party. The new bureaucrats would then set out to favor their partisans for jobs, benefits, and other privileges—sometimes even repressing the out party in its local community. The intensification of this competition coincided with the emergence and growing popularity of the populist Liberal opposition leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Gaitán was viewed as the next leader of the Liberal Party and more than likely the next president in the 1950 election. He was committed to a populist platform that targeted the economic elites that dominated both political parties (Pearce 1990, 44). His candidacy expressed the frustration of millions of Colombians disappointed with the failed reformist efforts of the López-Pumarejo government. In April 1948 Gaitan was assassinated in the streets of Bogotá. His death set off an incredible urban riot, the Bogotázo, as Liberal partisans engaged in extensive rioting, accusing the Conservatives of his murder. The destruction of a substantial portion of Bogotá accelerated a nation-wide civil conflict, La Violencia, which would eventually take over two hundred thousand lives and result in the institutional transformation of Colombia’s political system.

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Conservative president Mariano Ospina Perez (1946–1950), a millionaire active in the coffee industry, increasingly relied on the army in establishing control, appointing military personnel as mayors and governors in those regions in which the violence between the two parties became increasingly extreme (Bushnell 1993, 199; Blair Trujillo 1993, 62; Atehortúa Cruz and Vélez Ramirez 1994, 166). By the end of his four-year administration, police were utilized as a repressive weapon of the Conservative Party, with party leaders complementing this force through the organization of civilian bands of assassins (pajaros) who engaged in selective killings and massacres of Liberal partisans (Kirk 2003, 25). This repression was met by counterattacks by Liberals in an increasingly uncontrollable situation. Guerrilla armies were formed of Liberal partisans who deserted the military and police, as well as peasants suffering the repression of the Conservative government. In 1949, Ospina declared a “state of siege,”11 closed Congress, banned public meetings, and implemented press censorship in response to the Liberal Party’s refusal to participate in the 1950 presidential election. These actions by Ospina were supported by the army as well as the U.S. government (Safford and Palacios 2002, 319, 348). The U.S. ambassador supported Ospina’s authoritarian policies, and the Truman administration ignored complaints from Liberals (ibid.). Ospina reinforced the support of the army by promoting Conservative officers and marginalizing Liberal officers (Lieuwen 1961, 87). However, Ospina’s policies did little to lessen the violence. Conservative partisans, with the help at times of the state security forces, raided Liberal-dominated communities in an effort to intimidate the population. These attacks were responded to by Liberal bands and guerrilla forces, which attacked Conservative communities as well as police and army units. La Violencia was concentrated in areas devoted to coffee production and areas that had been only recently colonized (Walton 1984, 91). A good deal of the violence in the countryside involved the possession of land by force and the extortion and eviction of settlers. The army generally played a role in assisting large landowners and cattle ranchers against colonists, since many cattle ranchers were retired military officers (Molano 1992, 203–05).12 This partisan and social violence coincided with governmental repression upon labor unions. Unions were required to seek governmental approval to have meetings; the executive declared strikes illegal and eliminated the restrictions upon parallel unions (Bergquist 1986, 357–58). The 1950 election of the extreme-right Conservative Laureano Gómez (which he won after the Liberal Party boycotted the election) exacerbated the political violence as Gómez was committed to reversing the Liberal reforms of the past and stamping out the Liberal “disease” afflicting Colombian society. By the early 1950s, the army was terrorizing the countryside through a “scorched earth” campaign against regions suspected of supporting the Liberal guerrillas, employing bombings, massacres, and arson in their attacks (Ate-

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hortúa Cruz and Vélez Ramírez 1994, 191–93). Gómez complemented this state repression with the employment of import-substitution-indutrialization policies, promoting state-owned enterprises and greater protections for domestic industry. Government housing programs and social security legislation, direct attacks against independent unions, and the demobilization of political organizations were part of an effort to establish an “ultra-conservative” order led by Gómez himself (Safford and Palacios 2002, 321–22). Gómez proposed fundamental constitutional reforms in an effort to centralize greater power within the national executive and greater governmental control over the press and only allowing the competition of political parties that operated in the “general interest of the state” (Fluharty 1957, 129–33). The proposed reforms also called for an expanded role for the Catholic Church in government and society (ibid.). The extent that Gómez sought to institutionalize his vision of the Colombian state pushed factions of the Conservative Party in opposition to his rule. These factions were supported by industrialists and other sectors of the economic elite who feared the expansion of the state in the economy (Fluharty 1957, 132–34; Pearce 1990, 58). Mariano Ospina Pérez represented oppositional factions within the Conservative Party and called upon the armed forces to establish order and remove Gómez from power (Fluharty 1957, 135). The growing political pressures from party leaders, the partisan use of the army by President Gómez, and the inability of the state to effectively reduce the political violence were all factors that contributed to the 1953 coup by General Rojas-Pinilla. The Rojas-Pinilla government would last until 1958 and contribute to bringing one phase of La Violencia to an end, only to see another stage continue during his regime. Rojas wanted to create a movement that would bring together the military and urban labor under one flag, to build a “Country above Parties” (Welch 1987, 162). Party leaders viewed this effort as a serious threat and one that required open opposition to his regime. Civilian opposition intensified in the last year of his rule, with a two-day civic strike by the country’s bankers, industrialists, and merchants in May 1957, effectively closing down the major cities in the country. Furthermore, the corruption scandals surrounding certain nepotistic practices by the government further weakened the military’s resolve and spread fears that the armed forces were losing whatever prestige that they may have gained with the original coup (Hartlyn 1986, 420–21). The armed forces, fearing the divisions within its ranks over the policies of the Rojas government, and the intensity and broad based nature of Rojas’ opposition, supported the anti-Rojas plans of civilians leaders. On May 10, 1957, an agreement was worked out with Rojas to allow for his removal, in which he chose five military officers to head a transition government. Rojas was exiled, and the five-member junta would lay the groundwork for the beginnings of the National Front (Hartlyn 1986).

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The role of the armed forces during the first half of the twentieth century largely corresponded with the needs of Colombian economic and political elites to maintain stability during a period of rapid economic growth and urbanization. The class and social struggles of the period intertwined with historically based partisan conflicts over state power resulted in La Violencia and a period of authoritarian rule and repression. Colombia’s ruling class endorsed an authoritarian option in response to the general violence and the popular challenges that it had been facing; however, it was unwilling to allow a “third movement” led by Rojas-Pinilla to displace its political/economic control. Overt authoritarian rule would be replaced by the shared rule of political elites through the Liberal and Conservative Parties.

THE NAT IONAL FRONT AND THE MODERNIZ AT ION OF THE ECONOMY, 1958–1974

In 1958 the two parties established the National Front (NF). The National Front (NF) was an arrangement between the Liberal and Conservative Parties to alternate presidential power and equally divide all seats in the legislative bodies (local to national bodies) and all appointive positions over a sixteen year period [1958–1974] (Dix 1987, 41–42). Peeler (1992, 95) has argued that the NF was “a direct response by the traditional political elites to a dual threat,” the independent mobilization of the masses and Rojas Pinilla’s effort to displace their power. The NF was an “arrangement for political demobilization” (ibid.). The pact was not only an agreement to mitigate the history of violent conflict over the spoils of the state between the two parties, but it was also a pact within Colombia’s establishment to coopt and marginalize more radical alternatives. Policy during the NF period was heavily influenced by economic elites. Jonathan Hartlyn (1985, 127) finds in his analysis of Colombian policymaking during the National Front that “producer associations [organized representatives of business sectors] have far more capacity to influence decisions facilitated by their greater access to arenas of state power. Informal contacts and direct access to key decision makers are often crucial in determining the outcome of policy decisions or in obtaining an administrative ruling or exception to a particular firm or subsector.” The NF continued the trend that had existed since the turn of the century, facilitating the development of the country in the direction that political and economic elites saw fit. The input from representatives of peasants, independent unions, or leftist political forces in policymaking would be limited and/or excluded. La Violencia had accelerated the country’s modernization process, with agriculture coming under the control of agroexporters looking to commercialize land more efficiently, displacing peasants from their properties (accelerat-

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ing urbanization), and exacerbating land concentration. Foreign investment increased in manufacturing during the late 1940s and early 1950s, industrial production increased by 56 percent between 1948 and 1953, and the value of coffee exports attained record levels to $492 million in 1953 (from $242.3 million in 1949) (Bushnell 1993, 208; Pearce 1990, 58–59). The economic strategies that were to be pursued during the NF period would be largely in the hands of the president, various governmental agencies, and domestic business associations. Administrative reforms of 1958 and 1968 created a series of policymaking agencies that were responsible to the president and held decisionmaking power over government policy in agriculture, industry, housing, banking, and natural resources (Pearce 1990, 70). Technocrats largely populated these agencies.13 The increasing use of a technocracy was a process faciliated by the World Bank, which prioritized loans to those Colombian agencies in which technocrats reigned. The fact that many of Colombia’s technocrats had had experience working for the World Bank, or would go on to hold positions in the Bank, worked to legitimize the World Bank’s policy suggestions in Colombia (Cepeda Ulloa and Mitchell 1980, 240). The emergence of technocrats in Colombian policymaking mirrored similar trends in other South American republics during the 1960s. In the southern Cone region the armed forces came to power and relied upon technocrats to manage governmental policies, while the military maintained control over society, what O’Donnell refers to as “bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes” (1988). The 1960s and 1970s was a period in which Colombia’s economy gradually intensified ISI policies and complemented these strategies with a diversification of the country’s exports and a gradual devaluation of the peso in order to further strengthen the position of exporters (Bushnell 1993, 235–36; Juárez 1994, 65). The IMF and the World Bank both lobbied the Colombian government to devalue its currency. Lleras administration resisted but later signed a “stand-by” loan agreement with the IMF agreeing to at least some of its terms (Ahumada 1996, 88). State policy was focused upon expanding capitalist production in agriculture (in order to diversify agro-exports) and strengthening the domestic banking sector with some support for domestic industry (Proyecto Nunca Más 2000, 23). The export-led economic boom during the 1960s and 1970s involved both manufactured and agricultural exports. Transnational corporations increasingly invested in Colombian industry in the hopes of profitting from the country’s protected market during this period (Safford and Palacios 2002, 314).14 Governments in the 1970s also used policies to promote the domestic financial sector in order to reduce the country’s reliance upon foreign banks (Ahumada 1996, 97–98). Protectionist policies, state subsidies, and lax antitrust legislation contributed to the financial and industrial sector becoming highly oligopolized

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into large “economic groups” (Safford and Palacios 2002, 334; Pearce 1990, 85–88; Rettberg 2001b, 50; Juárez 1996, 11; Peralta and Vascvo 1998). Pearce finds that “by 1968 over half of industrial value added was in sectors that could be classified as oligopolies, either highly concentrated (over 75% of production in the hands of three firms) or moderately so (50–75% in the hands of four firms)” (1990, 87). According to one study, by 1975 twenty-four conglomerates that involved three hundred companies equaled 20 percent of industrial output (Pearce 1990, 87). Economic groups such as the Santodomingo group, or the Suramericana group, became “the owners of the largest businesses in the country” (Osterling 1989, 36; Misas Arango 1996). Despite the gains of sectors of the business community, these economic policies were not conducive to extensive job creation, as state policy was biased toward capital-intensive enterprises (Proyecto Nunca Más 2000, 23). Furthermore, various policies were implemented restricting the right of workers to strike. Between 1966 and 1968 the government decreed that certain economic sectors were “crucial to the national economy” and were thus banned from striking. Different governments would increase the number of workers that fell under this category in an effort to weaken the power of the labor movement (Ahumada 1996, 94). The development of formal economic groups were not the only manifestation of concentrated economic power, as “diverse financial conglomerates run by major drug trafficking cartels” ( Juárez 1996, 11) or “exporter syndicates” (Thoumi 2002) emerged in the 1970s. Beginning with trade in marijuana, which grew dramatically throughout the decade (marijuana was the largest cash crop in the 1970s), and shifting to cocaine in the 1980s, these cartels represented some of the wealthiest economic entitites in Colombia (Richani 2002, 94).15 The relative decline of certain agricultural exports (such as cotton or sugar) in the 1970s created incentives for farmers to shift their crops and their investments into more profitable products (ibid.). The shift to cocaine in the 1980s was substantial and extremely profitable for these cartels.16 Colombians were the central investors in this industry, controlling the processing, marketing, and distribution of the product (coca growth within Colombia would expand in the 1990s) (Thoumi 2002, 111). Illegal narcotics were a magnet for excess capital and surplus labor, with the value added to the country’s gross national product reaching approximately 7 to 10 percent by the mid-1980s (ibid., 109). The period of La Violencia and the economic changes that followed this conflict witnessed the gradual modernization of the Colombian economy. The country became more urban and industrial and less dependent upon one export crop. The shift in economic strategies was a consequence of the difficulties associated with previous models of economic development, as well as the increasing role of international financial institutions in advising different Colombian governments. Like the bureacratic authoritarian regimes of the time, this economic shift took place in a political context in which economic

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elites dominated and in which popular sectors were excluded from the policymaking process. By the end of the 1970s economic power was increasingly being concentrated in the hands of financial/industrial conglomerates (economic groups) and narco-trafficking cartels. The political and social exclusion that the majority of Colombians would continue to face during this period led to a variety of extralegal strategies of resistance (illegal strikes, land occupations, and guerrilla warfare) in response. The role of the country’s armed forces in this process was to supplement the formal exclusion of the NF with a counterinsurgency strategy in line with the national security doctrines of the period.

CIVIL-MILI TARY RELAT IONS, COUNTER-INSURGENCY, AND CHALLENGES TO THE NAT IONAL FRONT

Colombia’s economic “modernization” and exclusionary political system has been coupled with explicit ideas about civil-military relations. From the beginning of the National Front civilian leaders emphasized the importance that military leaders remove themselves from the political affairs of the state while conceding that the military should enjoy autonomy over domestic and external security (Leal Buitrago 1994, 72–73; Dávila 1998, 16; Rangel Suarez 2003, 210–11). A form of “objective control” was established in which the military’s role is differentiated from civilian involvement, and the military remains largely subordinate to the dictates of civilian authorities (see Huntington 1957, 83). This objective control has never been complete, as military leaders increasingly maintained linkages with social and economic elites, as well as alliances with conservative politicians on a national and regional level. The strict division between a “civilian” sphere and a “military” sphere was never established. The policy of allowing the armed forces autonomy over public order was given in the face of a rural guerrilla threat that barely surpassed a thousand men and was isolated from the major population areas in the cities. This autonomy has been strengthened throughout the twentieth century during executive declarations of “states of siege.” A state of siege allowed greater autonomy and power in the hands of the executive with a corresponding expansion of military power. It has represented an institutional support for the public order strategies that the military engaged in from the beginning of the National Front to today. Labor protests, student demonstrations, and/or guerrilla violence have all been used as justification for state of siege decrees throughout the National Front period (Hartlyn 1994, 330). The Emergence of the Guerrilla Challenge The establishment of the National Front ended the worst of the violence associated with La Violencia; however, the state was still confronted with armed

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challengers to its authority. Organized groups of guerrillas operated throughout the countryside, some being holdovers from La Violencia, others simply manifestations of the poverty and a lack of state presence in specific regions of the country. The establishment of the National Front and general amnesties (with promises of economic assistance) to guerrilla members effectively took away large parts of the guerrillas’ support. This left smaller, more ideologically committed guerrilla groups remaining. The two most significant guerrilla forces to emerge in the 1960s were the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The ELN began after a group of university students, who received training in Cuba in 1962, returned to Colombia and officially began the ELN’s insurgency struggle in 1964. The FARC emerged under the leadership of the Communist Party and operated with the support of peasants who sought refuge from the repression of La Violencia. The FARC was largely made up of rural militants (and still is today) attempting to build sanctuaries independent from the national government, only to be attacked by a massive army assault in 1964. Conservative critics of the government argued that the country had lost its sovereignty to these “independent republics” and that the government needed to respond. The attack was successful in displacing the “armed colonists” from the area; however, the attack failed in eliminating these armed actors. In April 1966 various guerrilla leaders from this region would meet to organize the FARC and commit to an offensive strategy against the state, rather than continuing a “self-defense” role (Pizarro 1992, 180–81; Ruhl 1981, 194–95). The emergence of these guerrilla groups did not simply reflect the tactical strategies of armed militants but also reflected a larger context. Internationally, the success of the Cuban Revolution inspired many in Colombia to take up arms against the government. Domestically, the restrictions upon political action imposed by the National Front, the continuation of extreme rural poverty, the history of guerrilla war during La Violencia, and the history of organized violence in some regions of the country also contributed to the development and maintenance of the guerrilla struggle (Pizarro 1992, 171–75).17 The evolution of the Colombian guerrilla movement has been explored extensively by sociologist Eduardo Pizarro (Pizarro 1987, 1992, 1996). He divides this evolution into three historical periods. The three historical periods are emergence and consolidation (1962–1973), crisis and division (1973–1980), and recomposition and growth (1980–1989). A fourth period is introduced in the work of Carlos Granada and Leonardo Rojas (1995), who argue that at the beginning of 1990 a period of “selective re-incorporation and strengthening of local power” took place. Fernan Gonzalez and colleagues refer to this last period as reflecting a shift from a “war of guerrillas” to a “war of positions,” with the FARC achieving a level of military strength to allow it to hold positions in direct combat with the army (2002, 54).

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The first period (1962–1973) represented the emergence and consolidation of the revolutionary guerrilla movement, the military actions of which consisted of ambushes of army and police patrols and brief takeovers of small towns and police stations. The guerrillas utilized bank robberies and kidnappings to finance a small, isolated army wielding largely obsolete weapons. Between 1964 and 1971 the numbers of the FARC and the ELN increased from about 220 to almost 1,000 (Granada and Rojas 1995). The emergence of armed insurgents was at least one reflection of the failure of the National Front to address the continuing issue of inequality in land ownership. The emphasis upon greater export diversity in agriculture contributed to the development of larger capitalist-operated farms that received extensive state support and assistance (Pearce 1990, 92).18 Between 1960 and 1970 large commercial farms (two hundred to five hundred hectares) increased their area by 21 percent, but small farms (less than 10 hectares) decreased by almost one hundred thousand, with landlessness increasing (Fernandez 1979, 56). This simply continued a historical trend in which the country’s agrarian reform policy simply meant pushing poor peasants into the colonization of undeveloped land (see Molano 1992, 195–216). These colonized areas were often regions of the country in which the state lacked any real presence but in which guerrilla forces would gradually play a legitimating role of social order. President Lleras Restrepo fearing the social and political consequences of continued land inequality even created an organization in 1967, the National Association of Peasant Users (ANUC), in an attempt to counterbalance the power of large landowners in the political system that were resisting efforts at redistributing their property (ibid., 93). As will be shown below these efforts largely failed, and the state’s primary response to opposition to the National Front, and its economic policies, was political exclusion from the state and military repression. The National Security Doctrine and Counterinsurgency The Colombian armed forces confronted political opposition to the National Front through the use of doctrines and the military equipment of the United States (Pardo 1996, 331; McClintock 1992, 228). The importance of repressing the “Communist” threat was important to Colombia’s economic and political establishment as well as the Cold War objectives of the United States. During the Cold War the United States achieved these objectives through butressing anti-Communist authoritarian regimes with economic/military aid, which targeted a variety of social reform movements for repression, Communist or not. Military assistance complemented the promotion of a National Security Doctrine for all of Latin America in order to strengthen its “struggle against Communism” (NCOS et al. 1995, 10). In the case of Colombia, in 1952 Colombia signed a “Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement” in which the United States agreed to military assistance

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to Colombia in order to “promote the defense and maintain the peace of the Western Hemisphere” (Lieuwen 1961, 201). Colombia was an enthusiastic supporter of U.S. aims, with Colombia being the only nation in Latin America to send troops to Korea to support U.S. forces (Lieuwen 1961, 209). In fact, military equipment obtained from the United States was utilized during the Rojas-Pinilla dictatorship in order to repress internal opposition, Communist and non-Communist (ibid., 244). The United States would send its first military advisory team in 1959, with repeated visits throughout the 1960s (Kirk 2003, 48). According to Michael McClintock, “the framework of the doctrine developed by the end of 1963 [in Colombia] would provide the foundation of counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare into the 1990s” (McClintock 1992, 228). The National Security Doctrine is an interrelated set of concepts that emphasized development, counter-insurgency warfare and security (PionBerlin 1988, 385). The doctrine emphasized internal security over external defense that not only incorporated a militarist strategy, but also employed social development measures. In other words, the armed forces was to be engaged in the building of schools, roads, the providing of health care as well as other social services as a method of winning the “hearts and minds” of the population. All aspects and problems related to development became a military concern, and the presence of the military in all sectors of national life became more commonplace in Latin America.19 The continuation of the guerrilla struggle of course helped the consolidation of Colombia’s version of this doctrine, as the world was divided into two camps, communism and democracy, with the armed forces on the side of “democracy.”20 In line with this U.S. counterinsurgency program the Colombian counterinsurgency plan of the 1960s (the Plan Lazo) incorporated public works campaigns as well as armed civilians into self-defense patrols (with the guidance of U.S. advisors) to supplement security operations.21 The plan was an attempt to combine developmentalist policies with military repression (Human Rights Watch 1996, 12; Leal 1994, 84). The military’s civic action programs in Plan Lazo were substantially funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. military aid programs, and not by the Colombian Congress (Maullin 1973, 71). The strategy did have some success in disrupting the “independent republics” that had been established by the guerrilla insurgency; however it failed to defeat the insurgents. The FARC abandoned the security of these rural communities for the life of permanent guerrilla warfare (Gott 1971, 251–56). The “independent republics” were gone, but guerrilla insurgency continued. General Ruiz Novoa laid blame for the continuation of this guerrilla insurgency at the feet of political leaders who were not implementing the social reforms (i.e., agrarian reform) that were needed. His public criticisms of National Front leaders, as well as his refusal to commit troops to stop a labor

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strike in January 1965, led to his early retirement from the armed forces. He was replaced by a military commander committed to a repressive counterinsurgency role for the armed forces and less concerned about the need for a social component (Pearce 1990, 202; Ruhl 1981, 135–36; Kirk 2003, 55). The Emergence of Unarmed Challenges to the National Front The armed forces modernized and grew in their counterinsurgency role in the following years, but their position as defenders of the National Front and the political establishment went further than simply fighting armed insurgents. For example, the popularity of the ANAPO (Alianza Nacional Popular, National Popular Alliance) movement that competed effectively in the 1970 elections is a case in point. The ANAPO movement was mobilized around the return of the retired General Rojas-Pinilla, who led its ticket, on a populist anti-National Front platform.22 As the elections approached, rumors swirled around the country about a military takeover of the government in order to prevent the possible election of Rojas-Pinilla. The military was sent out to repress ANAPO rioters after the close election, which was fraudently won by the National Front candidate. The falure of ANAPO was the genesis for the development of the guerrilla group M-19.23 The group was officially born in 1972 and consisted of former members of the FARC, radical members of ANAPO, and Communist Party members (Pearce 1990, 171). They focused their energies in the formation of urban enclaves of revolutionary struggle. Resistance to the National Front not only emerged within partisan politics in the shape of ANAPO but on the social level as well. The early 1970s was a period of extreme levels of land conflict as the peasant organization, Asociación Nacional de Usurarios Campesinos (ANUC) launched a series of land invasions across the country that directly challenged the ownership of land in an effort to pressure for agrarian reform. ANUC also focused its efforts on preventing the expansion of cattle ranchers and commercial farmers threatening the livelihoods of small peasants (Pearce 1990, 93). Its efforts ultimately failed as large landowners, cattle ranchers, and agro-exporters effectively pressured the national government to end the possibility of serious land reform in 1972 (Bagley 1989, 29; Corredor Martinez 1992, 147–48). This was established by an agreement between the two parties to abandon the program entirely (Safford and Palacios 2002, 328). Elite resistance to their efforts complemented internal splits within ANUC, as well as the selective assassinations of ANUC leaders by landowner-funded death squads (Bagley 1989, 32). Pearce (1990, 94) effectively sums up the failure of ANUC in changing land ownership patterns: “In 25 years, from 1961 to 1985, INCORA [Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform] bought up 4,009 farms totalling 472,470 hectares and expropriated only 254 farms totalling 66,035 hectares. This land was distributed to just 30,000 families. The

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majority of the acquisitions were made between 1971 and 1973, the years of maximum peasant organization.” Between 1970 and 1996 the percentage of cultivated farms of over five hundred hectares had increased by over 30 percent to 60.5 percent of all cultivated land (Livingstone 2004, 46). Peasants continued their migration to impoverished shantytowns surrounding the major cities or colonized new regions with little state presence/authority. However, authority and control in some of these regions would increasingly be maintained by the FARC. Increasing peasant unrest was coupled with greater labor agitation in the cities. The strategy to diversify Colombia’s exports while simultaneously continuing various ISI policies did not lead to substantial gains for Colombia’s working classes. Though labor unions had been severely weakened during La Violencia and had not enjoyed the influence of labor organizations in other Latin American countries, there were important shock waves in response to falling real wages related to a coffee depression (between 1957 and 1966) and again in the mid-1970s due to the affects of increasing inflation.24 In September 1977 unions organized the country’s first general strike (Safford and Palacios 2002, 326; Martz 1996, 170). The government responded with the deployment of thousands of troops throughout the nation’s cities, curfews, and restrictions on the media. Violence broke out during the three days of the strike leading to forty-eight deaths at the hands of security forces as well as five thousand people being detained by the military (Martz 1996, 170; Pearce 1990, 141). Consistent with the National Security Doctrine guiding governments throughout the region, the general strike was perceived by the army not as the consequence of hard economic times or as the fault of state neglect, but as a representation of “subversion.” Subsequent efforts by Congress to investigate the military’s response to the strike were stymied by strident protests from the military high command, which according to one observer “were able to intimidate those who would question the army” (Orlando Melo 1990, 490). The surge of social movements during this period coincided with the second phase of the guerrillas’ evolution, a “crisis and division phase” (1973–1980) (Pizarro 1992). The ELN suffered many internal divisions, losing popular support and membership to strengthening social movements and parties such as ANUC and ANAPO. In 1973, these internal divisions, coupled with intensive military operations, almost completely destroyed the ELN.25 Despite these problems the guerrillas were able to slowly increase their numbers from over nine hundred to over one thousand (Granada and Rojas 1995, 124). The moderate, but continuing, increase of guerrilla insurgents and accelerating political opposition in the countryside were met by the Colombian state not only through direct and indirect repression and prohibition but through the expansion of the military’s institutional prerogatives. The high command proposed a series of “10 Points” to President LópezMichelson detailing a set of emergency powers that the military required if

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was to be successful in its struggle with “subversion” (“Emergency Measures Required by the Armed Forces”) (Leal 1984, 278; Blair Trujillo 1993, 125). Though these demands were not dealt with in the last months of the López administration, the Julio Cesár Turbay-Ayala (1978–1982) administration would implement many of them. In referring to the beginning of the Turbay-Ayala administration in 1978, Bruce Bagley (1989, 52) concluded that the new president inherited the “worst wave of political violence the country had experienced since La Violencia.” Turbay-Ayala’s response to this wave of violence was to increase the military institutional role withn the state and society. On September 6, 1978, Turbay-Ayala implemented measures that greatly expanded the military’s role and a “Statue on Security” that was consistent with the points set out by the military’s leadership. The statue increased the arrest powers of the armed forces, allowing them to arrest civilians, expanded the kinds of “political crimes” linked with terrorism and subversion, and granted jurisdiction for these types of crimes to military courts (Premo 1989, 108). There was little distinction made between kidnappings and strikes or between killings and street demonstrations. All fell under the rubric of “political crimes” or the “disruption of public order” subject to military justice (Martz 1996, 190). Between 1970 and 1981 over sixty thousand Colombians were arrested for their participation in perceived subversive activity, and over one thousand were killed (Gallon Giraldo 1991, 12–13; Washington Office on Latin America [WOLA] 1989, 20). Many political observers claimed that the country had become a “military dictatorship” and that the dictator was Defense Minister General Camacho Leyva (Martz 1996,191). Colombia had established its own “civilianized” version of the military regimes that dominated Latin America during this time. Though the repressive measures of the Statue on Security worked to control the unarmed challenges to the state, guerrilla groups such as the M-19 and the FARC gradually expanded and consolidated their influence in certain regions of the country, with the number of FARC fronts doubling between 1978 and 1982 (González, Bolivar, and Vázquez 2002, 54). In addition, the growing legitimacy of democratic ideals regionally with the beginnings of democratization in Latin America and U.S. “human rights policy” during the Carter administraton contributed to widespread public condemnation of the military for its repressive behavior. The four years of the Turbay-Ayala administration were the height of the military’s institutional autonomy and influence (after the military governments of the 1950s) in Colombia’s political system. The guerrillas were ostensibly the central target, but as was clear with the government’s reaction to the 1977 general strike, various forms of political protest had become criminalized and equated with “subversion.” Notions of development and civic action that had been an important part of the discourse of military leaders in the 1960s

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had been subordinated to a more hard-line position. However, these repressive measures failed to stop the insurgency. As Gabriel Silva Lujan argues, “the government of Turbay-Ayala was a bankrupt effort to carry to the extreme the repressive alternative in controlling dissent and socio-political nonconformity. This response to the political conflict by the State . . . flowed primordially into a greater radicalization of conflicting forces, into the polarization of social sectors in dispute, eroding the precarious consensual ideology. . . . [I]n short, a crisis of restricted democracy marked the Turbay government” (as cited in Martz 1996, 194). This escalation of repression took place during a time in which the economy grew on the back of surging exports of coffee as well as increased foreign investment and interest in the country’s energy sector (coal and petroleum). The capital intensive nature of this investment, increasing concentration of land and accelerating urbanization during the period associated with this growth generated important political challenges to the hegemony of the two parties. In the end, the response of the three administrations that governed during the 1970s was not to seek political reform in order to open up the political process and reduce the role of the armed forces within the state. The response of the Colombian state was the reverse. In 1980, over eight thousand Colombians were detained for “political reasons,” with the vast majority tried in military courts. During this same period a noticeable increase of forced disappearances and allegations of torture at the hands of military officials was documented by human rights organizations (Gallon 1991, 13–15). Coercion was the primary mechanism utilized by the state to maintain control, as the institutional framework of the National Front failed to construct the consent necessary to establish its legitimacy. The expanding role of the armed forces coincided with a set of economic policies that, while continuing a number of ISI programs, was increasingly oriented to an international strategy of diversifying the country’s exports (coffee, flowers, bananas, and oil), strengthening domestic manufacturing and inviting greater investment by transnational corporations.26

PRESSURES FOR POLI T ICAL AND ECONOMIC LIBERALIZ AT ION, 1982–1990

The Belisario Betancur administration (1982–1986) would be the beginning of an era in which the autonomy and de jure governmental support enjoyed by the military during most of the National Front period would undergo important changes, a “partial substitution of militaristic policies” (Leal 1994, 107). The repressive measures employed by the armed forces in the previous decades, which exacerbated a crisis of legitimacy for the National Front, would be publicly subordinated to national initiatives of dialogue and accom-

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modation. The reliance upon overt coercion to obtain the state’s legitimacy had apparently proven ineffective, and the governments that would follow in the 1980s and 1990s would intermittently engage in efforts at integrating the armed opposition through negotiations and coopting political opposition through institutional reforms. Although Belisario Betancur and the administration of Virgilio Barco (1986–1990) differed in the degree that they supported this strategy, the idea that military repression alone was sufficient would be questioned. Almost from the beginning of his administration, Betancur’s new strategies of dialogue and increased social welfare spending faced opposition from the armed forces and business associations. Business opposition was centered in the agrarian elite (large landowners and cattle ranchers), represented by the business associations, the Sociedad Agricultores de Colombia (SAC, Society of Colombian Farmers), and the Federación de Ganaderos (FEDEGAN, National Federation of Cattle Ranchers). They publicly ridiculed the peace process and demanded greater military pressure (Americas Watch 1986, 42–45). The commander of the armed forces and minister of defense, General Fernando Landázabal, publicly came out to oppose Betancur’s peace process and plans to try military officers in civilian courts for human rights violations.27 The president replaced General Landázabal in early 1984 for his insubordination (Dix 1987, 138). General Miguel Vega Uribe, who had played an important role in the repressive policies pursued by Turbay-Ayala, replaced him (Pearce 1990, 179). Despite this opposition, important initiatives were implemented in the first three years of the administration. Amnesties were granted to scores of guerrilla leaders and soldiers, and a truce was agreed to by the FARC, the M-19, and the government in 1984. Also, between two hundred and five hundred political prisoners were freed, and the charges against almost two thousand combatants were dropped (Americas Watch 1986, 26). The continuation of dialogue and amnesty for the guerrillas produced extreme reactions from elements of Colombia’s agrarian elite. Cattle ranchers, large landowners, drug traffickers, and brigade commanders in the army, fearful of government concessions to the insurgency, began to directly organize paramilitary units that would attack the perceived social support of the guerrillas (see chapter 6). Paramilitary groups were organized, in part, in response to the perceived failure of the Betancur administration to provide security while granting concessions to the insurgency (Romero 1998). Ultimately, violations of the truce by the guerrillas and the armed forces would contribute to a breakdown of trust between the state and the insurgency. The progressive breakdown of Betancur’s peace plans was finalized with the takeover of the Palace of Justice in November of 1985 by the M-19.28 Militarist policies and an overt repressive strategy against the insurgency once again enjoyed a rebirth of sorts as the guerrilla action made it politically

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impossible for Betancur to attempt another peace initiative before the end of his administration. Programs of expanding public housing and increasing redistributive measures for the poor were shelved, given resistance from conservative sectors within Congress and international pressures for economic reform and reducing fiscal deficits. In 1984 the Betancur administration had to implement an austerity plan in response to increasing balance of payments problems, with a deficit of $1.9 billion, a public sector deficit of over 8 percent in 1984, and the foreign debt at $10.6 billion (42.7 percent of exports) (Martz 1996, 213). Though these problems were not as extreme as the problems of many countries in Latin America (in fact Colombia was the only country in the 1980s that did not have a year of negative economic growth), they were severe enough to alarm foreign creditors and the International Monetary Fund. The 1980s debt crisis had made international bankers wary of loaning to any Latin American government (Edwards 2001, 29). After pressures from the IMF, Betancur agreed to an IMF “voluntary adjustment,” which led to cutting back public job programs, cuts in education spending and public spending on the poor, and a freeze in government wages (Ahumada 1996, 101; Safford and Palacios 2002, 334).29 The same year the World Bank initiated discussions with the administration in an effort to accelerate economic liberalization.30 The international pressures for greater economic reform coincided with intensifying pressures from below, as various social movements continued to organize in opposition to the administration. An emerging civil society continued to press the state for greater political openness and redistribution of resources, in contrast to the policy recommendations of the IMF and the World Bank. The continuing violations of human rights, the lack of attention to regional communities by the state, and the desire for the equitable distribution of land generated a number of protests and struggles during the 1970s and 1980s. According to Pearce (1990, 154) “between January 1982 and March 1984 there were 78 local and regional civic strikes,” which involved the protests and the halting of administrative, productive, and social activity in a specific town (Pearce 1990, 149). Of the 300 civic strikes that took place between 1971 and 1986, 207 occurred between 1978 and 1986 (ibid., 160). In 1986, close to 70 percent of the country’s municipalities had experienced some type of strike or public protest demanding protections for human rights, public services, infrastructural support (telephone lines, potable water, cleaner environment), and urban development (Pardo 1996, 44–45; see also Dugas 1994, 51–52). Between 1986 and 1990 there were 1,167 protests or strikes throughout the nation, with 50 percent being initiated because of the lack of human rights protections or public services (Pardo 1996, 45). In response to the growing social protest, the government following Betancur, the Barco administration (1986–1990), traveled from one hot point

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to the next attempting to find agreement with the protesting communities or dismissing the movements as fronts for the guerrilla insurgency (El Tiempo, December 28, 1987, 3A; WOLA 1989, 44). For example, in May 1988 an estimated eighty thousand peasants marched on four regional capitals demanding infrastructure, agrarian reform,31 and the improvement of roads. They were met first with violent military repression and then with negotiations between the government and specific groups (WOLA 1989, 44). The government also attempted to respond to these crises through social welfare programs targeted at the extremely poor and an agrarian reform proposal. However, both programs had little impact, as much of the antipoverty funds were wasted, and Congress once again (as it did in the 1960s and 1970s) acted as a loyal representative of landowning interests and stopped the reform. For most of the twentieth century the national congress has been made up of members dependent upon the organization of patronage networks in specific regions of the country. Archer and Shugart (1997, 112) argue that “most members are tied by the electoral system to generally rural clientele networks that demand access to patronage. Members of Congress must participate in this scramble for patronage, or their political careers are doomed. Thus, the dominant incentive for members is to defect from reformist coalitions or to join them only after they have been watered down or laden with sufficient patronage resources.” The 1980s was also a period of a reinvigorated left, with indigenous, labor, and leftist parties increasingly coming together to strengthen their influence. Indigenous organizations consolidated themselves in to the National Indigenous Organization (ONIC) and the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC) demanding protection and greater autonomy for indigenous communities. Labor unions organized themselves under the banner of the United Confederation of Workers, coming together in 1986 (WOLA 1989, 48). Leftist political parties, such as the Patriotic Union (UP, Union Patriotica), electorally did well in local and regional elections. The UP was a political party established by the FARC in 1984 during the peace process with the Betancur administration. It was hoped that the party would be one step toward the gradual demobililzation of the guerrillas. However, the UP would be decimated by the end of the 1980s by paramilitary and military attacks against its militants, leading the FARC to distrust future attempts by the state to reintegrate them into formal political competition (Pearce 1990, 17; International Crisis Group [ICG] 2002, 6). Despite this political repression, the UP and UP-coalition candidates won 10 percent of the country’s one thousand mayoral posts in the 1988 elections (WOLA 1989, 48). The response of Colombia’s political establishment to this upsurge of political and social protest/resistance was not agrarian reform or social redistribution but institutional and political reform of the state coinciding with the gradual internationalization of the economy.

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The Barco administration’s development plan of February 1990 was dedicated to reducing the role of the state in the economy and giving priority to increasing private sector investment (domestic and foreign) (Ahumada 1996, 102). Declining coffee and petroleum revenues by 1989 (after strong performances in both sectors in the 1980s), an external debt of $16.5 billion provided the increasing justification for greater neoliberal reforms.32 The development plan, the Economic Modernization Program (EMP), proposed to expose Colombian industries to greater international competition ( Juarez 1994, 70). The elimination of import restrictions and the reduction of tariffs were central to the plan, as well as removing protections from labor and treating foreign investors the same as Colombian investors (ibid., 71). The administration would have little time to see these neoliberal economic policies through, as a new government would come to power in August 1990. This policy direction was being spurred on by IFIs, specifically the World Bank. The policies of 1989 and 1990 had followed a report by the World Bank calling for greater market reforms of Colombia’s economy (Ahumada 1996, 102; Camara de Comercio de Bogota 1991, 29). At the end of the Betancur administration and early in the Barco government, both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank made it clear to the Colombian government that any future loans to the country would be dependent upon the country’s progress in trade liberalization (Urrutia 1994, 291–92).33 The report Colombia, Commercial Policy Survey-1983–1987 recommended that Colombia devalue its currency in order to support exports and remove barriers to imports as well as state subsidies to the export sector (Camara del Comercio 1991, 29).34 Lobbying by the U.S. government for neoliberal reform complemented the pressure of the World Bank. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative held a series of meetings with officials of the Barco administration in 1987 and 1988 with the objective of liberalizing Colombia’s economy (Urrutia 1994, 303; Juárez 1994). By the end of the 1980s the Bush administration had agreed to an Andean Trade Initiative (eliminating U.S. tariffs upon Andean-based exports) and proposed an “Enterprise for the Americas” intitative to reduce regional barriers to trade throughout the Western Hemishpere (Chernick 1991, 8). These international pressures complemented the demands of Colombian exporters, such as representatives from the banana, cut flowers, or fruit industries, as well as some industrialists (textiles, cement, and leather products) who were important constituents for economic reform (Urrutia 1994, 292). In addition, within the Barco government there existed a number of economic advisors and technocrats with experience working for international financial institutions and/or the banking industry who shared the philosophy that free markets and international competition were key to development (Cepeda 1994,159–163).35 These modernizng technocrats were also central to the development of political plans to reform the country’s politics in the face of the continuing challenges of social protest, guerrilla violence, and narco-terrorism (Ahu-

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mada 1996, 175–218). In January 1988 the then minister of government and minister of communications (Cesar Gaviria and Fernando Cepeda, respectively) presented a memo to President Barco detailing the manner in which a new constitution could be established through a referendum. It was hoped that this would prevent the Supreme Court from declaring the reform effort unconstitutional (Ahumada 1996, 177).36 A central aim of constitutional reform was to utilize institutional change as an incentive to demobilize guerrilla resistance and include them into the political process (Kline 1999, 162–69; Pardo 1996, 129–45; Dugas 1994, 53–54). The political reform of the state initiated by the Barco administration would be accomplished through the leadership of a transnational elite that would consolidate their power in the national state in 1990. U.S. Foreign Policy and the “Drug War” During the 1980s relative military subordination (with the important exception of military resistance to the peace process) to civilian authority was maintained.37 Prerogatives that the military enjoyed to arm civilians in civil defense patrols and to judge civilians in military courts throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s were taken away through judicial decisions or presidential decrees (see chapters 5 and 6). The budget of the military, even with continuous increases, remained one of the lowest in Latin America (as a percentage of GDP) (Bustamente 1989, 17–18). Though the armed forces did increase in size in terms of manpower during the 1980s, military spending remained constant. However, military control over the Defense Ministry, intelligence agencies, and military justice was maintained. The importance of the armed forces and the national police to internal security would be expanded not only with an increasing insurgent threat, but also in response to the demands of the U.S.-promoted “drug war.” The counternarcotics strategy of the United States was in line with the National Security Doctrine promoted by the United States in the 1960s. The conceptualization of the guerrillas shifted from viewing them as representatives of international communism to equating the insurgents with narco-traffickers, “narco-guerrillas,”38 and presently “narco-terrorists” (Villamarín Pulido 1996). Drug traffickers and cartels were equated with the Communist guerrillas, with the United States pressing the armies of the Andes (Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru) to view the drug war as their war and not simply a battle for the police. The focus upon coca growers and regional drug traffickers allowed the internal enemy concept to continue, and the utilization of counterinsurgency struggles were adapted to the new threat. As one U.S. officer argued, “There’s not much difference between counterdrug and counterinsurgency. We just don’t use the [latter] word anymore because it is politically too sensitive” (as cited in McSherry 2000, 28).39

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In April 1986 President Reagan issued a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) declaring drug trafficking a “lethal” threat to U.S. national security. This directive was issued in response to accelerating U.S.-Andean cocaine trade and growing political pressures for an administration response to this growing trade (Bagley 1992, 140–41). The Reagan administration would lay the basis for the policy strategies of future U.S. governments, as an interdiction/supply-side focus to countering the drug trade would predominate in all following governments. Increasing the militarization of U.S. border patrols, interdiction on the seas, shooting down suspected “drug planes,” and the direct destruction of coca crops were all aspects of the interdiction/supplyside strategies. The drug war provided an effective rationale to maintain U.S. military support and relations with the armed forces of the Andes, which focused much of these resources in protecting the social order within these societies. The drug war assistance to the Colombian military would consistently be utilized to fight a war against guerrillas. In response to a terror campaign launched by the Medellín cartel against the Colombian government, the Barco administration requested greater assistance from the United States. The Medellín cartel had intensified its attacks upon members of the police force, judges, politicians, journalists, and the government’s antinarcotics forces in response to greater state efforts to dismantle their organization. Throughout the second half of the 1980s, hundreds of Colombians were killed through terrorist bombings and assassinations. For example, an Avianca airliner was bombed in 1989 killing 119 passengers, and during the 1990 presidential campaign period 3 presidential candidates were assassinated, Liberal Party candidate Luis Carlos Galan, Communist Party candidate Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, and Carlos Pizarro from the former guerrilla movement M-19 (Clawson and Lee 1998, 52). In September 1989 Barco declared a “state of siege” and passed a number of decrees stiffening sentences against narco-traffickers and increasing the powers of the armed forces. These increased powers included the ability to place citizens in incommunicado detention for seven days, allowing the military to help govern five small towns with serious public order problems, and granting military judges the ability to order searches in the course of investigations of “political crimes” and “crimes of drug trafficking” (Americas Watch 1990, 32–35; Washinton Office on Latin America 1989, 2).40 President Bush supported Barco’s efforts with his Andean Initiative in 1989, which pledged $2.2 billion in a five-year program in largely military aid to the region (Call 1991, 8–9). The Andean strategy continued the U.S. focus upon interdiction and law enforcement but in contrast to previous plans, it called for the greater involvement of local military forces in the counternarcotics effort. U.S. General Charles White exemplified the militarist focus of the U.S. counternarcotic policy: “[T]he local armed forces are prepared and should assume a more important role in these efforts. They are the only forces

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sufficiently powerful enough to do the job” (El Tiempo, May 3, 1989, 12A). The State Department argued that “economic assistance is to be withheld as an incentive to elicit Andean nations’ cooperation, and that Andean ‘cooperation’ is defined by the involvement of their armed forces and acceptance of U.S. military aid” (Call 1991, 14).41 As the then under secretary of state Robert Kimmit stated in April 1991, “we need to maintain strong, deployable military forces and stable military relationships with our allies around the world. . . . Moreover, the fact that we possess substantial military resources augments our diplomatic leverage” (Call 1991, 39). Between 1988 and 1991 U.S. military aid to Colombia increased sevenfold (Gomez Lizarazo 1992, A21). This increase was coupled with U.S. State Department Human Rights reports that blamed human rights atrocities largely on the actions of narcotraffickers and guerrilla groups, ignoring the substantial evidence of military and paramilitary atrocities (WOLA 1989, 113). Finally, the drug war not only took place in the context of declining tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union but also coincided with a regional push for the economic liberalization of Latin American economies. The combined political strategies of militarizing the drug war and opening up economies to the investments of transnational corporations would continue to mark U.S.-Colombian relations into the 1990s and beyond.

CONCLUSION

The decades preceding the political and institutional changes of the 1980s and 1990s were years in which civilian authority was maintained over the state, but the armed forces were granted a high level of political and institutional autonomy. Throughout the National Front, a counterinsurgency strategy was pursued that targeted not only armed insurgents but unarmed civilians perceived as “subversive” as well. This emphasis upon the search for “internal enemies” was a policy in line with the proposals of U.S. foreign policy and complemented a political system that restricted electoral competition to only two political parties. Moreover, it coincided with efforts at modernizing an economy to attract greater investment from transnational corporations, as well as implement a strategy of diversifying exports for an increasingly competitive world market. Movement away from this repressive strategy would be made during the 1980s, as countries throughout the region democratized, and Colombian governments engaged in efforts at resolving a legitimacy crisis through institutional reforms and political negotiations. However, these efforts at cooptation would be coupled with continued counterinsurgency repression. Though Colombia’s economy never entered into a severe depression or hyperinflation during the 1980s debt crisis, it was unable to escape its consequences. The country had to respond to reductions in available international

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credit, the increasing costs of previous international loans, and pressures from IFIs and the United States for economic reform. Austerity policies in both the Betancur and Barco governments were in part a response to these pressures. Simultaneuously, advisors within the government increasingly promoted the belief that the solution to Latin America’s debt problems resided in neoliberal policies. During the 1990s the broadening of Colombia’s political regime to allow greater competition coupled with an embrace of the free market would coincide with the use of state and parastate repression for those unwilling to consent to the new political and social order.

THREE

Civil-Military Relations and the Reform of Low-Intensity Democracy

THE LATE 1980s and early 1990s in Colombia’s history was a period of sig-

nificant political and economic change. The two political parties ended their tradition of sharing power, a new constitution was established in 1991, and the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces were substantially reduced. This period also witnessed the intiation and implementation of a series of neoliberal economic policies that opened Colombia’s economy to greater foreign investment and goods, reduced the power of labor unions, and privatized state-owned enterprises. This chapter and the following chapter will focus on the process of institutional change in civil-military relations during the Gaviria administration (1990–1994) and their maintenance during the Samper administration (1994–1998). Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate the progress Colombia has made toward establishing a liberal democracy as defined by institutionalist scholars. They also illustrate the degree to which Colombia’s transnational elite was more than willing to challenge the armed forces in policy arenas central to their objectives of “democratizing” and “modernizing” political and economic structures respectively. Specifically, the policy arenas of political negotiations with the insurgency, military budgets, and institutional balance of power within the national state were all areas in which civilian authorities succeeded in their agenda, despite opposition from the armed forces. Chapters 5 and 6 will address the degree to which this progress has actually influenced state behavior in the policy arena of human rights and paramilitarism. Colombia’s low-intensity democracy deepened formally and institutionally but this reform was disconnected from the human rights violations committed directly or indirectly by the state. 51

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In this chapter, I first examine the influence of networks linking Colombia’s transnational elite to transnational policy planning groups and educational institutions in order to demonstrate the source of the hegemonic discourse (neoliberalism/low-intensity democracy) and its connections to the interests of transnational corporations. This is followed with attention to U.S. foreign policy and its influence upon the institutional changes in Colombia’s civil-military relations. Third, I focus upon the consequences of the transnational elite’s policy agenda upon military budgets and the distribution of power within the state.

POLICY-PLANNING NET WORKS AND A TRANSNAT IONAL POLI T ICAL ELI TE: COLOMBIA’S TECHNOPOLS

Cesár Gaviria was inaugurated into the Colombian presidency in August 1990. His administration was in many ways a continuation of the Barco administration, as the economic policies begun under Barco were expanded, and many of Barco’s key advisors would play central roles in Gaviria’s administration. During the 1990s, different policy planning organizations and universities linked with transnational corporations played important roles in the intellectual development and political recruitment of the technocrats, party leaders, and intellectuals that came to power during the decade. It was these institutions in which Colombia’s transnational elite received their training, expertise, and which contributed to their ideological legitimacy. The technocrats and party leaders who put those ideas into practice in the 1990s represented the “new right” of Colombia’s politics, who identified with the defense of the individual and the market economy (Semana, August 7, 1990, p. 28). Much of this “new right” received academic and political training within the halls of the private University of Los Andes. In his work on Colombia’s university system, Daniel Levy (1986) concluded that “the ‘oligarchy’ send their children to these exclusive private universities for elite reproduction, and recruits its personnel from there” (276; italics mine). The University of Los Andes historically has been a reliable source for policymakers, given its reputation as a school of the “establishment.” The university has been compared to Harvard and Yale, educating many of the future advisors of different Colombian governments (interview with Colombian Ambassador Luis Alberto Moreno, July 13, 2004). Los Andes was founded by wealthy Bogotános who aimed to design a university that would form a “new technocratic class,” which would later come to power and “modernize the republic” (López Michelsen 1997a, 5A). The key decisionmakers at the university are from important segments of the business community. The locus of power within the university lies in its Governing

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Board, which is dominated by private sector business interests, as members of private foundations and corporations assume the role of maximum authority within the university (Levy 1986, 244–46). Los Andes has earned a “rightist political-economic label” as its “political conservatism is expressed institutionally in curriculum, governance hierarchy, and prohibitions on leftist activity. . . . [I]t is also evident from the ideological bent of many families that send their offspring” (ibid., 256). The university maintains an ongoing relationship with the Corona Foundation, a Colombian grant-making foundation controlled by one of the largest manufacturers in Colombia, producing ceramic goods for the Colombian and export markets (Center for International Private Enterprise 2001; Fundación Corona 2003). The university’s Department of Administration developed special educational workshops with the foundation that were focused in improving the competitiveness of Colombian enterprises as well as their social impact (Fundación Corona 2003). The university has been working since 2002 with the policy-planning group Fundación Ideas Para la Paz (Foundation of Ideas for Peace, FIP) in the development of plans and ideas for the “construction of a post-conflict Colombia” (Fundación Ideas Para la Paz 2004b). FIP was founded by leading members of Colombia’s economic groups, as well as other leading business elites at the end of 1999, as a vehicle to develop ideas about the peace process and to directly work with the Pastrana administration in its negotiating efforts (Richani 2002, 140).1 Finally, U.S. foreign policy agencies such as the National Endowment of Democracy (NED) and the Center for International Private Enterprise have funded programs organized by Los Andes’ academic departments directed at consolidating Colombia’s “democracy” and neoliberal economy (NED 2002). The Barco administration filled key political positions within his government with Los Andes graduates such as Maria Mercedes Cuéllar in the Department of National Planning, Fernando Cepeda in the Ministry of Communications and of Government, and Rafael Pardo as an advisor in peace negotiations (El Tiempo, May 1, 1989). Los Andes economists (either trained or employed at Los Andes) such as Rudolph Hommes, César Gaviria, and José Antonio Ocampo have all held key roles within the economic ministries and cabinets of the Barco and Gaviria governments. One “technopol” who played an important role in the legitimation and development of political and economic liberalization within Colombia was Fernando Cepeda. Cepeda is considered the “intellectual father” of many of the Colombian technocrats and party leaders who would attain central decisionmaking positions within the state between 1990 and 1993 (Semana, October 15, 1991, 34). Cepeda was a professor of law and politics at the University of Los Andes and provided a modernizing vision for the Colombian state and economy that was consistent with the neoliberal requirements of the new economic order. The education and development of a

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generation of technocrats who would hold central positions within the Gaviria and Samper governments, outlining the political and military strategies of these governments, owed a great deal to his teachings. The newsmagazine Semana argued that “his ‘fatherhood’ is not based solely on conceiving the ideas, but also the intellectual development and formation of those who are putting these ideas in practice” (Semana, October 15, 1991, 34). Cepeda was [and is] a member of the transnational policy-planning organization, the Interamerican Dialogue. The Interamerican Dialogue is a D.C.based policy planning organization with membership from all over Latin America consisting of corporate executives, scholars, and politicians. It was founded in 1982 with the stated goals of democracy promotion, economic reform, and economic integration (i.e., neoliberalism) throughout Latin America, to bring “fresh, practical proposals for action to the attention of governments, international institutions, and private organizations” (Interamerican Dialogue 1998).2 President Clinton stated in 1996 “[that] the InterAmerican Dialogue has played a leading role in framing the debate on issues that really matter to the peoples of our hemisphere” (ibid.). The primary funders of the Interamerican Dialogue are from transnational corporations, international financial institutions (including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank), foundations (including the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller foundation), and governmental institutions (including the United States Agency for International Development, United Kingdom Department for International Development) (Interamerican Dialogue 2002 Financial Report). The Dialogue maintains a special “corporate circle” for the membership of domestic and transnational corporations. The Interamerican Dialogue’s website states that “corporate circle members engage the most important political and economic figures in the hemisphere through the Inter-American Dialogue’s face-to-face events and conference calls; they comment regularly in the Dialogue’s flagship daily Latin America Advisor newsletters; they have opportunities for private briefings by the Dialogue’s staff and network of analysts; and they have priority access to the Dialogue’s latest published research and commentary on the region” (Interamerican Dialogue Website 2002). Members of this “corporate circle” include General Motors, IBM, MasterCard International, ChevronTexaco and J. P. Morgan Chase and Company (ibid.). Nearly 20 percent of its members are from the business and finance sectors, with members united by “their commitment to democratic principles, free and vigorous discussion, and regional economic cooperation” (ibid.). Membership to this organization is by invitation only, as the Dialogue invites members of the region’s political and economic establishment (though they must not be holding office while being a member of the Dialogue), those viewed as influential and respectable in their respective nations to join their organization (phone interview with Joan

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Caivano, deputy to the president and director of special projects for the Interamerican Dialogue, September 21, 2004). Fernando Cepeda was not the only technopol who would become a member of the Dialogue. Other Colombian technopols who would play important roles within national policymaking during the 1990s included Juan Manuel Santos, the subdirector of Colombia’s biggest newspaper, El Tiempo; María Emma Mejía (member in 1993); Nicanor Restrepo; and Noemí Sanín. In addition, the Dialogue would play an important role in helping the Pastrana administration (1998–2002) in obtaining greater U.S. military support for a plan that aimed to create a “stable” business environment for greater investment by transnational corporations. Table 3.1 presents the members of Gaviria’s cabinet with links to Los Andes, Cepeda, and/ or other institutions linked to transnational corporations. The table supports the argument that during the 1990s individuals linked to transnational policy-planning organizations and institutions were selected to hold central levels of power over military and political affairs. Colombia’s transnational elite were elected or selected to the position of the presidency, Defense Ministry, and the Ministry of Finance, as well as a number of offices involved with internal security and military affairs. As the weekly Semana described Gaviria’s cabinet “they are the defenders of democracy first and foremost, with a civilian conception of society and a rejection of the use of violence to solve social problems. . . . [They are] . . . anticommunist, anti-populist, anti-third worldism and anti-statist” (August 7, 1990, 28). These intellectuals worked to cement the links between the political and economic direction being promoted by transnational capital and the policymaking of the Colombian state.3 The political and economic strategies of these “technopols” had begun even before the Gaviria administration began its term in office. In meetings between 1989 and 1990 much of what would eventually make up Gaviria’s cabinet began meeting in a Bogotá restaurant, the Club Suizo, to discuss the country’s economic future (Edwards 2001; Cepeda 1994). The coordinator of this group was Los Andes economist Rudolph Hommes who would later become Gaviria’s central economic advisor. The group crafted an economic proposal of neoliberal economic reform that was published in a leading neoliberal economic journal and was the basis of Gaviria’s economic reform plan (Edwards 2001, 61–62). In addition, the proposal recommended greater decentralization of state services to local and department governments in an effort to improve the state’s ability to govern (ibid., 63). The vast majority of the thinkers involved in these meetings had graduate degrees from the United States and Europe. In addition, many members were associated with the Bank of the Republic, the country’s central bank, which was a strong advocate and supporter of the economic reforms to come (Edwards 2001, 37; 62; Cepeda 1994, 43–51).

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TABLE 3.1 The Transnational Elite in the Gaviria Administration (1990–1994)

Name

Position

Transnational Relation

César Gaviria

President

Former student of Cepeda, trained as an economist at Los Andes

Rafael Pardo

Minister of Defense under Gaviria

Former student of Cepeda and professor at Los Andes

Armando Montenegro Trujillo

Director of the Department of National Planning

Went on to work for the Interamerican Development Bank

Ricardo Santamaria

Presidential Advisor for National Security under Gaviria

Former pupil of Cepeda and professor at Los Andes

Rudolph Hommes

Minister of Finance under Gaviria and member of Presidential Commission to Reform Public Administration

Former professor at Los Andes and later rector of Los Andes

Ramiro Bejarano Guzmán

Director of the Department of Administrative Security (the government’s domestic intelligence agency)

Former professor at Los Andes

Nestor Humberto Martínez

Minister of Justice

Specialist in trade law and former advisor at the Interamerican Development Bank (IADB)

Sources: El Tiempo, May 1, 1989; Semana, October 15, 1991, 34–38; Semana, August 7, 1990, 24–30.

They not only represented a technocratic and transnational orientation, but they also represented a direct challenge to the politics of traditional party leaders that had dominated Colombia’s politics throughout the twentieth century. Appointments were made to key policymaking positions not on the basis of party loyalty, or the influence that a specific leader might have in a specific region, but in one’s commitment to the neoliberal ideology. They were the culmination of a process (which continues to this day) that had been ongoing for decades, as the country’s government became more technocratic, and economic

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strategies became increasingly oriented away from the ISI strategies of the past. They represented a set of globalizing bureaucrats and intellectuals committed to the goal of liberalizing Colombia’s economic and political system. Supporters of the economic reform were those business sectors linked to the “modern” or “international” economy. Interests such as agricultural exporters (of coffee and nontraditional exports), the banking industry,4 the economic groups and drug traffickers5 all favored most if not all of the proposed economic packages supported by the Gaviria government. By the end of the 1990s the economic groups would become transnational, with operations in different countries of Latin America and in the United States. For example, Bavaria group owns beverage operations in seven countries in Latin America as well as in the United States and is the second largest brewer in South America (Grupo Empresarial Bavaria Website 2004). Furthermore, its concentrated holdings would increasingly include the financial field, with five financial conglomerates controlling 92 percent of the sector’s assets—36 percent in the hands of the Antioqueño group, and 28 percent divided between two groups (Santodomingo and Sarmiento Angulo). The concentration in economic power would also extend to the mass media, with four economic groups owning 80 percent of the media, and fifty financial groups dominating more than 60 percent of industry, services, commerce, transport, and agriculture (Yepes Palacio 2000). These major conglomerates looked favorably upon the financial reforms as well as the opportunities that extensive privatization would give them to expand their holdings (Edwards 2001, 35–38; 67–69; Child 1994). They would specifically benefit from privatization in the telecommunications and natural resource extraction sectors (Rettberg 2001, 48). Their support of neoliberal economic reform would complement a greater openness to a political solution to the conflict in order to reduce the costs of lost investment and increasing taxation to finance an expanding military response.6 Narco-traffickers, at least indirectly, supported the shift to embrace market-led development. First, they represented substantial financial supporters of paramilitary groups that were committed to protecting private property and the elimination of an armed threat to property, as well as popular movements critical of unregulated markets (see chapter 6). Their reliance upon the import of contraband as a central mechanism to launder their drug profits, representing about $1 billion (about 22 percent of the country’s imports) in 1988 of tariff-free goods, indicated that the cartels had already embraced the free trade regime that the Gaviria administration would pursue (Richani 2002, 101). Finally, they favored elimination of capital controls that would allow them to shift funds internationally more effectively (Edwards 2001, 35–38, 67–69). The traditional representatives of domestic industry and agricultural interests represented by the National Association of Industrialists (ANDI) and SAC at first supported the package of initiatives proposed by Gaviria. By

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the end of this administration they objected to the degree and speed that the Gaviria administration implemented the reforms, fearing the increased international competition (Edwards 2001, 73–75). However, the influence of these business associations, or gremios, was not substantial: [D]uring the Gaviria administration the traditional gremios began to lose power, and their historical role in Colombia’s political system was increasingly taken over by the four largest conglomerates—the Santo Domingo group, the Ardila Lulle group, the Sarmiento group and the Sindicato Antioqueno group—or grupos economicos [economic groups]. These had higly diversified interests, and understood that what mattered was not so much a specific policy, but the overall policy stance. And in that regard the Gaviria administration continued to push for a more open and market oriented system which these conglomerates supported. (Edwards 2001, 75)

The decline in the national role of the agrarian elite’s associations, such as the SAC, mirrored a steady decline in the agricultural sector’s role in the economy, shifting from 22 percent of GDP in 1980 to 13 percent in 1998. Simultaneously, the service and industrial sectors of the economy both increased their share of GDP during the same period (Richani 2002, 141). Jorge Cardenas, former president of FEDECAFE argued that the “declining size of coffee in the economy has reduced the coffee elite’s political role in general and diminished its capacity in influencing public policy. . . . [O]ther sectors, such as the financial and industrial, have in contrast gained more power and political leverage in the 1980s and 1990s” (as cited in Richani 2002, 146). The changes within Colombia’s power structure and the emergence to political power of a transnational elite within the national state were amenable to the acceleration of neoliberal economic reforms and the broadening of Colombia’s low-intensity democracy. Colombia’s relations with the United States would strengthen this policy direction. U.S.-Colombian Relations and Reform Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government required that the Colombian government expand the role of its police and military forces in the war against illegal narcotics. The “Andean Strategy” announced in September of 1989 by the Bush administration, with projected expenditures of $2.2 billion between 1991 and 1995, emphasized military assistance over funding for development, health, and social issues (Bagley and Tokatlian 1992, 231). In fiscal year 1990, Colombia surpassed El Salvador as the hemisphere’s top recipient of military aid, including “drawdown” equipment (Call 1991, 1). The Andean strategy was crafted by the United States, with little input from the Andean governments that were to receive these funds for their respective drug wars (ibid., 11).

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By mid-1989, the Central Intelligence Agency was devoting one-fourth of its efforts in Latin America to the drug war, and U.S. Army Special Forces were given permission to accompany Colombian forces on counternarcotics training patrols (ibid., 29–30; Menzel 1997, 74). U.S. policymakers argued that support for military relationships and aid for the security forces in the Andean region were completely consistent with its “democracy promotion” mission. Bush argued that the aid was needed in order to “defend democracy against the new slayers of the democratic dream—the narcotraffickers and drug cartels who poison our children” (American Foreign Policy Current Documents 1989, Doc. 438, pp. 678–81). The U.S. State Department cited five reasons why its counterinsurgency training of police and military forces, as well as pressuring Andean governments to incorporate their militaries in the drug war, help to promote democracy: 1. U.S. security assistance details are developed through military-to-military contacts, but the policy outlines, negotiation and approval is through civilian government authorities; 2. An impoverished, poorly trained and equipped military, unable to feed its troops, is far more susceptible to corruption and human rights abuses; 3. The military is far more likely to take a constructive approach if actively engaged in the drug war, as opposed to being left to criticize civilian efforts from the sidelines; 4. The involvement of the military, as in the U.S., can bring a significant resource in the war against drugs if properly coordinated and directed by civilian authorities; and 5. Democracy cannot survive without the sound economic development which can only exist in a secure environment. (Call 1991, 119–20) This stated goal of democracy promotion was reinforced by public pronouncements of U.S. policymakers directly to military and governmental officials in Latin America, emphasizing the importance of civilian control.7 In 1991 the U.S. Congress mandated that International Military Education and Training (IMET) programs by the Pentagon be expanded to focus on the needs of new democracies (Carothers 2000, 189). The IMET grant program was established in 1976 to provide professional, leadership, and management training for senior military leaders and midgrade officers with leadership potential. In 1991, the U.S. Congress dedicated $1 million of the IMET funds for training foreign civilian and military officials in the respect for civilian control over military affairs and promoting awareness and understanding of internationally recognized human rights (Federation of American Scientists Defense). It was felt that IMET programs were useful for “building long-term relationships that strengthen civilian-military cooperation” (Abrams 1988). Between 1990 and 1993, Colombia was the leading recipient

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of U.S. military aid in all of Latin America, and between 1984 and 1992 6,844 Colombian soldiers were trained in the U.S. IMET program (Conniff 1992, 20). The emphasis upon “civilian authority” complemented the various human rights provisions included in antinarcotics agreements, such as the 1990 Declaration of Cartegena (a drug war agreement between the United States and Andean nations), which required that all “parties act within the framework for human rights” (as cited in Youngers 2004, 135). My argument is not that these programs and policies caused the shift to greater civilian control over the armed forces, only that they represented another part of the international and social context in which these reforms took place. The U.S. drug-war agenda was tied to the promotion of “freemarket democracies.” This complemented the commitment of the various intellectuals and bureaucrats within Colombia ideologically wedded to this agenda. On a national level the transnational elite would reorient the Colombian state to establish the political and economic environment appropriate to capitalist globalization. The changes to Colombia’s economic, governing institutions and civil-military relations were all apart of this process. Colombia’s Transnational Political Elite-Economic and Political Reforms Despite the support of the economic groups, the Gaviria administration did employ various political strategies to reduce the existing opposition to its economic agenda. Gaviria and his advisors worked to “compensate” potential opponents of the reform process and co-opt others through political appointments and promises that the reform process would be a gradual one. For example, in 1991, representatives from the former AD-M19, the Conservative Party, and Liberal Party opponents of Gaviria’s neoliberal faction were all appointed to his cabinet in the hopes of undermining their opposition (Edwards 2001, 66). The successful establishment of a new constitution in 1991 also played a role in co-opting the opposition. The 1991 constitution was viewed as an important step in resolving Colombia’s internal conflict and escalating social, political violence that had undermined the legitimacy of Colombia’s political system. Civic movement strikes, drug-trafficiking violence, growing guerrilla insurgency, and increasing levels of electoral abstention led some scholars to conclude that the country was on the “edge of chaos” (Pardo 1996, 241–51). Institutional reform of the state, “democratization,” was viewed as necessary in order to undermine radical challenges and preserve the balance of class power within society (Dugas 1994, 60; Pardo 1996, 245).8 The constitutional reform process did effectively coopt one important violent opposition group, the M-19, which agreed to demobilize its forces in 1989 with the hopes of playing a role in reforming the nation’s constitution.9

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Though the M-19 accepted the political incentives of institutional reform in exchange for the demobilization of its forces, the FARC and the ELN refused to participate in the assembly if it meant their demobilization.10 Furthermore, the FARC and the ELN continued to demand socioeconomic reforms as a part of any peace agreement, not simply political participation (Chernick 1999, 166; Gonzalez, Bolivar, and Vázquez 2002, 57). Dryzek’s work on inclusionary democratization illustrates the dangers of the FARC’s inclusion into the formal processes of state competition and/or appointments to governmental positions. He argues that “if a group leaves this oppositional sphere to enter the state, then dominant class and public officials have less to fear in the way of public protest” (Dryzek 1996, 476). If the interests of an oppositional group run contrary to the fundamental direction of the state, then such political inclusion is more symbolic than real (ibid.). The Gaviria administration would pursue negotiations with the FARC and the ELN; however, these negotiations would come to an end by November 1992, as President Gaviria intensified the military pressure upon the guerrillas, complementing an expanding political repression by paramilitary organizations upon representatives of the legal left.11 However, the failure to coopt these insurgents did not prevent the implementation of the transnational elite’s economic agenda. Between 1989 and 1993 the leaders of the national government through legislation that they promoted in the Congress and through their involvement in the development of a national constitution were to implement a series of policies that substantially liberalized the Colombian economy. The report by the economist Sebastian Edwards lists ten broad areas of reform that were implemented. These reforms included policies that made it easier to hire workers on a temporary basis, the elimination of trade barriers, reducing barriers to entry in the country’s financial markets, and the privatization of certain banks (2001, 44–51). Import taxes were reduced from 43.7 percent to 11.4 percent, and special economic zones were established on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts in order to attract international investment in export-assembly plants (Camara de Comercio 1991, 91; Ahumada 1996, 103; Browitt 2001, 1070–71). Additional economic reforms were codified with the 1991 constitution. The constitutional reform process was one in which Colombia’s transnational political elite played a central role in administering (Ahumada 1996, 176–92). The development of a new constitution allowed Colombia’s transnational elite an opportunity to codify the economic reforms that they supported. Through his “state of siege” powers President Gaviria decreed (Decree 1926 of Aug. 24, 1990) the process of how the constitutional assembly would be chosen after reaching an agreement with the two sectors of the Conservative Party and the M-19 (Ahumada 1996, 180, 187; Vargas 1993, 193–207). The majority of the seats in the assembly were filled with different factions of the Liberal and Conservative Parties (forty-three of the seventy seats), with 19 going to the

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M-19 (Ahumada 1996, 190).12 This body developed a constitution that increased the power of the executive over economic development (Articles 339–44), created an autonomous Central Bank (Articles 371 and 372) appointed by the president, and established that “the State will promote the internationalization of political, economic and social and ecological relations” and that the “President of the Republic may give temporary effect to provisional treaties of economic or commercial nature negotiated through international organizations” (Article 226; Article 224). The constitution also produced a number democratizing measures, establishing the election of governors, recall votes, a neutral electoral board to supervise votes, and time limits upon the “state of siege” (now referred to as the “state of internal commotion”). The 1991 constitution set a ninety-day limit and required votes of the Senate in order to extend it for two additional periods of ninety days. For most of the years between 1946 and 1991 Colombia has been governed under different forms of states of emergency, thus the limits placed on this executive power were an important advance. They also represented an important step in reducing the military’s political power, given the expansion of their role during states of emergency. The constitution was a success for Colombia’s transnational elite; institutional political reforms were coupled with the economic reforms desired by Colombia’s technopols. However, this reform of the state did not stop with the new constitution but continued in the country’s civil-military relations.

COLOMBIA’S TRANSNAT IONAL ELI TE AND CIVIL-MILI TARY RELAT IONS

A Presidential Commission for the Reform of Public Administration was established in 1989 through Decree 1150 during the Barco administration to analyze the policies and institutions addressing public order in order to present recommendations for institutional reform. The final report of this commission, in August 1990, recommended the creation of the Presidential Council on Security that would centralize the analysis, design, and direction of national security strategies in a civilian-led office (Leal 1994, 130–31). The committee argued that this civilian-led security council should • Consolidate and present the strategic information and intelligence derived from the various organizations involved with security and national defense within the President’s security office; • Recommend strategies to confront the problems with public order; • Evaluate the different alternatives of investment in the national defense sector; • Provide recommendations to the president on advancement and promotion within the armed forces (Leal 1994, 131).

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TABLE 3.2 Presidential Commission for the Reform of Public Administration

Other Governmental Positions

Name

Transnational Relation

Alberto Hernández Mora

Member of law firm that specifically advises transnational corporations

Eduardo Aldana Valdés

Civil Engineer at the Universidad de Los Andes, Ph.D.

Alfonso Esguerra Fajardo

Head of the Libertarian and TNC-funded think-tank, Instituto de Ciencia Politica (Institute of Political Science)

Fernando Botero Zea

Student at Los Andes and Harvard University

Defense minister under Samper

Rudolph Hommes

Professor and rector at the Universidad de los Andes

Treasurer under Gaviria

Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa

Student and professor at Los Andes; Son of Fernando Cepeda

Political Advisor to Gaviria

Sources: Semana, October 15, 1991; Semana, August 7, 1990; National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade 1994; Chabaneix and Asociados Website.

These recommendations are important not only for the proposals that they called for in regards to greater civilian involvement in military affairs but also in the makeup of the commission itself. As table 3.2 indicates, six of the ten members consisted of members of Colombia’s transnational elite. Either through the experiences within Los Andes, their ties with efforts to promote the investment of transnational corporations as in the case of Alberto Hernandez, or their role in promoting free market and liberal ideas through other institutions such as Alfonso Esguerra, the transnational elite were represented. The commission’s recommendations focused upon reducing military influence and expanding civilian involvement in military affairs. The Gaviria administration would implement these recommendations as well as others. By the end of the Gaviria administration a number of reforms had been implemented that substantially reduced the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces. These institutional changes are listed in table 3.3. Reforms that

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TABLE 3.3 Civilian Advances in Military and Security Policy, 1990–1994

Year

Military Prerogative

Civilian Advance

1990

Coordination and planning are conducted autonomously, with little supervision or planning by executive

The Presidential Council on National Security is developed in order to centralize the analysis, design, and direction of security strategies under civilian control

1991

De facto control of the armed forces is in the hands of active-duty officers

Appointment of civilian to head defense ministry

1991

Control over major intelligence agency held by active-duty military officers with little effective supervision by civilian authorities

• Appointment of a civilian to head the Department of Security Administration (DAS), the nation’s domestic intelligence organization that answers directly to the president • Gaviria creates the Presidential Commission on Intelligence that is a part of the National Security Council

1992

Coordination and planning are conducted autonomously, with little supervision or planning by executive

The Gaviria administration creates the Justice and Security Unit in the National Planning Department to guartantee the adequate and appropriate use of the military budget

1993

The constitution assigns the military ample power in the maintenance of internal order, giving them great deference when and how to perform their responsibilities

Different executive initiatives to increase human rights training within the armed forces and the formation of a special Human Rights Office dedicated to the promotion of these rights within the military

Sources: Leal Buitrago 1994, 130–37; Romero 2000; Pizarro 1995; Stepan 1988.

led to civilian control over the government’s central intelligence agency integrated civilians into the military’s budgetary process, removed the military from representation within the executive cabinet, and employed greater human rights training and education for incoming soldiers. Each of these changes eliminated or restricted a previously enjoyed institutional prerogative of the military. Table 3.3 lists the important changes implemented during this administration. The rest of this chapter will discuss two of these reforms—the appointment of a civilian defense minister and greater controls over military budgets.

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On August 18, 1991, Rafael Pardo was named as minister of defense, the first civilian in that office in forty years (Foreign Broadcast Information Service [FBIS], August 26, 1991, 34). His appointment was in part inspired by the work of Fernando Cepeda, who had argued that the responsibility of public order should be in the hands of civilian authorities, an argument with which Gaviria was familiar (Semana, October 15, 1991, 36). Furthermore, the power granted to Congress in the 1991 constitution to censure a member of the president’s cabinet created the potential for a civil-military conflict that concerned Gaviria, one that would be eliminated through the appointment of a civilian (Semana, August 27, 1991, 24–25). The high command of the armed forces publicly accepted the decision and expressed support for Pardo and Gaviria in their efforts at integrating civilians in the day-to-day operation, planning, and administration of the armed forces. Gaviria’s first defense minister, General Oscar Botero Restrepo, emphasized the importance of the change to Colombia’s democracy when informing his military colleagues of the decision (Pardo 1996, 314, 321–22; Vargas 1993, 216). Gaviria emphasized to Botero that the change had nothing to do with his performance but simply reflected the continuation of the democratizing trend set by the new constitution (Pardo 1996, 313; Vargas 1993, 211–12).13 Not all sectors of the armed forces were supportive of this decision, with some concluding that the appointment represented a concession to the insurgency. Representatives of the militarist line, such as Former Defense Minister Fernando Landázabal, argued that the selection of a civilian was an unacceptable concession to the guerrillas, who had called for the removal of the military minister from the cabinet (El Tiempo, August 27, 1991, 8A). Landázabal was not alone in his opposition to the appointment, as other right-wing sectors publicly expressed their opposition to Gaviria’s decision. The former Conservative president Misael Pastrana Borrero argued that the decision was imprudent. The head of the Association of Banana Growers, an organization with ties to paramilitary organizations, argued that the appointment was an example of the low priority that the government gave to the counterinsurgency struggle (El Tiempo, August 24, 1991, 3A). Despite the criticisms, the Pardo appointment represented one of several steps taken by President Gaviria in eroding military prerogatives and expanding the roles of civilians in security matters. Pardo was an economist from the University of Los Andes and a supporter of the neoliberal faction of the Liberal Party. Pardo called for a more professional, efficient security force, as well as greater public debate around the direction of security policy. The defense ministry historically has set the priorities and objectives for defense and security policies, with the central command of the armed forces given the responsibility for applying the methods needed to reach those goals (Pardo 1996, 321). Pardo set out to (1) narrow the space between civilians and the military,

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promote greater exchange and dialogue; (2) open a public debate over the methods utilized in military planning and decisionmaking; (3) outline the specific role of the security forces within the overall Gaviria national security plan; (4) rationalize public spending on security and defense; (5) modernize the ministry; (6) improve the salaries of officers; and (7) reform the national police in order to improve the public’s confidence in the police (Pardo 1996, 323). Civilians were also placed in control of the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), as part of a series of reforms dedicated to placing more civilian control over the government’s domestic intelligence apparatus. A close friend of President Gaviria replaced General Miguel Maza, who had successfully led DAS for over six years. The friend, Fernando Brito Ruiz, was an attorney and former judicial advisor to the president. Brito had little experience in the intelligence field, but his experience as an administrator was consistent with the modernizing goals of the administration. As Brito argued, “DAS was conceived as an administrative department. Its mission is to supply technical and administrative support for the President” (El Tiempo, September 6, 1991, 11A).14 The modernization and democratization of the state were behind both decisions. Civilian Authority and Military Budgets The size of a country’s military budget has generally been viewed as a central indicator of military power and influence within a given political system (PionBerlin 1997, 40; Nordlinger 1977, 68–77). The armed forces enjoyed an expansion of its budgets during the years prior to the Gaviria administration. The Barco government in particular increased the military’s funding in both absolute terms and as a percentage of the central budget. The armed forces budget increased by 45 percent in real terms as the Colombian army grew from 80,000 men in 1978 to 135, 000 in 1988 (Granada 1999, 585; Pearce 1990, 272). Despite these increases, the historically low levels of military spending continued. At the end of the Barco administration the proportion of Colombia’s GNP dedicated to the armed forces was equal with Mexico as the lowest in Latin America (excluding Costa Rica) (Borrero 1990, 175). The army, which historically obtained a disproportionate amount of the defense budget, was made of mostly conscripts, and only about 3,000 professional soldiers (of 96, 000) (ibid., 177). This was in keeping with what Nazih Richani refers to as a “containment strategy” focused on maintaining a “defensive posture” against the insurgency. Richani cites U.S. government documents from the early 1970s advising that U.S. military aid to Colombia be limited to containing the guerrilla insurgency, because of the guerrillas’ limited number and the prohibitive costs of eliminating them. The relationship between U.S. training and military doctrine to the Colombian armed forces worked to influence a defensive strategy that required limited resources (Richani 2002, 47–49). The failure of the

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guerrillas to create a revolutionary situation and/or fundamentally threaten the interests of dominant classes also allowed for limited increases in the military budget. The neoliberal governments generally continued this trend, despite the increases in the size and effectiveness of the insurgency. Historically, the military has enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in determining the direction and appropriation of funding dedicated to defense (Pizarro 1995, 199). The policy intiatives pursued by the Gaviria administration would directly challenge that traditional autonomy. In fact, one of the justifications given by Gaviria for the appointment of a civilian defense minister was to obtain greater efficiency and rationality in military spending (Vargas 1993, 221–22). The concern over military expenditures was also reflected in the establishment of a special unit, the Unit for Justice and Security. This unit was established within the National Department of Planning (the central agency that oversees the country’s national budget) at the end of 1992, with the sole responsibility of overseeing military expenditures (ibid.; Leal 2002, 80). Eduardo Pizarro concludes that “this decision (the Unit of Justice and Security in the DNP) represented an essential rectification, as in the past it was never clear if the allocation of spending in the [defense] sector was correct” (1995, 199). The special unit institutionalized civilian involvement in the distribution of military spending, overseeing its increase, as well as contributing to public debate through its reports. These changes complemented the placement of neoliberal technocrats within key budgetary positions, such as the Ministry of Finance or the National Department of Planning. In order to bring more rationality to the process, President Gaviria proposed a budgetary plan that would operate on a long-term basis and not simply reflect immediate crises or problems. The government’s first five-year security plan (1992–1996) originated with the work of a representative from Colombia’s transnational political elite, Jorge Ospina Sardi, who completed his report on military spending on July 29, 1991 (Pardo 1996, 332). Jorge Ospina-Sardi had held a place both in transnationally oriented sectors and with traditional economic elites. He had been the vice-president of the landowning association (SAC), and vice-president of the National Industrial Association (ANDI). During the 1990s Ospina-Sardi became a member of the governing board of the University of Los Andes as well as the board of directors of Union Bank, a private Colombian bank (La Nota Economica 2000). The report by Jorge Ospina-Sardi was the nucleus for the budgetary work of the Ministry of Treasury, Ministry of Defense, Department of National Planning, and the president (Pardo 1996, 332). Military spending would increase, but under specific conditions with a focus upon the fiscal deficit and overall macroeconomic balance (Rangel Suarez 003, 214). Between 1990 and 1994 the military’s budget doubled, and the number of regular and professional soldiers increased, as a part of the modernization process of the armed forces. In order to pay for these increased costs, the government

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established a system of “war taxes” that would allow these increases without having to shift funds from other destinations in the government’s budget.15 According to Finance Minister Rudolph Hommes, “the government will require the resources from the tax (a special war tax) because if we can not obtain them from the tax we will have to sacrifice other needs, and that is not very desirable” (El Tiempo, August 22, 1991, 12A). The collections of the tax could only go toward the internal security needs of the military, specifically the creation of more mobile brigades, improving the security sector’s intelligence and transportation capabilities, as well as defending the country’s energy infrastructure (Kline 1999, 86; Human Rights Watch 1993, 67; El Tiempo, February 12, 1991, 1A). Though these were important efforts in strengthening the capabilities of the army’s counterinsurgency strategies, they fell short of the objective needs of a military force facing an insurgency that each year was increasing its size and military capacity. Conventional military strategy holds that an effective counterguerrilla strategy requires a ratio of ten soldiers to one guerrilla. As of 1999 the Colombian armed forces were only committing 30,000 of its over 140,000 troops to active military operations against the guerrillas, with the vast majority of its force engaged in defending the major cities, key sectors (such as electricity grids, oil pipelines), and administrative work (Marcella and Schulz 1999, 36). In early 1993, the armed forces still were left lacking in terms of basic supplies. Major General Hernan José Guzman Rodríguez, the commander of the army, stated that the army lacked suitable armaments or uniforms to accomplish its missions to the best of its ability. The general pointed to the fact that soldiers currently owned only two uniforms for the entire year, whereas they should have four (FBIS, February 17, 1993, 46). In addition, the army actually possessed fewer helicopters than what El Salvador was using in its counterinsurgency war; the El Salvadoran army had to cover an area equivalent to one relatively small Colombian state of Cundinamarca (Semana, February 6, 1990, 32). Between 1990 and 1995 the budget for the armed forces increased by a factor of four, the number of men and women increased by 50 percent, and the real salary of officers doubled.16 During the same period the FARC increased its numbers by 50 percent to almost 7,000 soldiers and the ELN doubled its numbers to 2,700 soldiers, with the percentage of municipalities with a guerrilla presence increasing almost to 60 percent by 1995 (Rangel Suarez 1998, 165; Granada and Rojas 1995, 126; Chernick 1999, 167). In comparable terms, despite the fact that Colombia and Peru were the only nations in Latin America still struggling to defeat guerrilla armies in 1995, five other nations were spending a higher percentage of their GDP (including Peru) on defense (The Military Balance of 1995/1996). The emergence and consolidation into power of representatives of Colombia’s transnational elite continued the reliance upon military budgets that were sufficient to protect and contain the insurgency, despite substantial increases in the size and effectiveness of guerrilla forces.

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CONCLUSION

Democracy, modernization, and efficiency were principles that guided the Gaviria administration in its application of political, economic, and military policy. The critical civil-military decisions made during the Gaviria administration revolved around the application of reforms that expanded the civilian direction over the armed forces. These decisions took place within the executive branch, as the president enjoys a high level of autonomy in the structuring of his cabinet, the organization of bureaucratic agencies, and overseeing budgets. This allowed the representatives of Colombia’s transnational elite, through their positions within the cabinet and/or on policy planning committees the ability to exert their influence through initiating these institutional changes and democratic reforms. Colombia’s transnational elite pursued a political and economic agenda in line with the needs of capitalist globalization. The civil-military reforms were an important part of this process. The objective of this political liberalization was to obtain the consent and acceptance from an increasingly oppositional popular sector questioning the state’s legitimacy, as well as to create institutional incentives for the reincorporation of a strengthening armed opposition. In other words, the aim was to establish a more “democratic” form of elite rule, a type of democracy understood to be amenable to the interests of transnational corporations, one that would not place in question the balance of class power within society. This political agenda was wedded to the economic one of neoliberalism, which not only led to the policies of privatization and fiscal austerity but also led to continuing restraints being placed on a military budget, restraints during a period in which the state’s internal armed threat expanded. The following chapter will examine how these political reforms were preserved, despite the declinining legitimacy of President Ernesto Samper and the increasing military strength of the guerrilla insurgency.

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The Preservation of Civilian Authority in the Samper Administration

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HE GOVERNMENT OF President Ernesto Samper (1994–1998) continued many of the same trends of the Gaviria administration. Though Samper’s campaign rhetoric and some of his policies suggested a partial break from the neoliberal economic strategies of the previous government, his policies generally held true to the model of trade and economic liberalization (Ahumada 1996, 16). In Samper’s first development plan, the Salto Social, it is argued that “the government will not only continue with the ‘opening’ [of the Gaviria administration], but actually consolidate this process through a more aggressive strategy of internationalization” (as cited in Ahumada 1996, 16). The plan goes on to call for the privatization of a number of state-owned enterprises in order to acquire some of the funding for redistributive programs proposed in Samper’s plan (ibid., 19–20). The development plan even received the support of the IMF, with some reservations, in a meeting between Colombian representatives and IMF representatives in January 1995 (ibid., 21–22). In 1997 Samper signed a “labor reform” law that stripped the ability of 1 million public employees to bargain collectively, as the law was interpreted by the Constitutional Court as only allowing public-employee unions to make demands but not negotiate enforceable contracts (Silverman 2004). Like the Gaviria administration, many representatives of Colombia’s transnational elite populated Samper’s government. This representation was complemented by important relationships between Samper and representatives of domestic and transnational corporations. The civil-military reforms implemented by the Gaviria administration were maintained not only despite increasing guerrilla strength but also in the face of a major scandal that nearly toppled the government. The

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United States would also play an important role in the preservation of civilian authority over the armed forces, preserving low-intensity democracy in the interests of transnational corporations and the U.S. war against drugs. This chapter illustrates the willingness of the Samper administration to pursue policies on negotiations with the insurgents and military budgets that conflicted with military positions. First, the chapter outlines some of the important continuities in the transnational makeup of the administration. Second, the scandal that nearly ended the Samper administration is examined, as well as the political challenges that Samper faced as a result of the scandal. Third, I illustrate the role that transnational corporations and the United States played in maintaining Colombia’s low-intensity democracy. Finally, military budgets and the subordination of the armed forces to civilian directives are discussed in order to demonstrate the impact of institutional change upon state behavior.

CONT INUI T Y OF THE TRANSNAT IONAL POLI T ICAL ELI TE IN THE SAMP ER ADMINISTRAT ION

The government’s priorities represented a continuation and expansion of the civil-military policies of the previous government. The Samper government maintained the same military command that had supported the Gaviria government. Samper’s first defense minister, Fernando Botero, argued that “Rafael Pardo chose the members of the high command. Since I am an admirer of his administration of the Ministry of Defense, I have confidence in his criteria.” (Semana, August 9, 1994, 40). Not only were the security priorities of the Gaviria administration continued, but the selection of defense ministers continued a trend of appointing individuals integrated into neoliberal policy networks and/or connected to domestic/transnational capital. Table 4.1 illustrates this continuity. Economic policy during the Samper administration represented a slight pause in certain elements of the neoliberal economic strategy, as Samper expressed reservations with the speed of economic reform. However, Samper’s economic policies were well within the parameters established by international financial institutions and the most internationalized sectors of the economy. The three largest economic groups were strong supporters of his administration, and Samper repayed their support through privatizations of telecommunications, television and engineering concessions from which they would benefit from (Petro 1997, 3). The government worked to increase foreign investment in various infrastructure projects, granting transnational corporations greater guarantees in their oil contracts, as well as the privatization of state-owned electric companies (Ahumada and Andrews 1998, 462). In reference to the Defense Ministry and civil-military relations Samper placed Fernando Botero as head of this ministry. Botero, a graduate of the University of Los Andes, pledged to continue many of the same policies that were

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TABLE 4.1 The Transnational Elite in the Samper Administration (1994–1998)

Name

Position

Transnational Relation

Guillermo Perry Rubio

Minister of finance, 1994–1996

Graduate of Los Andes with postgraduate degrees from Harvard and MIT; would go on to work for the World Bank

José Antonio Ocampo

Minister of finance, 1996–1998

Former director of CEDES, economic think tank based in Los Andes

Gilberto Echeverri Mejia

Defense minister under Samper, 1997–1998

President of Occel, Inc., a cellular communication company

Juan Carlos Esguerra Portocarrero

Defense minister under Samper, 1995–1997

Legal advisor to Chabaneix and Asociados, Abogados a law firm that specializes in resolving disputes between transnational corporations in Latin America

Fernando Botero

Defense minister under Samper (1994–1995) and member of Presidential Commission to Reform Public Administration

Former student of Cepeda and graduate of Los Andes with postgraduate degree from Harvard

Nestor Humberto Martinez

Minister of justice

Former employee of the Inter-American Development Bank; held various positions within the banking industry

Sources: Cambio 16, January 29, 1996, 29; Banco de La Republica; Cambio 16, December 19, 1994, 14–18; El Espectador, August 6, 1994, 6A; Cambio 16, August 14, 1995, 26–28; FBIS, March 25, 1997.

a part of the Gaviria administration’s security agenda (FBIS, July 24, 1994, 51). Fernando Botero was the son of the famous and wealthy artist Fernando Botero and a large landowner (Semana, September 13, 1994; Cambio 16, January 29, 1996, p. 29). Botero was Samper’s campaign manager and represented the center-right of his team. He was a key figure in attaining the support of

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important sectors of the business community during Samper’s campaign which were somewhat apprehensive at Samper’s populist rhetoric (Perea 1996, 29). Botero publicly supported a neo-liberal strategy, in opposition to efforts to make the changes more gradual, as well as a modernizing strategy to improve the armed forces’ fighting and intelligence capabilities. He would eventually be removed from office in August 1995 after his role in soliciting funds from the Cali cartel during the Samper campaign was uncovered (Crandall 2002, 116). Samper’s second choice for defense minister would only last a few months and would be followed by Juan Carlos Esguerra. Defense ministers Fernando Botero, Juan Carlos Esguerra, Guillermo Alberto González Mosquera, and Gilberto Echeverri all came from either wealthy or establishment families and were large landowners and/or businessmen. Esguerra was a famous jurist, one of the authors of the 1991 constitution and a legal advisor to Chabaneix and Asociados, Abogados, a law firm that specializes in resolving disputes between different transnational corporations in Latin America. Samper’s last defense minister, Gilberto Echeverri, was an established businessman and owner of the telecommunications company Occidente y Caribe Cellular (OCCEL), as well as the former governor of Antioquia. Ernesto Rojas-Morales, an economic advisor of different Colombian presidents, found that Colombia’s economic groups proposed names of individuals to be placed in specific executive ministries including those of Defense and Justice and the Superintendant of Banking (1997, 127–28). Specifically, Rojas-Morales refers to the “political support” of the financial economic sector as being instrumental to the selection of key appointments (ibid.). This involvement in Samper’s political decisions complemented the substantial financial support that Economic Groups granted his campaign, as they represented the largest sources of campaign contributions during the campaign (ibid., 118–21). The Santodomingo group, the largest conglomerate at this time, had donated $3.7 million to Samper’s presidential campaign in 1994 (the largest contributor to Samper’s campaign) (Rettberg 2001, 12; Wall Street Journal, February 6, 1996). The Sarmiento group donated almost $1 million to Samper’s campaign and was awarded with control over the Banco Popular when it was privatized during his administration. Likewise, the Santodomingo group was awarded lucrative communication and media licenses, which allowed it to enjoy immense profits during the Samper years in the cellular phone market (Rojas Morales 1997, 118–22). The economic groups would also play a central role in Samper’s survival of a major corruption scandal.

THE NARCO SCANDAL AND WEAKENING LEGI T IMACY

President Samper came to office after winning an extremely close election against Andres Pastrana in 1994. The release of tapes that purportedly

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recorded evidence of Samper’s campaign team receiving financial assistance from the Cali cartel, as well as additional evidence supporting this relationship, came to light over the next year, contribuitng to esclating pressures for Samper’s resignation. The national attorney general formally opened an investigation of Samper’s relation with the Cali cartel, case number 8,000, on April 21, 1995. This investigation ultimately led to congressional impeachment hearings, U.S. sanctions (in 1996 and 1997), and a call from sectors of the business community for Samper’s resignation. A Liberal-controlled Congress in which many of its own members would come under investigation for similar relations with the cartel would eventually exonerate Samper. However, key campaign advisors such as Santiago Medina and Fernando Botero (who were found guilty of “illegal enrichment”) claimed that Samper had knowledge of the transactions. Botero was detained on August 16, 1995, for his involvement in obtaining funds from the Cali cartel for the campaign (Crandall 2002, 116). His imprisonment and his subsequent allegations against Samper simply mobilized further opposition to the continuation of the Samper government. Botero would eventually even propose the idea of a military takeover of the government (Schemo 1996). A number of episodes of opposition paralleled Botero’s opposition. The following will examine the most important episodes of opposition to Samper from sectors of Colombia’s armed forces and domestic economic elite. Military and Business Opposition to Samper The Samper administration had come to power during an intense period of the counterinsurgency war, as Gaviria’s coercive strategies had escalated the government’s commitment to a military solution. The removal of the FARC from its southern base in La Uribe (Casa Verde) was one of the first acts of the Gaviria government and was warmly supported by the military high command. The Samper government was proposing to reverse this decision. In early 1995 the FARC proposed that La Uribe be demilitarized as a guarantee of its security before engaging in negotiations (FBIS, February 14, 1995). On May 18, President Samper suggested that he was open to the idea of demilitarizing the zone if a demilitarization plan could be reached that was fair to both parties (Semana, July 4, 1995, 26). The government’s peace commissioner, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, invoked repeatedly the government’s flexibility on the issue and desire for a political solution (FBIS, April 12, 1995; FBIS, June 1, 1995). This process was disrupted irreparably by the deliverance of a memorandum from commanders within the army. The memorandum questioned the constitutionality of the demilitarization and raised concerns regarding the potential danger that faced the soldiers involved in the demilitarization process (FBIS, July 6, 1995, 40). The major newspaper dailies, El Tiempo and

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El Espectador, as well as many business leaders, expressed support for the position of the generals (FBIS, July 18, 1995, 46). Faced with this resistance by the military and its support in civil society, the government shifted its position from one that was close to the arrangement that the FARC proposed to one that was consistent with the requirements of the armed forces. Samper’s peace advisor, Daniel García-Peña, argued that “at that moment those of us who knew the guerrillas, knew how these processes go, were very well aware that at that moment the chances for real peace, they practically came to an end” (phone interview, May 6, 1999). The public opposition to the peace process complemented specific retirements of military officers, such as General Ricardo Emilio Cifuentes, who resigned as Second Army Division commander in January 1996 claimining that he no longer believed in Samper (Cambio 16 January 29, 1996, 19). Throughout the Samper administration selective military leaders, especially General Bedoya, publicly criticized future attempts to negotiate with the insurgency as well as governmental pressure from human rights agencies for greater adherence to human rights norms. The open opposition of sectors of the military to Samper’s administration was ultimately coupled with meetings between representatives of an anti-Samper group within the army and conservative political elites to discuss a potential overthrow of Samper (Semana, July 29, 1997, 27–32; Semana, October 17, 1995, 38–43). Despite these examples of division between the army and the Samper government, not all sectors of the military viewed Samper with the same level of distrust, as Samper enjoyed support amongt important factions of the armed forces.1 This division within the armed forces was also present within the business community. Business opposition to the Samper administration grew steadily with each new revelation and allegation related to the Cali cartel scandal. On April 10, 1996, more than a year after the original allegations had surfaced, approximately one hundred representatives of the Colombian private sector came together to organize strategies to remove Samper. Ideas proposed included pressuring the vice-president to take action to remove Samper, a national production strike, or even utilizing alliances with sectors of the armed forces to forcibly remove Samper (FBIS, June 9, 1996; Scanlon 1996). By the end of 1996 more than three thousand business leaders and politicians would come together in a public display of their opposition to the Samper administration, despite his exoneration by Congress (FBIS, April 16, 1996, 52–53). An antiSamper group was organized, the National Movement for Reconstruction led by Hernan Echavarria who stated at a meeting in June 1996, “Imagine Samper still here in 1998. . . . [W]e have to make sure this doesn’t happen” (Scanlan 1996). Many in the business community viewed Samper’s congressional exoneration as questionable, given that Samper’s allies dominated the institution. In fact, soon after this exoneration, rural economic elites approached General

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Harold Bedoya asking if he would support a military coup against Samper. Bedoya refused such an effort (New York Times, November 2, 1997, 17A). The New York Times reported that even before the congressional vote some businessmen sought out retired military officers to determine the prospects of a “technical military coup” that would remove Samper from power and replace him with the vice-president (New York Times, June 8, 1996, sec.1, p. 1). The opposition of the business community was generated not only by the belief that Samper was illegitimate, but more important by the damage being done to Colombian relations with the United States, Colombia’s number one trade partner. The Samper administration was viewed critically by the Clinton administration, which saw the government as allied with drug traffickers; however U.S. opposition would not rise to the point of removing Samper from office. In the end, the survival of Ernesto Samper would be the result of a combination of factors; specifically, the support he received from Colombian economic conglomerates and U.S.-based transnational corporations and the opposition of the U.S. government to an authoritarian transition.

TRANSNAT IONAL AND NAT IONAL CORPORAT IONS AND THE PRESERVAT ION OF CIVILIAN RULE

The actions of transnational corporations contributed to strengthening Samper’s position and maintaing Colombia’s low-intensity democracy. The breakdown of domestic business opposition to Samper as well as in the lobbying efforts of transnational corporations in the United States that pressed for engagement with Samper were key. Several factors contributed to the breakdown of opposition from national factions of the Colombian economic elite. First, one of the central bodies leading the campaign against Samper, the Consejo Gremial united only fifteen out of the two hundred Colombian business associations. Thus, talks of ending Samper’s government through national capital strikes failed to take into account the diversity in opinion among many of these groups (Rettberg 2001a, 7–9). Also, business opposition was mostly focused among business groups in Medellín and Cali, and was unable to mobilize other regional members, for fear of the financial costs and risks of proposed “national capital strikes” (Rettberg 2001, 6). Other business alliances were developed to express support for the Samper government, such as the Unión Intergremial, which did not enjoy the same level of membership as the antiSamper coalition but was effective in polarizing opinion on the Samper question (El Espectador, July 13, 1997, 6B). In addition to these divisions within the opposition, the business associations suffered increasing loss of membership in their respective confederations (ibid.). Finally, the traditional business assoications had lost some of their influence to the large, internationalized, financial

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conglomerates (the economic groups) that had been emerging since the mid1970s (Edwards 2001, 75). The economic groups were largely in support of retaining Samper. These economic groups (the Santodomingo group, the Sarmiento group, the Ardilla Lulle group, and the Antiqueño Syndicate) mostly ignored the political challenge initiated by business associations and pursued their own political agendas. In fact, the leaders of these economic groups came together in the summer of 1997 to express public support for the Samper government and to distance themselves from the formal business associations.2 Their support for Samper was repaid through the administration’s control over the privatization process, which allowed the administration to favor the economic groups. Angelika Rettberg (2001b, 55) refers to examples of alleged favors that benefited the economic groups as including “the allocation of private television channels, the distribution of long distance and cellular calling services, sales tax breaks, and the preferential assignment of regional development projects.” The state credit and financial assistance that the economic groups enjoyed from different Colombian governments, including the Samper administration, created an additional incentive to maintain support for his government (ibid., 49). Representatives with these conglomerates met with Samper not only in an effort to strengthen his position but also to restart peace talks with the guerrillas that had stalled since the La Uribe failure. They met with representatives of the FARC in June 1997 after the release of the military hostages that same month in Las Delicias (Semana, June 23, 1997, 46). These initiatives were a public endorsement of Samper and worked to buttress his government (ibid.). They were also an indication of the support that these groups held for the pursuit of a controlled, negotiated integration of the guerrilla insurgency (Rettberg 2003). The political efforts of the Santodomingo group and other conglomerates only complemented the division and inability of nationalist fractions of the economic elite to mobilize an effective opposition to the government (Rettberg 2001a). By the end of 1997 the intensifying opposition to Samper’s presidency eventually simmered down, and talk of “business strikes” and “technical military coups” came to an end. While the economic groups were reinforcing Samper’s power, within the United States successful opposition to severe economic sanctions from transnational corporations further contributed to Samper’s survival.

TRANSNAT IONAL CORPORAT IONS AND OIL

In response to the possibility of harsher sanctions being imposed against Colombia as a result of decertification, U.S.-based and British-based transnational corporations mobilized in an effort to stop such plans. Almost sixty

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U.S.-based transnational corporations had investments in Colombia in 1996, representing more than half of all foreign direct investment in the country (Wall Street Journal, August 20, 1996, A6). Decertification in March 1996 mandated the interruption of governmental credit and financial assistance to U.S.-based transnational corporations that had invested in Colombia and allowed for optional sanctions potentially to be imposed. Optional sanctions included the elimination of preferential treatment for Colombian exports, landing rights for its U.S.-bound aircraft, and duty increases of up to 50 percent of the value of a country’s exports, possibilities that could dramatically damage the interests of transnational corporations (TNCs) (see Crandall 2002, 42–45 for a discussion of the certification process). TNCs actively sought to prevent such disruptions in the future and openly opposed future decertification decisions against Colombia (Center for Public Integrity 2001a). The U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership was formed in 1996, a lobbying group for U.S.-based transnational corporations with interests in Colombia. Its membership included Occidental Petroleum, the Enron Corporation, BP Amoco, and Colgate-Palmolive.3 Michael Skol headed the partnership. Until 1997 Skol was the deputy-assistant secretary of state for Latin America in the Clinton administration (Silverstein 2000; Dunning and Wirpsa 2001). The U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership actively lobbied Congress and the Clinton administration to avoid implementing harsher economic sanctions (Wall Street Journal, August 20, 1996, p. A6). Transnational corporations such as BP, Enron, Texaco, and Occidental sent a group letter to the State Department in 1996 asking it to recoinsider imposing sanctions upon Colombia, referring specifically to the more than $4 billion that had already been invested and the future plans to invest more, especially in the oil sector (ibid.). Their lobbying complemented more direct ties between the Clinton administration and the partnership. For example, the family of former Vice-president Al Gore controls at least $250,000 of Occidental stock and has maintained a close relationship with the company. Occidental contributed to his 2000 presidential campaign and to the coffers of the Democratic Party, a combined amount of $500,000 between 1992 and 2000 (Silverstein 2000). The role of petroleum companies was particularly important to Colombia’s economy, as its energy sector was increasingly viewed as a profitable source of foreign investment. Colombia’s energy sector (oil, natural gas pipelines, electricity grids, and coal) had increasingly become a target for the insurgency. The ELN and later the FARC would bomb oil pipelines more than one thousand times during the 1980s and 1990s. The bombing was viewed as a method of extorting finances from oil companies, as well as the political aim of pressuring the government to rewrite energy contracts with foreign oil companies in order to better protect national interests. Despite these attacks, during the 1990s the oil and coal sectors became leading sources of foreign exchange, with both surpassing coffee by 2001 (Country Analysis

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Brief 2004). Colombia is the fourth largest and fastest growing major exporter of oil in South America (Colombia Bulletin 1997/1998, 39). Between 1990 and 1999 the production of oil increased in Colombia by 78 percent, making it the largest source of export revenues for the Colombian economy, and by 2004 oil would represent 10 percent of governmental revenues.4 Oil investments in Colombia by transnational oil corporations more than doubled between 1993 and 1996 to $1.9 billion, increasing by 50 percent in 1995 (Wall Street Journal, August 20, 1996, A6). This growth in the energy sector generated not only changes in security priorities, but also the direct involvement of transnational corporations in maintaining security. Increasing the security of this sector began during the Gaviria administration, in which larger sectors of the military were specifically dedicated to defending the energy infrastructure of the country.5 In 1991 British Petroleum funded the establishment of the XVI Brigade, a five thousand-man army unit, in order to protect its pipelines from guerrilla bombings (Gillard 1996, 11). This brigade has been accused by numerous human rights groups of working with paramilitaries in an effort to eliminate popular oppositional movements in the communities surrounding the pipelines. The local military intelligence chief alleged that BP officials shared with military commanders photographs and videos of environmental protesters in order to detect potential “subversives” (Gillard 1996, 11–12). In 1996 British Petroleum and Occidental signed a three-year protection contract with the Defense Ministry valued at $54 to $60 million to create battalions specifically designated to secure their investments (New York Times, August 26, 1996, A1).6 This intensified security complemented an antiunion position, as by 2002 BP refused to allow union members to enter its drilling sites or even to talk with its employees (Livingstone 2004, 87–88). USO representatives alleged that they received death threats from paramilitary groups after they attempted to visit drilling sites to talk with workers (ibid.). Ensuring that these companies were defended was central to the future of Colombia’s oil production and economic development, as petroleum investment represented larger and larger proportions of foreign direct investment. In the end, the U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership, which represented the central transnational oil coporations invested in Colombia, was successful in preventing the imposition of the optional sanctions against Colombia, which would have been a major blow to their clients’ interests. According to the president of the U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership, Michael Skol, “In our view, we succeeded, because while Samper was decertified, the private sector was certified” (Multinational Monitor 1997). The support for the elected government of Samper by transnational economic groups within Colombia and transnational corporations within the United States illustrated the increasingly transnationalized nature of the Colombian state. Transnational capital’s opposition to a tougher U.S. policy

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against Samper complemented the continued support that the U.S. government demonstrated for Colombia’s low-intensity democracy, while simultaneously pressing it to do more to achieve U.S. objectives in the drug war.

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AND THE PRESERVAT ION OF CIVILIAN RULE

In examining the ability of civilian authorities to maintain political control over the armed forces and direct military policy the existence of coups and the threat of coups are important indicators of the conditions placed upon civilian power. Beginning one week after the opening of the official investigation of Samper by the national attorney general, a small group of military officers met secretly throughout the late spring and summer of 1995 to discuss the country’s political situation and Samper’s future. Businessmen, intellectuals, and conservative political leaders searching for a way out of the political crisis attended these meetings (Semana, August 20, 1996; Samper 2000, 207–10; Leal 2002, 113–14). As the planning progressed it was decided to feel out U.S. support for a military coup. Representatives of this group approached U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette in August 1995 and asked if the United States would support the forcible removal of Samper and a transition government to new elections. Frechette responded that in no way would the United States support a military takeover and pointed to Colombia’s constitution arguing that “the removal of Samper is here” (Semana, August 20, 1996; Semana, November 10, 1997, 38–42; Samper 2000, 210; New York Times, August 22, 1996, A1). In addition, the United States informed Defense Minister Juan Carlo Esguerra in November 1995 that high-level generals within the military forces were in opposition to Samper. As U.S. Defense Minister William Perry commented at the time that “when security problems occur we want the military to be on the side of democracy . . . not using the problem as an excuse for a military coup” (Escobar 1996, A23). The opposition of the United States to the undemocratic removal of Samper is suprising in the context of U.S.-Colombian relations during his administration. Throughout Samper’s government, U.S. officials publicly criticized the president and sectors of the Colombian government (such as the Congress) as being corrupt and allied with narco-traffickers (Crandall 2002, 101–41). In March 1996 the United States, convinced that Samper knowingly accepted funds from the Cali cartel, decertified the nation for “lack of sufficient cooperation” in the drug war (Menzel 1997, 154). Potential sanctions that could be imposed on Colombia because of this decertification included the loss of tariff exemptions for the Colombian flower industry in its U.S. trade, the potential loss of $13.7 million in bilateral aid, and the possibility

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that the United States would work to cut off international financial aid.7 Finally, the United States revoked Samper’s U.S. visa, which brought U.S.Colombian relations to an all-time low. However, U.S. opposition fell well short of promoting an authoritarian transition, and in fact the U.S. ambassador to Colombia worked to promote a constitutional alternative to the “Samper problem.” The United States government balanced its goals of promoting “democracy” with fighting the drug war and creating the conditions for investment by transnational corporations. During the Samper administration the United States would utilize the narco-drug scandal and the threat of decertification as a lever upon the Samper government. The U.S. government politically ostracized Samper, but U.S. relations with the military and police were maintained, and economic trade continued. Speaking after the United States had decertified Colombia in March 1996, Robert Gelbard, assistant secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement of the U.S. State Department, argued that our approach is designed to maintain support for essential counternarcotics programs and institutions in Colombia, while pressing the Government to take specific policy and legislative actions that would enhance the capabilities of the law enforcement and judicial sectors. . . . We have proposed not only to continue, but to augment U.S. assistance to Colombian National Police, the military and elements of the justice sector which are actively confronting the drug threat and the corruption it has engendered. (Statement to the House Committee on International Relations, Washington, DC, September 11, 1996)

In testimony presented in 1997, Gelbard remarked that Samper’s implementation of certain U.S. demands (such as expanded coca-eradication efforts) “was largely due to the denial of certification, international and Colombian private sector pressure, and the inherent threat of economic sanctions” (Statement before the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Washington, DC, February 14, 1997). The use of “decertification” as leverage was known by Samper, as the Colombian desk officer in the U.S. embassy in Colombia, Denise Malczewsky, informed Samper in 1996 that the U.S. “wanted to maintain the pressure of the scandal as a weapon . . . in order to obtain greater results [in the ‘drug war’]” (Samper, 2000, 270). The “greater results” included the government’s appointment of the director of the national police. Within the first year at his administration, Samper relented under U.S. pressure, which supported General Rosso Jose Serrano over Samper’s first choice, General Octavio Vargas Silva. General Vargas Silva was perceived by the United States as insufficiently independent from narco-traffic and would

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be denied the police position for Serrano’s appointment (Washington Post, July 21, 1996, W11). By the end of the Samper administration, the leaders of the Cali cartel were in prison, extradition had been reinstated into Colombian law, the acreage of coca crops eradicated had increased, and several laws were passed increasing the length of prison sentences for a number of “drugrelated” crimes. The Samper administration survived in part because it achieved a number of the objectives desired by the U.S. government. The United States never implemented the severest economic sanctions that could have been implemented against the Samper administration, contributing to its survival. In the policy area of civil-military relations, the Samper administration did more than survive, but it maintained a position of reinforcing its control over the military through military budgets and political negotiations.

MILI TARY BUD GETS AND POLI T ICAL NEGOT IAT IONS IN THE SAMP ER ADMINISTRAT ION

Samper proposed that the expansion of the armed forces required an increase in governmental expenditures on the military to over $2 billion in 1997, with wealthy Colombians compelled to buy war bonds to obtain $421 million specifically for police and military operations (Zacrikson and Bradley 1997, 3; Star Tribune, September 5, 1996, 7A). Samper’s proposed increases would be devoted toward the purchase of Blackhawk helicopters, the creation of a new mobile brigade, night vision devices, and communications gear (ibid.). Internal defense was prioritized. The modernization plans were in line with the plans of General Camilo Zúñiga, the first commander of the armed forces during the Samper administration (and a close friend of Samper), who argued that “we have to be conscious of the fact that we are a business, the largest and most important business that the country has. . . . [W]e are preparing to produce and guarantee security to our clients who are the citizens . . . (to improve military intelligence) it is not enough to increase the number of men but also to increase their training and preparation (El Espectador, March 29, 1995, 9A). Given the proposed increase in spending, Samper also required that the military’s “actions must be measured in terms of specific results, specific deadlines, and specific standards to allow us to be certain we are making progress” (FBIS-South America, April 20, 1995). Pressure for greater efficiency arose from within the government, as civilian-led budgetary agencies presented reports critical of military spending. Beginning in March 1995 the Council for Economic and Social Policy (CONPES) reviewed and revised the military’s five-year budget plan in order to establish priorities in military spending on a day-to-day functioning model as well as in future investments (El Espectador, March 22, 1995). Reports presented by the

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TABLE 4.2 Colombian Defense Budget, 1990–2000

Year

Funding (in millions of pesos)

Percentage of GDP

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

367,139 467,931 701,737 1,104,292 1,296,202 1,774,994 2,500,085 3,328,106 3,756,476 4,437,311 4,501,706

2.34 2.29 2.69 3.23 3.11 3.44 3.59 3.89 3.59 4.03 3.56

Sources: Colombian Defense Ministry; Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 105.

Comisión de Racionalización del Gasto y de las Finanzas Públicas (Commission of Rationalization for Public Finances and Spending) and the contraloria general de la Republica (comptroller general for the Republic) were critical of military spending.8 These agencies publicly charged the armed forces with wasteful spending, corruption, and falsely depicting the public order situation in a manner that was consistent with their demands for increased funding (Cambio 16, September 9, 1996, 16). In 1996 the commission reduced military spending and required a revision of the military expansion plans, especially with the expansion of the army (Dávila 1999, 307). The commission, led by Gabriel Rosas Vega, recommended the maintenance of military spending at the same level, rather than allowing continued increases, for the next two years (El Espectador, July 20, 1997, 5A).9 Plans to increase the number of professional soldiers and other military goals were often stymied by concerns over the fiscal deficit. The government’s proposal to increase the number of professional troops within the military was objected to by the finance secretary, Guillermo Perry, citing the negative impact that the increased costs would have upon the fiscal deficit (Cambio 16, April 22, 1996, 16). After a successful attack by the guerrillas against a military base in August 1996, the military lobbied Congress directly for more funds, whereas the Commission of Public Spending continued to call for a freeze in spending (Cambio 16, September 9, 1996; El Espectador, August 30, 1996, 8A). In response to these reports, Samper emphasized the importance of “war bonds” as an alternative method to fund military spending increases, and leaders within the military increasingly lobbied the United States for increased aid to fight the war against drugs, arguing that the FARC represented a “narco-

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cartel” (Dávila 1999, 307; FBIS, August 8, 1996). Table 4.2 details Colombian military and police expenditures during the 1990s. The criticisms and attacks upon increasing the military budget by civilian authorities were strongly condemned by the Ministry of Defense, military commanders, and retired officers. The armed forces claimed that these reports were misleading and that the increases they received since 1990 barely kept pace with the simultaneous growth of the guerrillas. Furthermore, an increasing percentage of the funds were dedicated to the national police and its war against narco-traffic, and not to the army in its counterinsurgency war. A significant amount of the funds that did reach the army were dedicated to improving salaries, pensions, and other benefits and to investments in military training or weapons upgrades. Much of the armed forces was (and is) dedicated to the protection of major metropolitan areas and key energy sectors— not to the direct fighting of guerrillas (Rangel Suarez 1998, 165–68; RuizNovoa 1997). According to military officials 25 percent of members of the army were in training, 25 percent in administration, 20 percent involved in guarding the energy infrastructure or major urban bases, and only 30 percent available for counterinsurgency operations (Dávila 1999, 309). The increased funds allowed for increases in more troops between 1990 and 1998, but this has not been followed with the supplies and support necessary to be effective against the guerrillas (such as appropriate number of bullets, spare parts, gasoline, helicopters, or communication equipment). The commander of the armed forces, General Bedoya, even claimed that there were times that he had to hire civilian helicopters to transport his troops, because of the lack of helicopters and/or spare parts (Star Tribune, September 5, 1996, 7A). Between 1990 and 1995 the two largest guerrilla groups, the FARC and the ELN, increased their number of fronts (one hundred to two hundred combatants) from approximately sixty-five to almost one hundred (Echandía 1999, 103). From 1986 to 1997 the FARC had doubled its numbers and was registering a presence in almost 70 percent of the nation at the end of 1996 (Zackrison and Bradley 1997). A “new phase of the war” began in the mid-1990s as the new coca-growing areas in southern Colombia gave the FARC increasing financial strength and allowed it to launch major offensives in the second half of the 1990s (Pardo 2003, 19).10 Colombia’s transnational elite continued to face the contradictory situation of controlling increases in military spending while facing an increasingly deteriorating social and political situation. Military Subordination to Civilian Authority The Samper administration, like the Gaviria administration, attempted to engage the guerrilla insurgency in negotiations with little success. Political strategies of negotiated inclusion were still considered a part of the government’s strategy of establishing stability. One such attempt was after a major

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guerrilla attack on August 30, 1996, against the Las Delicias military base, which was destroyed by the FARC, resulting in the deaths of twenty-eight and the capture of over sixty soldiers (Hoyos Estrada 1997). The Samper government worked to negotiate the release of the soldiers despite military opposition. The FARC agreed to release the soldiers in exchange for the temporary demilitarization of a region in southern Colombia. General Bedoya, as commander of the armed forces, expressed his opposition to the demilitarization that he viewed as a concession to the insurgency. The Samper government ignored these protestations and pressed on with the eventual demilitarization in the summer of 1997. Within a month after the release of the prisoners, Samper removed General Bedoya for “reasons of state.”11 The protest that this created within the armed forces was unprecedented, as hundreds of army officers came together in front of the defense ministry demanding that Bedoya ignore Samper’s orders. Bedoya ultimately obeyed Samper and stepped down (Samper 2000, 184–85). The night of the removal of General Bedoya was an extremely tense one for the Samper government, as Samper’s cabinet took special security precautions fearing a possible military coup (phone interview with Daniel Garcia Pena, May 6, 1999). However, the protesters did not enjoy the support of all of the army’s top commanders, as other military officers deferred to the decision of Samper and proceeded to advance their careers in his administration. General Manuel Bonett, the commander of the army prior to Bedoya’s removal, accepted a promotion to commander of the armed forces, replacing Bedoya. The demonstration indicated an important division within the armed forces between a more “flexible” or “thoughtful” line12 within the army able to adapt to changing circumstances, and a hard-line militarist position.13 The changing circumstances included human rights requirements for U.S. military aid and the granting of concessions to the insurgency for peace negotiations (National Security Archive 2002). Members of this flexible line attained high command positions with General Bonnet’s promotion. Major General Mario Hugo Galán, Major General Fernando Tapias Stahelin (the commander of the armed forces under the Pastrana administration), and Major General Norberto Adrada C. were placed in key command positions over army troops. They effectively represented a public face in line with the “democratic” precepts of Colombia’s civilian leaders. Supporters of Bedoya were largely assigned to administrative positions, away from control and command posts (El Espectador, July 27, 1997, 13A).

CONCLUSION

The relations between the Samper government and the United States, as well as the relations between Samper and the armed forces, were extremely con-

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tentious. Yet important continuities in civilian control were maintained, and the policies on military budgets were continued. The leadership of transnational financial/industrial conglomerates (economic groups) within Colombia’s economy, the pressures of U.S. democracy promotion, and the continued authority of Colombia’s transnational elite were important to the survival of the Samper government. Both the Samper and Gaviria governments controlled increases in military spending, maintained pressure upon the armed forces to operate more efficiently, and demanded greater performance from the military in exchange for increased military spending. These pressures took place despite increasing successes by guerrilla armies, public protestations by the armed forces, and the relative inadequacy of government spending given the context of the internal threat. Both governments were willing to risk miltiary opposition in their efforts to consolidate a neoliberal economic agenda and an institutional framework consistent with low-intensity democracies.

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FIVE

Military Impunity and Symbolic Reform

G

OVERNMENTS IN THE 1990s had reduced the institutional prerogatives of the Colombian armed forces, and this reduction had been maintained in a politically vulnerable government. The acceleration of human rights violations and the continuation of impunity for military officers coincided with this political liberalization. This chapter will examine the continuities of military autonomy in the commission of human rights violations, and the following chapter will examine this autonomy in regards to paramilitarism during the 1990s. Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate that the same civilian authorities that promoted greater civilian control over the armed forces, regulated military spending, and initiated peace negotiations with the guerrilla insurgency were instrumental in the continuation of military autonomy in its conduction of the counterinsurgency war. The refusal of the FARC and the ELN to accept a negotiated settlement, coupled with their increasing military effectiveness, contributed to the maintenance of state and parastate structures of repression throughout the 1990s and 2000s. These structures of repression were applied largely against the civilian population, the perceived supporters of the insurgency, and representatives of different legal popular movements. The direct and indirect violations of human rights were in line with the low-intensity democracy that had been institutionally reformed by a transnational elite that was uninterested in the structural changes needed to address the country’s increasing poverty and socioeconomic inequality. The massacres of individuals accused of supporting the insurgency, the selective assassinations of political activists from the left, and the displacement of whole communities have been a central part of a counterinsurgency strategy at times supported and/or tolerated by different governments.

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In the 1980s and 1990s political and economic elites attempted to incorporate the political opposition into regulated, formal political competition (through peace processes, constitutional reforms, civil-military reforms), while coercively repressing those sectors dissatisfied with (or distrustful of ) the “opportunities” being offered them. The coercive mechanisms being employed to protect an emerging transnational order have relied on military impunity for human rights violations and the establishment of paramilitary forces. Factions of Colombia’s capitalist class not directly represented by the national government (large landowners, cattle ranchers, and drug traffickers) have been central, with the armed forces, in the success of paramilitarism. In this chapter I first present some of the social and economic consequences of the neoliberal policies that have been implemented and continue to be implemented. This is followed by an examination of the national security strategies pursued by both the Gaviria and Samper administrations, as well as the government’s efforts at refoming the military justice system. A discussion of U.S. foreign policies that were conducive to greater human rights violations by Colombia’s armed forces follows.

NEOLIBERALISM CONSEQ UENCES AND CONTRADICT IONS

Between the end of the 1980s and 2004 levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment grew. The trade liberalization promoted by the Gaviria administration led to annual increases in food imports of 21 percent between 1991 and 1998, from eight hundred thousand tons to 7 million tons respectively (Ahumada 2000, 36). This increase in food imports coincided with 1 million hectares of land in Colombia going uncultivated (a large proportion used to launder the funds of drug traffickers) and the displacement of almost 2 million peasants from the land by 2000 (ibid.). Between 1991 and 1993 over two hundred thousand jobs were lost in the countryside, and the percentage of the rural population living in extreme poverty increased from 26.7 percent to 31.2 percent, with over 50 percent of the population living in poverty by the mid-1990s (Ahumada 1996, 17). The liberalisation of the international price of coffee in 1989 after the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement, which ended restrictive quotas on supply, brought the price of coffee to a thirty-year low by 2003, exacerbating already extensive rural poverty (New York Times, November 25, 2003, 1W). The collapse of coffee prices led thousands of small coffee farmers to switch to growing poppies for heroin production, as coffee output fell by 25 percent (Livingstone 2004, 100). Between 1989 and 1998 poppy production increased from zero to 61 metric tons (Hylton 2003, 84).

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In 1997 only Brazil had a higher level of economic inequality than Colombia in all of Latin America (Hoskin and Murillo 2001). In 1991 the richest 10 percent of the population had fifty-two times more income than the poorest 10%; by 2000 the richest 10 percent had 78 percent times more income (Contraloría General de la República de Colombia 2004, 47). This level of inequality and increasing poverty continued into 2002 as the government’s general accounting office reported that the country’s developmental level had declined from 1997, with 64.8 percent of the population living in poverty (Mitchell 2004). The economist Eduardo Sarmiento concluded that the ten years that followed the opening of the economy begun by the Barco administration were “the worst of the century, in terms of the slowing down of the economy, which translated into a deterioration of income per capita and unemployment” (El Espectador, December 19, 1999, 2B). Transnational corporations steadily increased their Colombian commercial holdings during the 1990s (16.5 percent to 19.4 percent), while the economic groups continued to increase the number of companies that they controlled, especially in the financial sector (ibid., 44–45).1 Foreign direct investment (FDI) almost doubled between 1996 and 2002 as a percentage of the country’s GDP (12 percent to 23 percent), largely in the energy and finance sectors (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2002, 2; World Bank 2000, Country Tables). Ahumada and Andrews’ analysis of the consequences of the neoliberal model in Colombia concludes that Colombia’s high rate of unemployment is a direct consequence of the opening of the economy, which has brought about the bankruptcy in the productive sectors of the country. The elimination of employment opportunities in the agrarian sector, aggravated by the weakening of the role of the state and the elimination of most of the agrarian institutions, has worsened the prevalent climate of violence, forcing more and more agrarian workers to abandon their traditional crops and engage in drug production or join either the irregular guerrilla armies or the paramilitaries. (1998, 462)

The steady displacement of peasants in the countryside created increasing numbers of Colombians willing to enter the booming coca-growing economy of the 1990s as Colombia replaced Bolivia and Peru as the central source of the raw material for cocaine.2 The coca-growing farms would become a central source of funds for both the guerrilla insurgency and the paramilitary groups that fought fiercely to control coca-growing regions in order to tax this trade.3 The guerrilla and paramilitary forces were able to take advantage of these increasing resources to increase their size throughout the 1990s. Figure 5.1, indicates this increase in the guerrilla insurgency. The neoliberal economic model played an important role in this social and economic crisis, a crisis that partially benefited the government’s central

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FIGURE 5.1 The Growth of the Guerilla Movement, 1980–1999

Sources: Granada and Rojas 1995; Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 26–27.

armed political opposition. Colombia’s political liberalization was not intended to prevent escalating inequality and poverty, nor was it sufficient to coopt the central actors challenging the state who opposed neoliberalism. The state’s response to the continuation of this threat has been to maintain budgetary increases for the armed forces (in limits), as well as to tolerate military impunity and paramilitarism in order to repress the continuing challenges to this social order. Though Colombia’s transnationalized ruling group has promoted various political reforms to modernize the country’s politics, as well as to internationalize its economy, this did not translate to democratic conduct. Given the continued ability of the guerrilla insurgency to disrupt and destabilize the control of the Colombian state in regions throughout the country, it was in the best interests of Colombia’s transnational elite to tolerate military impunity and the continued repression of paramilitarism.

NAT IONAL SECURI T Y STRATEGIES AND MILI TARY JUST ICE IN THE GAVIRIA ADMINISTRAT ION

The national security strategy of the Gaviria administration was developed within the government’s National Security Council, led by Rafael Pardo. Gaviria’s Estrategia Nacional aimed to expand the state’s presence throughout the nation and to increase the professionalization of the army. A more effective and efficient fighting force was the expected benefit from such professionalization. An important part of this strategy was to allow greater flexibil-

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ity in the ability of the armed forces to engage in military actions, without having to request permission from political leaders before carrying it out and without the commitment of even larger resources (Pardo 1996, 355). Mobile brigades were an important element of this strategy. These brigades are made up of professional soldiers, with special counterguerrilla training, and enjoy the ability to pursue the guerrillas through different areas of operation without having to ask for permission of the commanding officer of that zone (Dávila 1999, 299). These efforts at implementing greater efficiency within the armed forces and the overall policy trend of expanding the role of civilians within military affairs in the first two years of the 1990s would face their first test in November 1992. In November 1992, President Gaviria declared a state of “internal commotion” after a guerrilla assault upon a police station in Putumayo in which twenty-six policemen were killed. This event ended the slow-moving peace talks and represented a shift in a more authoritarian direction in the counterinsurgency struggle. The FARC and the ELN had been engaged in negotiations with the government for the first couple of years of Gaviria’s administration but made little progress on the fundamental social and economic changes demanded by the insurgents. The attack upon the policemen (the negotiations took place without a cease fire) was the cause of the breakdown of the negotiations and an escalation in the state’s military response. Gaviria classified the guerrillas as “dinosaurs” who lacked any political legitimacy, and Defense Minister Pardo claimed that they would be defeated by the end of Gaviria’a administration. The militarist strategies that had been pursued for the decades prior to the reforms of civil-military relations would be continued in the latter years of Gaviria’s government (Leal Buitrago 2002, 85–86). This militarist shift was preceded by growing political pressures from the national congress (critical of the government for its vacillating strategy against the insurgency) and from the central business association of cattle ranchers demanding a “total war” against the insurgency (El Tiempo, November 6, 1992, 1A). The president of the Federation of Colombian Cattle Ranchers, Jorge Visbal Martelo, argued at a major meeting of this business association, “Enough with complicating the repression that our military leaders must exercise with the force of law and justice! The terrorist escalation of October must have a response that is definite and severe” (El Tiempo, November 6, 1992, 8A). Relatedly, paramilitary forces were engaged in the indirect repression of perceived guerrilla supporters throughout the period of negotiations (see chapter 6). As a part of the government’s escalation of military operations Defense Minister Pardo proposed at a meeting of cattle ranchers (a central financial supporter of paramilitary armies) plans for greater coordination between the armed forces and cattle ranchers in their specific regions. Pardo proposed “that the [the armed forces and national police] enter into contract associations and

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groups of ranchers with the end of establishing plans and actions with the aim of combating the subversion, . . . the ranchers should organize around the public force” (El Tiempo, November 6, 1992). The president, with his security council of ministers, developed a series of special security decrees for the “internal commotion,” a “hard hand against the delinquency and the guerrilla” (FBIS, January 7, 1993, 27; El Espectador, November 8, 1992, 7A). The armed forces were granted judicial powers in specific zones of the country, and penalties were increased for any individual organization found guilty of assisting the insurgency in any way (Yarbro 1992, 8A; Leal 1994, 165). In addition, regulations were placed upon the information that the media could report regarding the war (Leal Buitrago 1994, 165). The intensification of the state’s response complemented the support of military impunity by civilian authorities. Military Justice and Human Rights Reform in the Gaviria Administration Fuero militar, or military privilege, is the military’s autonomy to judge its members in military courts, rather than civilian courts. Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as governmental bodies such as the U.S. State Department, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations have accused Colombia’s military court system of perpetuating military impunity in human rights violations. Case after case in the 1980s and 1990s displayed the inability of the military courts to find guilty officers accused with credible evidence of human rights violations (Human Rights Watch 1996, 61–82; Human Rights Watch 2000). Military involvement in the massacre of unarmed civilians, the development of paramilitary squads, the selective assassinations of individual political leaders, and the covering up of human rights crimes was consistently not punished within this system. During the development of a new constitution in 1990 and 1991, there were discussions of restricting the scope of the “military privilege” to solely military-related crimes and excluding the violations of human rights. President Gaviria publicly expressed opposition to such efforts. He remarked, “I would like to put to rest those fears [within the armed forces]. I am convinced that I, like all other Colombians can not act arbitrarily, lightly or irresponsibly when addressing such delicate subjects, and that with my government’s leadership we will defend those [military] principles and along with these principles the security of the nation and of all Colombians” (El Tiempo, November 23, 1990, 8A). He would later argue that “we are sure that the armed forces of Colombia are really the allies of the Peace Process. . . . This (military) reform is not necessary to find peace” (Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 1991, 6). This opposition by Gaviria was coupled with intense lobbying by the armed forces upon the constitution writers themselves. According to a member of the constitutional assembly the military conditioned its acceptance of the new constitution on the assurance that military privileges would be protected (Richani 2002, 42; also

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see Pizarro 1995, 195). It would be unconstitutional to allow military courts to judge civilians, a recurring strategy during states of siege (Romero 2000, 63), however little was done to ensure greater accountability on the part of military personel accused of human rights violations. Despite the failure of the 1991 constitution to address military privilege, preexisting civilian-led agencies as well as offices developed by the 1991 constitution had the power to investigate military officers accused of human rights violations. Many human rights cases involving the military were initiated by the Public Ministry, which is headed by the procurator general of the nation as well as the Office of the Prosecutor General (Fiscalia General). The Office of the Procurator General has the responsibility of bringing, either on its own or in response to a complaint, charges against state agents, including members of the armed forces. It has the right to investigate human rights violations and to order the removal from service of members of the military forces, the national police, or any other state actor responsible for these violations (Giraldo 1999, 31–35; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [IACHR] 1999, chapter 2). The Office of the Procurator General is divided into the offices of the delegate prosecutors that focus upon human rights, the military forces, the national police, and other agencies (Giraldo 1999, 31–35; IACHR 1999, chapter 2). The procurador delegate for the military forces was a constant source of concern for the armed forces, as officers regularly complained about its “excessive” investigations, which allegedly weakened the morale of troops and undermined military efficiency (Leal Buitrago 2002, 116–17). Finally, the Public Ministry contains the Office of the Human Rights ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo). The human rights ombudsman is primarily an information gathering body that is dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights. The office is involved in education, training, and publicity regarding human rights issues (IACHR 1999, chapter 2). Though these civilian agencies could initiate criminal processes against military personnel, judicial officials from the armed forces generally challenged their jurisdiction. The decision of jurisdiction, between military or civilian courts, is in the hands of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, specifically the Jurisdictional Disciplinary Chamber. This chamber must determine if a specific crime was committed in the “act of service” (military jurisdiction) or unrelated to military service (civilian jurisdiction). The Disciplinary Chamber is composed of seven magistrates who are all elected by Congress (IACHR 1999, chapter 2). These magistrates consistently ruled in favor of military jurisdiction. Their appointment by the National Congress is an important factor in this consistent protection of the armed forces. Congress is an important base of support for large landowners, cattle ranchers, and other rural elites, actors sympathetic with protecting military impunity (see Archer and Shugart 1997; Bagley 1989). This sector of the economic elite supported the protection of military personnel from civilian courts. This political manipulation was revealed with the very first

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appointments to this council. President Gaviria appointed, based on a transitory article of the Constitution, the first members of the Superior Council of the Judicature. However, the traditional political class within the National Congress, immediately intervened in this process, annulling this transitory article, and proceeded to appoint new members consistent with their beliefs (Springer 1998; Pizzaro 1993, 165). Once these cases were placed under military jurisdiction the accused individual was generally acquitted. A lack of consistency in the aggressiveness of civilian investigations into alleged military crimes also contributed to military impunity. Javier Giraldo, the executive director of the Catholic human rights group Comision Intercongrecacional de Justicia y Paz, investigated scores of human rights crimes in the 1990s only to face repeatedly a lack of interest by civilian agencies. Giraldo’s experience with the Office of the Prosecutor General, Procurator and the Defense Ministry was one in which these offices ignored, justified, or dismissed substantial claims of human rights violations by the armed forces. Giraldo met even with Defense Minister Pardo himself, who vehemently denied any involvement of the armed forces in human rights violations despite the evidence presented to him (Giraldo 1999, 36–38). Between 1992 and 1993, during Gaviria’s military escalation, the number of tortures committed by state agents (police, army, DAS agents, judicial police) increased by 23 percent and extrajudicial executions by 18 percent (Cambio 16, August 29, 1994, 30–32). The response of the Gaviria government to the substantial evidence linking human rights violations to state forces lacked the substance and/or continuity manifested in efforts at controlling military budgets and reducing the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces. Reforms of the justice system that did take place, such as the public order courts, reinforced authoritarian responses to the state’s internal challenges. In the 1980s special courts were established to deal with the “terrorist” crimes of guerrillas and narco-traffickers. In the first year of the Gaviria administration these special “public order” courts were renamed as “regional courts” and were integrated into the ordinary judicial system, removing their special emergency situation status (Weiner 1996, 33). These courts allowed for secret judges, witnesses and evidence in order to allow greater security for a process that had become increasingly dangerous for the individuals involved (ibid.; Ahumada 1996, 253–55). The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) assisted with the development of these courts. U.S. aid included $36 million to purchase bullet-proof cars, radio systems, bodyguards, and the technological system utilized to disguise the identity of judicial system employees from defendants accused of terrorism (Rampton 1994; Weiner 1996, 33). The war on drugs was the justification for the special courts; however, they were used in the Gaviria administration and throughout the 1990s against individuals involved in peaceful protests or civil disobedience (Christian Science Monitor, March 25, 1997, 1). A study conducted by the Colombian

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human rights group CINEP found that in the first six months of 1992 of the 618 persons detained to be prosecuted, 584 were persons engaged in social protests or civic organizing (accused of “terrorist crimes”), while only 6 percent were drug-trafficking or guerrilla cases (Rampton 1994). According to Gustavo Gallon of the Andean Commission of Jurists in 1994, there were “10,000 prisoners under these courts, and the majority are peasants who have been accused of aiding the left-wing guerrillas. . . . [O]ur judicial system is more repressive than ever” (Houston Chronicle, May 29, 1994, A26). This tendency continued in the Samper administration. Fourteen members of the Oil Workers Union (USO) were detained and tried in the regional justice system on charges of “rebellion and treason” during a period in which they were actively resisting the privatization of the state oil company (IACHR 1999, chapter 9). Human Rights Initiatives in the Gaviria Administration The response of the Barco and Gaviria administrations to the issue of human rights violations committed by state agents, or with the assistance of state agents, has been to argue that these violations were the product of narco-traffickers or the isolated actions of individuals (Alberto Restrepo 2001, 99–100). According to Alberto Restrepo (2001, 100) this policy began to change only with the growing international pressure from the European Union, the United Nations, and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to improve Colombia’s human rights record. Gaviria’s immediate reaction to this pressure was to implement a number of largely symbolic measures to assuage increasing international criticisms. At the end of 1991 an executive directive sent to all of the central executive ministries and agencies of the state required that each agency incorporate the protection and promotion of human rights in implementing the government’s national security strategy (Leal Buitrago 1994, 141–42). This policy complemented the preexisting Human Rights Advisory Council that had been established by the Barco administration. Defense Minister Pardo also emphasized human rights training and education in order to reduce human rights abuses in the military. The armed forces initiated a human rights awareness campaign at the end of 1993 that included a special office staffed by civilians to advise the joint chiefs-of-staff within the military on human rights issues and to develop training materials and programs (State Department Report on Human Rights 1993). A variety of initiatives addressing reform of the military justice system in 1994 (Gaviria’s term ended in August 1994) coincided with Gaviria’s potential nomination as head of the Organization of American States (OAS) after his term ended.4 Human rights had become an important component in the “democracy promotion” measures of the OAS and of the United States whose support was central to Gaviria’s attainment of the OAS position. In early 1994, the president supported an agreement between the attorney general and

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the armed forces to find a way to reform the military justice system. The decision was made to develop ideas for reform through a mixed commission chosen by the Ministry of Defense. The commission was made up of thirteen members, ten from the armed forces, and only three from the attorney general’s office. By August 1994, the commission had suspended its work, with little progress and a great deal of criticism by civilians involved in the process (El Espectador, August 28, 1994, 5A). The commission itself was not taken very seriously by the military. In April of that year the commanding officer, General Gil Colorado, wrote to a civilian member of the commission that “the work that they are doing is largely academic and lacks any decisionmaking power” (El Espectador, August 28, 1994, 5A). Gil Colorado had also been accused by various judicial officials of commanding the Fourteenth Brigade during a year (1989) in which it was protecting and assisting the paramilitary group MAS (Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura et al. 1992, 148–49). The inconsistency between rhetoric and action continued in June 1994. In that month, the Colombian government supported the Interamerican Convention on forced disappearance in the Organization of American States. In July 1994 Gaviria was presented with domestic legislation that would prohibit the forcible disappearance of Colombians, but Gaviria vetoed articles of the domestic bill that were in complete agreement with the UN and OAS policies (El Espectador, July 24, 1994, 7A). Gaviria’s opposition to the legislation was widely condemned by human rights officials of his own cabinet. The country’s human rights ombudsman, Mario Madrid-Malo, charged that “with this objection the government has admitted its support for a blind, automatic and irrational obedience to members of the army, navy and air force, and have accepted that this obedience is maintained in order to continue the commission of crimes” (El Espectador, July 26, 1994, 11A). Though the government publicly promoted human rights, military impunity and the military’s autonomy within the justice system continued. The human rights initiatives of the Gaviria administration were largely in line with what the military would accept, training, public acknowledgment of a problem, and the nonenforceable acceptance of international humanitarian law. They were similar in that none of them required any significant diminishment of the military’s autonomy over its justice system or the level of impunity that this allowed the armed forces.

NAT IONAL SECURI T Y STRATEGIES AND MILI TARY JUST ICE IN THE SAMP ER ADMINISTRAT ION

Samper’s inaugural speech stressed the need for the defense of human rights, dialogue with the guerrillas and the expansion of social support for the poor. The stated national security goals of the administration were the following,

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1. Develop the intelligence capabilities of the armed forces 2. Strengthen the operating abilities of the armed forces 3. Place greater emphasis upon the security of the average citizen from common delinquency, in addition to the struggles against narcotraffic and the insurgency 4. The implementation of human rights reform of the armed forces. (El Espectador, August 2, 1994, 5A) The Samper administration pledged from day one of his administration that human rights would be a priority. His foreign minister, Rodrigo Pardo, opened a dialogue with a number of Colombian and international human rights groups (such as CINEP, Amnesty International, and Americas Watch). Pardo argued that “the government is ready to listen” and that human rights were a central priority (El Espectador, August 6, 1994, 7A). The Samper government did make an effort at addressing a serious obstacle to human rights, the military justice system. In August 1994 a ministerial-level Human Rights Commission and his government revived a military justice reform commission intended to address the question of impunity for police officers and military troops (U.S. State Department 1994; Cambio 16, August 8, 1994, 26). As of March 1995 the military court system had rarely completed a judicial process against a military member for human rights violations (El Espectador, August 24, 1994). Members of the civilian Superior Council facilitated this record of impunity, arguing that criticisms of the military courts were a part of a “pseudo-Marxist” line of thinking (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1999). The members of this key judicial body believed that they had the right to interpret the constitution when deciding the jurisdiction of specific human rights cases, irrespective of Constitutional Court decisions that had challenged the constitutionality of their decisions.5 On March 29, 1995, the Constitutional Court ruled that only retired military officers could act as judges in military trials and that the use of active duty personnel was unconstitutional. Congress reacted to this decision by swiftly amending Article 221 of the constitution to allow active duty military officers to maintain the right to be judges in military courts (Pérez Casas 1997). In the midst of these divisions over military justice, in March 1995 Samper’s government organized a special commission of sixteen individuals who would be charged with developing the central elements of a new law that would replace the Military Penal Code of 1988. The commission was split between civilian and military representatives (eight civilians and eight active duty military officers). The civilian representatives all had connections with human rights or the enforcement of human rights law in the government. Given the commission’s civilian makeup it was expected that unlike the constitution of 1991 in which military reform was not

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dealt with or the military-dominated reform commission of the Gaviria administration, substantive reforms would be examined. However, the allowance of such high military representation would continue to undermine agreement on substantive reform. In 1995 the commission began to work on the development of a new military penal code, delivering its recommendations to the president in October of that year (Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, ICCHRLA, 1997). The commission divided over a number of issues, including the use of “due obedience” defenses and the category of crimes that the military courts could legally adjudicate (ibid.). The armed forces pressed for the continued protection of “due obedience” for crimes committed by soldiers as well as greater latitude in the types of crimes that their courts could judge. Ultimately, after a long delay, on September 9, 1997, a proposal for a new military penal code was presented to the legislature. The proposed reform would explicitly remove the crimes of torture, genocide, forced disappearance, and other human rights violations from under military jurisdiction. The proposal would also weaken the use of due obedience and remove those officers within the military hierarchy from acting as judges in military trials (IACHR 1999, chapter 5). In the end, Congress obstructed the passage of the bill, deciding to postpone the debate until the following year and a new presidential administration (ibid.). The failure of military justice reform in both the Gaviria and Samper administrations was consistent with the overall lack of sufficient funding to those state agencies responsible for investigating human rights violations by state agents. As Carlos Vicente Roux, an advisor to President Samper on human rights, stated, “We don’t have enough personnel or resources to process or to carry out investigations and to ensure investigation of cases and to provide protection of persons at risk. . . . There are still not enough resources to provide protection for political leaders, human rights activists, and trade union leaders who are threatened” (Vicente Roux 1995, 47–48). While reform of military justice floundered and resources were unavailable for human rights, President Samper did expand the military’s repressive role. In October 1995 Samper declared, “As President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I prefer that the military confront subversion in the mountains and not in the country’s courts, contesting unfounded demands presented by its enemies” (as cited in Amnesty International 1997). In November 1995 President Samper reinforced this rhetoric with the declaration of a “state of internal commotion” ostensibly in response to the assassination of Conservative politician Alvaro Gómez and violent events in different regions of the country. The state of emergency would remain in effect throughout much of 1996. In April of 1996, Samper issued Decree 717, which established “special public order zones” in which military authorities acquired operational control over the territory and over all civilian authorities in those

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zones. The special measures granted to the military in these zones included the ability to carry out searches and detain any person considered to be a criminal suspect without a judicial order (IACHR 1999, chapter 2).6 In August 1996 President Samper proposed a set of constitutional reforms that would eliminate the Constitutional Court’s role in reviewing the constitutionality of states of emergency and to eliminate the time limits on their duration established by the 1991 constitution (ibid.). These proposals would eventually be withdrawn or defeated; however, they are another indication of the priority of human rights in the Samper administration.

U.S. POLICY AND H UMAN RIGH TS

Througout the 1990s the United States maintained a dual policy on human rights in Colombia, rhetorically demanding greater adherence of human rights while simultaneously supporting directly and indirectly central actors that perpetuated human rights violations. Even in those periods in which military aid was cut off from the Colombian armed forces because of human rigths concerns, this duality was maintained. During and after the Cold War the Pentagon had been (and is) involved in training special army brigades in Colombia. Training Colombian officers and providing surplus material and financing for their war against the insurgents in the name of “anti-Communism,” “counternarcotics,” and presently the “war against terrorism.” These various missions have been utilized to justify continued military aid to Latin America, providing the United States with another lever of influence in the region. In Latin America, the U.S. Southern Command is the leading agency behind this effort. The Southern Command’s mission is to defend U.S. interests within Latin America and assist in the development of modern militaries. It was the lead agency in organizing the counterinsurgency strategies of the Central American wars and has been the lead agency in the Andean counterdrug war.7 The Southern Command’s vision for the hemisphere was presented in its goals for the hemisphere, “Vision 2001,” “a community of free, stable, and prosperous nations, throughout the Southern theater, acting in concert with one another to advance and defend the principles embodied in the Charter of the OAS and the Rio Pact and in concert with U.S. interests” (Call 1991, 40). In 1990, waging the drug war was given top priority in the Southern Command in order to achieve its “Vision 2001.” For example, in 1991, two U.S. Special Forces personnel were deployed to each of the fourteen regional headquarters of Colombia’s national police (Call 1991, 78). The role of the Special Forces was ostensibly focused on the drug war, but as even Colonel Warren D. Hall, the staff judge advocate to the commander-in-chief of the Southern Command in 1994 wrote, “the light infantry

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skills U.S. special operations forces teach during counter-drug deployments . . . can be used by the Colombian armed forces in their counter-insurgent efforts as well” that “[U.S. supplied equipment] may be used in counterinsurgency operations during which human rights violations might occur” (Schulz 1996, 14). The support for the armed forces took place simultaneuously with pressures for improvements in Colombia’s human rights record and the conditioning of aid to that effect. In 1989 U.S. Congress amended the Foreign Assistance Act to incorporate human rigths conditions. The amendment permitted transfers of surplus U.S. military weapons to Latin American and Caribbean nations for counternarcotics purposes, provided that the countries have democratic governments and armed forces that “do not engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” (Zirnite 1997). In the fall of 1996 this conditionality was strengthened with the passage of the Leahy Amendment (named after Senator Patrick Leahy). This amendment to the Foreign Operations Act prohibited the delivery of military aid to foreign military units in which there is “credible evidence” that they have committed human rights violations (Kirk 2004, 246; Leech 2002, 26–27). In 1997 the U.S. State Department demanded that the Colombian government sign a conditionality agreement that would require that all military units receiving military aid would have to be vetted for human rights violators before receiving the assistance. Consecutive defense ministers supported the accords but were unable to develop consensus among the military high command. After negotiating with three defense ministers (Esguerra, González, and Echeverri), U.S. ambassador Frechette concluded that the Colombian government was unwilling to compromise on the issue, specifically because of the opposition of the Colombian army (El Tiempo, July 15, 1997, 8A; Salinas 1997–1998, 33). The specific opposition to the accords by the then commander of the armed forces, General Harold Bedoya, was particularly important. In a 1997 meeting between Colombia’s defense minister and the U.S. ambassador over the accords the defense minister submitted a counterproposal. U.S. Ambassador Frechette refused to even read the counterproposal and stated that “if you do not sign the document that we have delivered, then nothing will be signed!” (El Tiempo, July 15, 1997, 8A). Ultimately, the conditional agreement would be signed, after the removal of Bedoya. The importance of U.S. opinion on human rights and its impact on Colombian politics was clearly on display in the very dismissal of Bedoya. In the summer 1997 meeting that Bedoya had with Samper, in which Samper requested his resignation, Bedoya emphasized the support he had received from U.S. drug czar General Barry McCafferty. Citing a letter that McCafferty had sent Bedoya praising him for his human rights work the letter was offered as proof that the General was concerned about human rights. Such evidence failed to sway President Samper, and Bedoya was removed in light of

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his opposition to the human rights conditionality, as well as his general criticisms of political negotiations with the guerrilla insurgency (see chapter 4). While U.S. pressures and aid conditionality were symbolically useful in undermining a threat to the institutional authority of civilian leaders (from the opposition of General Bedoya), they were inconsistent if not irrelevant to the actual violations of human rights on the ground. Though the U.S. government formally “cut off ” military aid in 1996, relations between the Colombian armed forces and the United States were not ended. For example, 726 Colombian troops received training from the Defense Department’s Special Operations Command in fiscal 1996 (Priest 1998). In 1996 there were twenty-eight deployments of U.S. Special Forces to Colombia, and Colombian officers and soldiers were the leading recipients of counterinsurgency training at the U.S. Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (U.S. “School of the Americas”). Over 150 Colombian graduates from this institute were accused of human rights violations by human rights organizations in the 1980s and 1990s (Leech 2002, 26–27). Furthermore, U.S. assistance to the military and to the Colombian national police—which was not barred from receiving aid—tripled from $28.5 million in 1995 to nearly $100 million in 1997 (Priest 1998). Finally, the U.S. Pentagon’s Joint Combined Exchange Training ( JCET) program was effective in allowing the continued training of Colombian soldiers, despite human rights restrictions placed on counternarcotics aid in 1996 and 1997 (Center for International Policy 2001). However, even during periods when U.S. military aid was approved for the Colombian army, the ability of the United States to actually ensure that the military would not be engaged in human rights abuses was weak to nonexistent. Repeated reports by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) between 1991 and 1997 indicate that U.S. officials lacked sufficient oversight of military aid to ensure that equipment was being used efficiently and as intended in Colombia. In 1994 and 1996 the U.S. General Accounting Office and Amnesty International respectively found that numerous counterinsurgency units of the Colombian military that had been engaged in human rights violations had received U.S. military aid (Salinas 1997–1998, 32; New York Times, June 2, 1998, A1). The process of vetting these military units of human rights violators is one factor in the failure to implement U.S. human rights policy. The U.S. government receives a list from the Colombian Defense Ministry that includes only those troops who have had formal charges made against them— rather than also including those where credible evidence exists of human rights violations (Stokes 2003). One special report conducted by the New York Times concluded that “administration policies on Colombia have received nothing like the scrutiny given United States policies for Central America in the 1980s, and aid conditions have often been only loosely applied” ( June 2, 1998, A1). In fact, the U.S. government increasingly classified information regarding U.S.

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military training during a period of escalating military assistance in the late 1990s (Stokes 2005, 97–98). Though the increased military assistance to the Colombian government primarily strengthened those actors most responsible for human rights violations during the 1990s (directly or indirectly through paramilitary groups), the U.S. government simultaneously maintained the rhetoric of democracy and human rights promotion in its public relations with the Colombian state.

CONCLUSION

Human rights were principles that rhetorically both the Samper and Gaviria administrations publicly supported. Their expressions of solidairity with these ideals and their recognition that the Colombian state shared responsibility for this problem led to efforts in both governments to reform the military’s justice system. However, these efforts were largely half-hearted, symbolic, and ineffectual, while state support for those institutions that investigated military crimes were left sorely underfunded. At the same time, the United States continued to criticize the government’s efforts at improving human rights and even conditioned miltiary aid, yet these efforts were undermined by the weak level of human rights oversight on the ground. In both the foreign policies of the United States and the domestic politics of Colombia symbol and rhetoric (as with the State Department reports) were employed, while substantive resources were devoted to the strengthening of those state agents engaging in human rights violations. The “democracy” that was being led by Colombia’s transnational elite was not a complete democracy, but one that was restricted in its goals—low-intensity democracy in which elections, civilian control, and political parties were prioritized over restricting the abuses of the armed forces in their war against the insurgency. The continuing high levels of rural poverty and socioeconomic inequality that expanded the market for potential recruits for the army/paramilitary forces as well as the guerrillas were not to be addressed by neoliberalism. This displaced labor force also entered into a thriving coca-growing economy, creating the symbolic rationale for greater political intervention by the United States. The response of Colombia’s transnational elite to the consequences of limited political liberalization with neoliberalism was to allow, and sometimes support, military impunity for human rights violations. The support and/or toleration for paramilitarism represented another part of the state’s coercive response to the continued armed and unarmed challenges to capitalist globalization.

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EITHER THE GAVIRIA nor the Samper administration reformed the military’s justice system, failing to remove a safeguard of impunity for officers and solidiers who committed human rights violations. The “inconsistency” between the civilian expansion of institutional responsibility over military affairs, and the continuation of protections and support for human rights violations is also demonstrated by antiparamilitary initiatives. Paramilitary groups1 were responsible for the vast majority of massacres and political killings during the 1990s, a political violence that has cost Colombia an average of three thousand to four thousand civilian lives a year between the late 1980s and 2000 (Tate 2000, 10; Human Rights Watch 1998). The groups that have suffered have not only been those deemed supportive of the guerrilla insurgents but also anyone perceived as critical of prevailing economic strategies or disruptive of the interests of regional or national economic elites (See Corporación Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo 2001, 13–14; Giraldo 1996, 8–10). The military has consistently aided and supported paramilitary groups throughout this period, with civilian authorities tolerating and/or indirectly supporting this relationship. The continuation of militaryparamilitary linkages did not reflect military intimidation or defiance of civilian authorities. The expansion in the formal institutional powers of civilian authorities within the Colombian state is disconnected from actual state behavior. The reforms to Colombia’s political system were designed to address a serious legitimacy crisis facing Colombia’s transnational elite, a legitimacy crisis addressed through political reforms of the state in the hopes of mitigating and

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diminishing the opposition to the established order. The failure of this political reform and other efforts to politically remove the state’s violent opposition coupled with the intensifying poverty and inequality exacerbated by neoliberal economic policies have facilitated the toleration of para-state violence against oppositional groups. In this chapter I first describe the emergence of paramilitarism within Colombia and its relationship to Colombia’s counterinsurgency policy. This is followed by an examination of the different policies employed by three different administrations (1986–1998) to combat paramilitarism. This period is central to the subject of paramilitarism and human rights given the rapid rate of growth of paramilitarism and its eventual consolidation into a national movement by 1997. Chapter 7 will address the state of antiparamilitary policy in the 2000s.

PARAMILI TARISM AND STATE REPRESSION IN COLOMBIA

Much of the literature examining Colombian paramilitaries has examined the origins, structure, and evolution of paramilitarism in Colombia; however, few researchers have examined the relationship between the reduction in the military’s institutional prerogatives, and the growth of paramilitarism.2 The use of civilians by the Colombian state in counterinsurgency has had a long history. Different governments have often had to rely on local, private forces, rather than the regular armed forces, in order to establish and maintain order in regions with little state presence.3 During and after the civil and social conflict La Violencia the state utilized irregular forces to assist in counterinsurgency strategies: against Liberal guerrillas in the 1950s and against guerrilla movements of the 1960s to today. Not only have irregular forces been utilized by the state, but they have also been organized by economic elites such as narco-traffickers, cattle ranchers, and other agrarian elites on a regional and local level. These local actors have organized these forces in response to a sense of insecurity in the face of guerrilla assaults, as well as in an effort to undermine political efforts to weaken their social and economic power (Romero 2003a, 178–79). The National Security Doctrine promoted in Colombia by the United States in the early 1960s recommended the use of paramilitary units in counterinsurgency operations. In 1962, the U.S. military recommended that the Colombian army “select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations” and that they be used “to perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents” (Human Rights Watch 1996, 12; Proyecto Nunca Más 2000, 15–16).4 At the

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time this recommendation was strongly backed by Manuel Castellanos, the head of the largest landowners’ association, the SAC, who asked the government in 1964 to authorize the organization of “self-defense” groups so that wealthy landowners could protect their properties and themselves from the insurgency (NCOS et al. 1995, 36). In 1965, through Presidential Decree 3398 (ultimately Law 48 in 1968), the army was granted the power to form self-defense groups from among the population in order to help secure specific territories (ibid.). The organization of self-defense groups was incorporated into army manuals that emphasized the importance of a “self-defense network” and utilizing these groups in “search, control, and destructive operations.” Army training manuals of 1969, 1979, 1982, and 1987 emphasized the importance of organizing the civilian population.5 These self-defense groups would support military combat operations against “subversion” through the collection of intelligence, the conduction of military operations against the insurgency, and/or acting as guides for military assaults (NCOS 1995, 21–27). These training documents recommended that peasants perceived to be suspect should be threatened so that they would abandon the region or be referred to as the “enemy” (ibid., 14–15). The Reglamento de Combate de ContraguerrillasEJC3-10, Reservado of 1987 emphasized that potential “subversives” included “the labor, student, and peasant political movements, etc.,” consistent with the National Security Doctrine’s conception of “internal enemies” (Centro de Investigación y Educación Populas 2003, 1). Prior to the end of the 1980s the use of this strategy largely complemented the efforts of the armed forces, who were granted significant autonomy to battle the country’s internal insurgency and growing popular movements (see chapter 2). As one former Colombian army major argued the paramilitaries illegal nature was an important factor in the support they received from the armed forces, “self-defense groups, could use dirty war tactics against the guerrillas because at the end of the day they do not obey any of the country’s laws or international laws. So this can be a way to make up for the government’s limitations or inefficiencies, since these forces can carry out a war without quarter” (as cited in Kirk 2003, 110). Or as Colombia’s chief national prosecutor reported in 1986, paramilitary groups were used as an “armed front, as hired killers who could do unofficially what was not permitted officially” (ibid., 114). An important political outcome of this para-repression has been to reduce the space for the political activities of trade unionists, Communists, peasant leaders of popular organizations, and human rights activists who were all (and continue to be) disproportionately targeted by paramilitary organizations. These actors have long been viewed as suspect by the armed forces. General Rafael Samudio Molina, minister of defense in 1988, argued that “subversive groups develop military activities that parallel political actions, and use this strategy of convergence in the political, social, labor, educational, judicial and

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armed fields” (as cited in NCOS et al. 1995, 16). The commander of the armed forces in 1988, Manuel Jaime Guerrero Paz, stated in a public forum of business and party leaders that the favorite terrain for political action for subversives was the topic of human rights (ibid.). One commanding general of the army refered to a “civil insurgent population” consisting of “the union, student, peasant, political movements” (ibid., 18). An analyst from the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, Sergio Otalora Montenegro, concluded that the origins and purposes of paramilitarism were not simply responses to guerrilla aggression, but “behind the death squads there have been 15 years of dirty war [designed] to take apart every legitimate, organized, popular movement, and thus destroy any real possibility of constructing a democratic alternative in open opposition to the traditional parties” (as cited in Carrigan 2001). With the emergence of narco-traffickers in the 1970s and 1980s an additional source of political and financial support for paramilitarism developed. Narco-trafficking cartels, such as the Medellín cartel, consolidated and protected their power in society through the use of specialized hit-men (sicarios) and death squads to attack representatives of the state attempting to prosecute them as well as representatives of the legal left challenging their control over economic resources. Some of the first narco-paramilitary groups, such as Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS, Death to Kidnappers) which was founded in 1981, dedicated themselves to protecting large landowners and the drug cartels from guerrilla extortion, kidnapping, and assassinations (International Crisis Group, ICG, 2002, 4). MAS also engaged in numerous assassinations of representatives of the unarmed political left who threatened the political and social position of agrarian and narco elites in a given region. As the 1980s progressed these groups would often ally and work with army brigades and their “self-defense” networks, “cleansing” territories of not only the presence of guerrillas but all representatives of the political and social left. The role of paramilitary organizations to narco-traffickers was replicated with other representatives of the agrarian elite. A survey of business elites and economic interest groups found that paramilitary groups represented important “security factors in activities such as ranching and palm oil and banana production” increasing the price of lands (Cubides 2001, 133–34). Paramilitary repression has not only been central to land concentration and diminishing the presence of guerrillas but also creating the necessary conditions for capital accumulation. For example, in the mid1980s business associations representing banana exporters combined their resources to fund paramilitary groups in order to “clean” the banana-growing region of Urabá of the insurgency (NCOS et al. 1995, 51). Business associations such as the Banana Growers of Urabá (AUGURA) and the Union of Banana Producers of Urabá (UNIBAN), facilitated the hiring of foreign mercenaries, with the help of specific brigade commanders, to train paramilitary members in “antiterrorist” tactics. Some of those trained committed massacres

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against banana workers in March 1988 (ibid., 52). Other regional economic interests that financially supported paramilitary units in the 1980s and 1990s have included Frontino Gold, one of Colombia’s most important gold mining companies, which supported units in Segovia, and the Peasants and Ranchers of the Magdalena Medio (ACDEGAM), a paramilitary group that operated as a business association for cattle ranchers in order to shield its repressive operations (Alternativa, October 1996, no. 3, 26–27; Pearce 1990, 247–48). Agrarian elites consolidated their economic and social power in the countryside through their support of paramilitarism. The central commander of the largest paramilitary force in Colombia (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Autodefensas Unidad de Colombia) during the 1990s stated that “each one of the forces that conform the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia have ‘owners’ and they are the ones that provide the economic support for the self-defense patrols. The ‘owners’ are not involved in the military aspects, but finance our men, they are the same men who control the region, they receive security in their legal and illegal businesses” (as cited in Aranguren Molina 2001, 208). In fact, by the end of the decade paramilitary leaders were significant traffickers themselves, consolidating their control over much of the territory they helped to “liberate.” The Colombian sociologist Alejandro Reyes concluded that “one-third of the 800,000 refugees [presently there are almost 2 million] lost their lands at the hands of paramilitary groups, who appropriated [them] as booty in the war in order to reconstruct a social base submissive to great haciendas. Buying cheaply where there were guerrillas, bringing in private security, and appraising the property became an enormous business” (as cited in Cupides 2001, 133; WOLA 1989, 65).6 The work conducted by paramilitary groups for regional economic interests (and for themselves) has been replicated for enterprises owned by, or linked to, transnational corporations (such as oil and gold mining) (Richani 2002, 114–16). As Richani has argued, “the strategic lands located near areas of oil wells, coal, emeralds, silver, copper, and gold mines . . . form part of this diagram of land conflict where landlords are trying to expand and consolidate their property rights with the protection and help of paramilitary groups and the military” (ibid., 145). The various infrastructural projects (new highways, canals) that will expand Colombia’s integration with neighboring countries have contributed to increasing land prices, creating additional incentives for Colombia’s agrarian elite to repress challenges to their control and expand their ownership over even more land (ibid., 144–45). The financial support of large landowners, agroexporters, and cattle ranchers was also complemented by support from nationally important and influential elites. Carlos Castaño has refered to a “group of six” key supporters as being from “the highest levels of Colombian society, the cream of the crop” who allegedly pressed Castaño to maintain the counterinsurgency massacres and selective assassinations (Aranguren Molina 2001, 116–17). Luis

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Ramírez, former defense minister, argued that the real truth about the supporters of paramilitarism would lead the “institutions of society to be shaken at their foundations” (as cited in ICG 2003a, 10). Mauricio Romero (2000, 2002, 2003) argues that regional, agrarian elites (landowners, cattle ranchers, and/or narco-traffickers) organized paramilitary groups not only in response to growing social and guerrilla movements threatening their economic interests but also in reaction to the various attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict in the 1980s and 1990s. Betancur’s peace process and amnesty for guerrilla prisoners, electoral reform that allowed direct elections for mayors, and the establishment of a leftist political party (the UP) by the FARC represented potential threats to the power base of regional elites. Thus, not only did regional agrarian elites play a key role in organizing paramilitary groups throughgout the 1980s and 1990s, but local party leaders (especially from the Liberal Party) were also central players in regional networks underlying the development and use of paramilitary groups. The frustration with the peace processes of the early 1980s and the perceived political threats of a stronger popular movement contribute to our understanding of the increasing use of paramilitary groups in the 1980s and 1990s. However, a relationship had been established between the military and civilian “self-defense” groups prior to these reforms, and paramilitary groups became increasingly central to counterinsurgency strategies long after the failure of political negotiations. Gallon emphasizes that the “dirty war” in Colombia actually intensified after the end of Betancur’s peace process with the M-19 in 1985, and political violence against the left surged after the ending of the ceasefire with the FARC in 1987 (Gallon 1991, 19; ICG 2002, 6; Giraldo 1996). In fact, as of 2004 members of the UP continue to be selectively assassinated, with their members being killed during times of peace negotiations with the insurgency, as well as periods in which negotiations are nonexistent. According to officials within the party, between 1985 when the UP was founded and 1992 the party lost over 2,200 of its militants to paramilitary violence (Human Rights Watch. 1993b). Not only has political violence continued, whether political negotiations are taking place or not, but the central perpetrators of this violence have changed signficantly. As table 6.1 indicates the armed forces continued to perpetrate the majority of human rights violations during the 1980s, and this was to change only after the reduction of a number of their institutional prerogatives, including the ending of the right to create “self-defense” or paramilitary groups. According to Pearce the armed forces were responsible for 60 percent of the political killings until 1994, their direct responsibility would decline substantially after 1994 with a corresponding increase in paramilitary killings (2004, 222). In 1989 a series of presidential decrees officially prohibited military support and organization of civilian militias. Despite the changes in Colombian law, a number of human rights groups and the U.S. State Department have

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TABLE 6.1 Share of Responsibility for Non-Combatant Deaths and Forced Disappearances

1993

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

Guerrillas

28%

38%

36%

23.5%

21.3%

19.6%

16.3%

Security Forces

54%

16%

18%

7.5%

2.7%

2.4%

4.6%

Paramilitary

18%

46%

46%

69%

76%

78%

79.2%

Source: Reports of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, as cited on the Center for International Policy website.

repeatedly argued that military-paramilitary linkages have been maintained to this day. However, top commanders of the armed forces have either denied that these linkages have continued or have argued that their existence has been exaggerated in order to benefit the insurgency. These linkages have involved the supplying of weapons and training to paramilitary units, the supplying of intelligence to paramilitary commanders, the securing of airports and roadways to allow safe paramilitary entry into targeted communities, and the refusal to respond to the defense of communities or towns under paramilitary assault. One paramilitary leader from the Magdalena Medio described the relationship in 1991 in these terms, “the struggle against the same enemy converted us into allies of the army. When we began we received arms from the army. . . . [I]n time we viewed the necessity of creating independence from the armed forces to avoid problems” (as cited in Blair Trujillo 1993, 160). One central paramilitary commander, Carlos Castaño asserted, “It is an unequal war, because guerrillas can always go outside the law. We understand this attitude. We chose to separate ourselves from the Colombian army, so that we could become a kind of guerrilla force and fight them using the same kinds of combat” (as cited in Kirk 2003, 162–63). The regular use of massacres by paramilitary groups against civilians was a popular method of displacing the peasant population and allowing for this greater concentration in land ownership. They not only were effective in displacing thousands from profitable lands but have also been effective in displacing and removing guerrilla presence from much of northern Colombia, especially along the coasts, transforming these territories into paramilitarydominated zones. By the end of 2002 paramilitary forces had a presence in almost all of Colombia, evolving into counterinsurgent armies, with a level of autonomy from the Colombian state and the ability to strike the alleged support base of the insurgency throughout the nation (ICG 2002, 5; Rangel Suarez 1998, 107–08).7 The most important representation of a national level organization was the paramilitary confederation United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which included six of the largest paramilitary groups.8

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Thus, from the 1980s to the late 1990s the paramilitary phenomenon transformed from a diversity of regionally based organizations with characteristics that varied from primarily self-defense groups, paid assassins, and private armies to a national force advancing and attacking the guerrilla’s social base throughout the country. Between 1990 and 1999 the membership in paramilitary groups increased from 1800 to almost six thousand, and between 1992 and 1999 there were yearly increases (Romero 2003b, 101). The transformation and growth of the paramilitary movement took place during periods of peace negotiations (1992, 1998–1999) with the guerrillas and periods in which the peace process was nonexistent (November 1992–1998). The political liberalization in Colombia during the late 1980s and early 1990s is important in that the institutional reforms that reduced the formal prerogatives of the armed forces had little connection to the actual state repression that followed. The political leaders of this democratic reform process tolerated and at times supported the paramilitary strategy. The international legitimacy of low-intensity democracies provided a reinforcing context for important, but largely institutional, democratic changes with an expansion in the role of paramilitary actors in state repression, in lieu of overt repression by the state security forces.

THE BARCO ADMINISTRAT ION, 1986–1990

Though the first reports of paramilitary massacres were being published as early as 1983, the Colombian government did not respond with a set of antiparamilitary measures until the last year of the Barco administration, 1989. The catalysts in the 1989 initiatives included the massacre of a group of judicial investigators, intensifying narco-trafficking financing of paramilitary groups, and selective paramilitary violence against members of Colombia’s political establishment (WOLA 1997, 27; WOLA 1989b, 84). The government established criminal penalties for the formation or operation of paramilitary groups and required the approval of the president before any type of self-defense group was established (Decree 815 of 1989 and Decree 1194 of 1989).9 In addition, the Barco government formed a commission to study the paramilitary problem (Decree 813 of 1989), and proposed the organization of a special police force dedicated to the elimination of paramilitary organizations.10 The proposed special police force (Decree 814 of 1989) would consist of over two thousand specially selected and trained policemen who would “carry out missions of public order” against paramilitary groups. Finally, an advisory and coordinating commission was organized to be responsible for directing and overseeing the government’s paramilitary policy.

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The commission was made up of the minister of defense, the minister of justice, the head of the government’s domestic intelligence agency (DAS, Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, Department of Administrative Security), the general commander of the armed forces, and the director of the national police.11 Excluding the head of DAS, each of the remaining members of this committee had either voiced support for paramilitary organizations and/or headed institutions that contained sectors with strong relationships with paramilitaries. Other individuals or groups victimized by paramilitarism, such as representatives of the leftist Patriotic Union Party, or labor leaders, could attend meetings of the commission (if the commission decided they could be invited), but according to Barco “they can attend with a voice, but without a vote” (El Tiempo, 1989). In the end, the advisory commission would have little impact on policy, as it rarely met over the subsequent decade (Giraldo 1996, 94). The antiparamilitary initiatives of the Barco administration did not weaken or undermine the growth and influence of paramilitarism. In fact, neither Barco’s decrees nor the Supreme Court’s ruling was retroactive, and by the end of 1989 the government had taken no steps to disarm those “selfdefense” groups previously armed by the military (WOLA 1989, 82). The state leaders responsible for social order at the time in Colombia, the country’s civilian justice minister ( José Manuel Arian Caizos) and defense minister (Gen. Rafael Samudio) openly expressed support for the organization of “private justice” groups prior to the 1989 decrees. General Samudio was, according to an early leader of paramilitary groups in the Magdalena Medio (“Ariel Otero”), one of the principal promoters and defenders of the paramilitary structure in this region (Organización Mundial Contra Tortura et al. 1992, 306–07). In fact, Arian Caizos would later become the head of a banana growers’ association, a business sector that enjoyed close links with paramilitary forces (Palacio Castaneda 1991, 117). The special police force that was established to seek out paramilitary groups was generally assigned to investigating and raiding drug laboratories and the offices of drug-trafficking organizations, not directly attacking paramilitaries as the government dedicated itself to fighting the “drug war” (WOLA 1989, 86). Paramilitary groups continued to grow in the last year of the Barco administration, increasing their massacres of peasants, leftists, and trade union activists. In 1980 Colombia experienced one hundred politically motivated killings, this passed one thousand in 1985 and four thousand in 1988. In 1988 70 percent of these politically motivated killings were at the hands of paramilitary groups or state agents; between 1986 and 1989 the number of paramilitary groups increased from 40 to 140 (Romero 2000, 60; WOLA 1989, 26). The direct role of the armed forces and police in this political violence increased during the Barco administration, but this would change with the coming to power of the Gaviria administration (WOLA 1989, 4).

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THE GAVIRIA ADMINISTRAT ION, 1990–1994

In Gaviria’s 1990 inaugural speech he declared that “we shall vigorously oppose the paramilitary groups . . . channeling all the efforts of the Colombian state into dismantling these groups which, through drug-trafficking and extreme right-wing sectors, have become powerful criminal organizations responsible for massacres, assassinations of political leaders and all kinds of atrocities” (Amnesty International 1994, 54). Gaviria’s administration directly linked the war against drug trafficking with the “struggle” against paramilitarism. The state’s efforts at dismantling paramilitary organizations focused upon the criminal prosecution of paramilitary members and the reduction of their sentences if they turned themselves in to the authorities. On September 5, 1990, Gaviria detailed an initiative in Decree 2047, which promised the reduction of sentences by one-third for those “criminals” who surrendered. This policy was effective in reducing narco-terrorism against governmental institutions and leading politicians but was not effective in imprisoning leaders of paramilitary organizations. Major paramilitary leaders such as Fidel Castaño (leader of a Cordoba department paramilitary group), Ariel Otero (Magdalena Medio region), and Henry Pérez (Magdalena Medio and Urabá regions) remained free to move about their regions unhindered by state prosecution. The government’s focus was primarily upon certain drug cartels, as the issue of paramilitaries did not appear in the original drafts of the proposed decree of September 5. The then national security advisor Rafael Pardo said, “we returned to revise the text and add articles that also allowed for the surrender of paramilitaries” (emphasis mine; Pardo 1996, 265–66).12 The president’s civilian advisers, Rafael Pardo and Minister of Justice Jaime Giraldo Angel, were the primary authors of this plan. It was the government’s expectation that some paramilitary groups would submit to the justice system but that the policy would need time before it could produce greater results. In terms of the aggressive policies to arrest paramilitary leaders and dismantle paramilitary organizations, the job was left up to the Elite Corps of the national police. However, the Elite Corps was “redirected in pursuit of the heads of the Medellín cartel” (Americas Watch 1990, 55). An examination of related policy initiatives of the Gaviria administration suggests that not only did these policies fail to stem the increase of paramilitary groups but also civilian authorities were tolerant of state-paramilitary relations. Los Pepes and the “Drug War” The Medellín cartel maintained close relations with major paramilitary organizations throughout the 1980s, as the leaders of this cartel were instrumental in the training and financing of these groups, especially in the Atlantic Coast region. However, rivalries within the Medellín cartel and efforts by

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Pablo Escobar to centralize his power contributed to many paramilitary groups breaking away from Escobar and working with the Cali cartel or other smaller cartels in opposition against him. These divisions were manifested in conflict between different paramilitary groups, with Escobar’s organization assassinating important paramilitary leaders in the Magdalena Medio. The organization, Los Pepes, arose out of these internal divisions. Fidel Castaño was the leader of paramilitary groups in the department of Córdoba and a former security chief in the Medellín cartel. He led Los Pepes in a war against Escobar. This group launched its campaign in January 199313 against Escobar, his family, and the various properties of the Medellín cartel, using tactics such as assassinations, bombings, and torture against members of Escobar’s organization. Los Pepes is estimated to have killed over three hundred people in its assault against the Medellín cartel. In the “war,” Los Pepes periodically provided information to the state, specifically the Bloque de Busqueda or Search Bloc. The Search Bloc was a special army/police unit created specifically with the mission of tracking down and arresting the leaders of the Medellín cartel. Based on reports of a $10 million payment to the Search Bloc from the Cali cartel after Escobar’s death, Gustavo de Greiff, the prosecutor general under Gaviria, stated that the “Search Bloc was an instrument of Escobar’s enemies not of the government” (Clawson and Lee 1996, 177).14 Not only did Colombian civilian authorities tolerate the Search Bloc’s work with Los Pepes, but the U.S. government tolerated this relationship as well. The U.S. Army’s top secret counterterrorism unit, Delta Force, along with a clandestine U.S. Army electronic surveillance team, tracked the movements of Escobar and helped plan raids for the Search Bloc. This assistance was given despite the full awareness of the United States of the Search Bloc’s links with paramilitary units and their engagement of torture and assassination of Escobar’s associates. In August 1993, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Morris Busby, cabled the U.S. State Department summarizing the evidence presented by Colombia’s attorney general. He wrote, “The witnesses’ testimony indicates that not only were some members of the Bloque and Los Pepes running joint operations, some of which resulted in kidnappings and possibly killings, but that the leadership of Los Pepes was calling the shots, rather than the police” (Bowden 2001, 199). Despite this evidence the U.S. government chose to continue its working arrangement with the Search Bloc in the hopes that Escobar would be located sooner with the help of Los Pepes. In December 1993 Pablo Escobar was killed in a Search Bloc raid. At the height of its terror campaign, the Medellín cartel killed 175 and injured 721 in Bogotá between May and December 1989, the most difficult period of the cartel’s offensive. In comparison, between January and November 1989, there were 5,700 presumed political killings in the country, the

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majority by Colombian military units and paramilitary groups (Vargas Mesa 1996). The continued linkages between the Colombian state and paramilitarism were further strengthened by the state’s military promotion policy. Military Promotions Promotions within the armed forces historically have been controlled by the military, with leaders of the military making recommendations to Congress and the president as to who should be promoted and transferred each year (Hanratty and Meditz 1988, chapter 5). The president and defense minister generally support these recommendations, but they do have the power to make promotions and transfers that are not consistent with the military’s intent. Despite this power, allegations and investigations of military officers and commanders involved with paramilitary organizations did not prevent them from being promoted during the Gaviria administration. This policy was most clearly represented in the career of General Ramón Emilio Gil Bermudez. According to a 1983 attorney general report, Gil Bermudez was named as one of the officers involved in assisting and working with MAS (Muerte a los Secuestradores, Death to Kidnappers), the first major paramilitary group of the 1980s. Exmembers of MAS stated that Gil created, led, and protected the group, directing its members to commit numerous assassinations and cause disappearances (Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura et al. 1992, 146). However, the military courts investigated the allegations and absolved the officer of any wrongdoing (ibid.). In regards to the investigations of MAS, the president of the Federación de Ganaderos de Antioquia (FADEGAN, Federation of Cattle Ranchers of Antioquia), Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, accused the attorney general of endangering the lives of the officers accused. Some of the civilians accused of being members of MAS were also members of FADEGAN (NCOS et al. 1995, 38). FADEGAN’s criticisms were echoed by the head of the National Association of Industrialists, ANDI (ibid.). Between 1990 and 1992 Gil Bermudez was promoted three times, becoming commander of the armed forces by 1992, the position next highest to the defense minister. Gil retired with top honors in 1994 (ibid., 147). The United States and Paramilitarism in the Gaviria Administration The United States has played an important doctrinal role in Colombia’s counterinsurgency strategy for decades (see chapter 2). As part of its mission to fight the drug war the U.S. military proposed, and the Colombian government accepted, a reorganization plan for the Colombian military’s intelligence structure (Human Rights Watch 1996, 28). The specific recommendations of the plan were centered entirely upon combating growing “terrorism by the

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armed subversion” (ibid., 28). The United States had been involved in upgrading intelligence capabilities throughout the Andean region in the early 1990s, viewing the centralization and improvement of intelligence agencies as central to the drug war (Call 1991, 27). The intelligence plan for Colombia called for the creation of thirty-four rural and urban intelligence networks, as well as two river, five airport, and four seaport networks under the command of the Twentieth Brigade of the Colombian army. Just one of its intelligence networks that had linked with paramilitary organizations, operating in the oil rich region of Barrancabermeja, was responsible for the assassinations of over one hundred community leaders, including several members of the country’s oil workers’ union. The direction of intelligence (DINTE Red-007) in Barrancabermeja, led by Colonel Rodrigo Quiñonez, utilized the funds of the unit to recruit and pay for hit men. These hit men (sicarios) proceeded to kill union leaders, journalists, civic leaders, and whomever else they accused of working with guerrillas (Alternativa, December–January, 1999, 13). The reorganization plan followed the recommendations of the United States’ Southern Command, with twelve members of the Southern Command advising during the entire restructuring process. As the Twentieth Brigade and its multiple intelligence networks began operating, U.S. advisors looked on (Semana, May 25, 1998). According to the U.S. embassy in Colombia and the U.S. State Department the Twentieth Brigade operated as a promoter of death squads and political assassinations (Semana, May 25, 1998, 28–34). By the end of Gaviria’s administration paramilitary groups had increased in size and influence throughout the country, as the war against drug trafficking or counterinsurgency repeatedly overshadowed the state’s public commitment to a struggle against paramilitarism.

THE SAMP ER ADMINISTRAT ION, 1994–1998

The Ernesto Samper administration also began with hopeful promises of a struggle against the paramilitary networks that were growing at the time he took office. Samper announced a strategy to actively enforce the 1989 antiparamilitary decrees by establishing special human rights investigative units and by bringing members of “self-defense” and “private vigilante groups” (i.e., paramilitaries) to justice. He also announced a five hundred thousand dollar reward for anyone who provided information leading to the capture of the central leader of paramilitary organizations, Carlos Castaño (U.S. State Department, Report on Human Rights 1994). In addition, a special search bloc of the national police was proposed in December of 1997, through Decree 2895, to seek out paramilitary squads and dismantle them (El Espectador, December 6, 1997, 11A). Proposals to initiate negotiations with paramilitaries were also discussed, only to be

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rejected after continued paramilitary massacres (FBIS-South America, November 25, 1996). During the four years of the Samper administration paramilitary groups continued to expand and ultimately unite in a national confederation in 1997. Decisions by Samper and other civilian authorities in the national government contributed to the failure of antiparamilitary policies.

CONVIVIR

Though the 1989 decrees mandated that the army could not directly arm civilians as self-defense groups, the policy of a civilian militia continued to be strongly supported by agrarian elites and sectors of the army. The fear that these civilian militias would be susceptible to becoming paramilitary groups, like the selfdefense groups of the past, did not prevent the Gaviria administration from examining ways of utilizing them. Studies initiated by Gaviria’s civilian-led defense ministry examining the role that citizens could play in counterinsurgency led to the issuance of Decree 356 in February 1994 establishing “special services of vigilance and security” (Richani 2002, 50–51). The decree allowed anyone, with the approval of the Ministry of Defense, to “provide for his or her own security” and was the official basis for the creation of the Servicios Especiales de Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada (Special Services of Private Security and Vigilance) (Pinto Rincón, 1998; Alternativa, March 15–April 15, 1997, 9–16). In September 1994, on the basis of Decree 356, the Samper administration authorized the creation of the community associations of rural vigilance (Asociaciones Comunitarias de Vigilancia Rural, CONVIVIR). These organizations would ostensibly be limited to a “defensive function,” supporting the armed forces with intelligence about local communities (El Tiempo, July 14, 1997, 6A; El Tiempo, November 17, 1996, 6A). The first CONVIVIR would be established the spring of 1995 (El Tiempo, Nov.17, 1996, p.6A). Eight business associations publicly supported the program, including FEDEGAN (El Tiempo, July 14, 1997, 6A; ICCHRLA 1997). Samper appointed Herman Arias Gaviria the first superintendent of CONVIVIR. Arias Gaviria is the son of José Manuel Arias Carrizosa, the longtime former head of the banana-exporting company UNIBAN (Unión de Baneros, Union of Banana Producers of Urabá) which had been created by the Association of Banana Growers of Urabá (AUGURA), a coalition of independent banana producers (Alternativa, March 15–April 15, 1997, 9–10). Arias Carrizosa headed this organization during a time in which the banana-growing region of Colombia had become rife with a high degree of political violence, even by Colombian standards. AUGURA was accused of actively supporting and working with paramilitary units and army brigades in an effort to pacify the region (NCOS et al. 1995, 51).15 Arias-Gaviria would later be appointed as National Security Advisor in the Samper administration (Dávila 1998, 184).

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The human rights community, as well as their sympathizers within the executive branch opposed CONVIVIR,16 but were unsuccessful in stopping the implementation of the plan. Supporters of the measure pledged that these forces would be regulated by the state and that legal checks would be placed on those who chose to be a part of or form a CONVIVIR. However, critics within Samper’s cabinet, such as peace negotiator Daniel Garcia-Peña, predicted that CONVIVIR would only foment more paramilitarism and would send a message that the government wanted civilians to arm themselves.17 By 1997 more than five hundred CONVIVIR were founded, with almost ten thousand armed men (Richani 2002, 52; Alternativa, March–April, 1997). Regulations upon these organizations was almost nonexistent as Samper’s government devoted few resources to the supervision of this new counterinsurgency force (Semana, September 1, 1997, 35). The CONVIVIRs that were established maintained a close working relationship with police and army commanders and were largely funded by wealthy ranchers (ICCHRLA 1997). After a flood of reports of abuses, evidence of linkages between the CONVIVIR and paramilitary groups, and international criticisms from the United Nations, the Samper administration suspended the creation of new associations, and these groups were barred from receiving military issued weapons.18 However, CONVIVIR still maintained their legal status to operate throughout the rest of the Samper administration and were only finally abolished in 1999.19 The support for armed civilian militias only coincided with the relative lack of funding for efforts at breaking military-paramilitary linkages or weakening these forces. For example, the special military force that Samper proposed to specifically seek out and destroy paramilitary groups never materialized as the government made little effort at procuring the necessary funds to finance it.20 The failure to finance the development of this counterparamilitary force and the establishment of CONVIVIR coincided with the unification of a number of different paramilitary groups into a larger force. In the mid-1990s regional leaders of different paramilitary groups began to meet to discuss the formining of a national organization, one that would establish a national command structure with Carlos Castaño at the head of it. The organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) would officially come into existence in 1997 (Aranguren Molina 2001, 199–204). By the end of 1998, paramilitary organizations were either in control or actively present in much of Córdoba, Urabá, César, Bolívar and the Santanders, most of Northern Colombia (Gonzalez, Bolivar, and Vázquez 2002, 64). Selectivity of Civilian Control in the Samper Administration Though the Samper administration did not implement major institutional changes in Colombia’s civil-military relations, his government maintained

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civilian influence and supervision over the armed forces. Samper even removed a popular general from the armed forces who openly defied his government’s strategies in negotiating with the guerrillas or who challenged his actual legitimacy to govern (see chapters 4 and 5). However, the same level of civilian leadership was absent in relation to military-paramilitary linkages. Carlos Castaño, central commander of AUC during the 1990s, argued that “among the Self-defense forces, the government of Ernesto Samper will always be remembered well . . . Samper was sending us messages that he would never persecute us, he sent us a message that we would not be pursued, he offered a million pesos as an award for my capture and he told me that this was his obligation. He stated that there would be no persecution against us and he complied, we never felt any (Aranguren Molina 2001, 175–76; emphasis mine). According to the Colombian Office of the Advisor for Peace between 1990 and 1997 the armed forces undertook military action against the guerrillas 3,873 times; in contrast the military attacked paramilitaries on six occasions (as cited in ICG 2003a, 8). In August 1998 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency concluded that “senior military officials, . . . may increasingly view turning a blind eye—and perhaps even offering tacit support to—the paramilitaries as their best option for striking back against the guerrillas.” The report concluded that “informational links and instances of active coordination between the military and the paramilitaries are likely to continue and perhaps even increase” (Central Intelligence Agency 1998). Three of the commanders of the armed forces during Samper’s tenure, Generals Harold Bedoya, Manuel Bonnett, and Hernando Camilo Zúñiga, were accused by different human rights organizations and military sources of having enjoyed ties with paramilitary organizations and/or right-wing death squads during their military careers. According to the confessions of three exagents of the “Charry Solano” Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Batallion, Bedoya was the creator and central leader of the Alianza Americana Anticomunista—“Triple A,” a right-wing death squad that had been involved in assassinations, disappearances, and bombings against political leftists between 1978 and 1979 (Organización Mundial Contra Tortura et al. 1992, 58). These accusations were never investigated (ibid.). General Manuel José Bonnett Locarno commanded Brigade III in 1990 during a period in which forty-two trade unionists and human rights activists were illegally detained by the brigade and tortured over several days. Though the government did initiate an investigation into the allegations and eventually charged some soldiers for violations, no charges were ever filed against General Bonett (ibid., 71). Evidence would later be revealed of Bonett’s possible involvement in the torturing and killing of five cabinet makers, but no investigation would ever be conducted into Bonett’s link to the killings (ibid., 72). Finally, General Zuñiga was accused of ordering the capture and torture of two individuals in the late 1970s, the disappearance of guerrilla militants in the mid-1980s, and the tor-

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ture of nineteen individuals accused of being guerrilla members during a military operation that he commanded in 1988 (ibid., 376–77). In none of these cases was Zuñiga investigated for his involvement in these crimes, despite the testimonies of exofficials within the various intelligence brigades that Zuñiga commanded (ibid., 376–77). Samper’s military command consisted of individuals accused of working with paramilitary groups, directing their actions, and/or engaging directly in a variety of human rights violations. Paramilitarism and the United States in the Samper Administration The policy goals of promoting human rights and fighting the drug war often received the same level of rhetorical support from the United States; however, actual implementation and financial support consistently favored the latter over the former. The biggest promoters of human rights conditions on military aid came from congressional Democrats and the U.S. State Department during the Samper administration. The U.S. State Department accused military units of the Colombian armed forces of supporting paramilitary groups between 1993 and 1998 in their annual human rights reports. These public reports were complemented by congressional action, the most important example being the passage of the Leahy Amendment of 1996. However, the process of monitoring and determining whether military equipment being sent by the United States was only in the hands of “clean” units was difficult at best. As cited in the previous chapter this has been difficult in terms of monitoring whether army units have directly committed human rights violations. It has also been a problem ascertaining the degree to which specific units assist paramilitary groups. One response has been the development of completely new battalions made up of soldiers and officers with no history of military-paramilitary linkages. However, in their military operations against the guerrillas in southern Colombia these new battalions have coordinated their efforts with army brigades that had been singled out for their links with paramilitary groups (National Security Archive 2001). The commander of the largest paramilitary organization felt that during the Samper administration, “the Americans were tolerant of the self-defense forces and there wasn’t much North American pressure to persecute us” (Aranguren Molina 2001, 176).

CONCLUSION

In the years following the end of “officially” sanctioned governmental support, the paramilitaries simply grew in size and influence. This growth took place simultaneously with the reduction of institutional prerogatives wielded by the armed forces. Traditional explanations of democracy and civil-military relations explain such inconsistencies as reflecting the “weakness” of civilian

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authorities and a fear of antagonizing the military. In other words, the failure to break military-paramilitary links would represent a lack of political will on the part of civilian authorities to reduce military autonomy and/or military intimidation. However, the evidence indicates that civilian authorities acted to support or tolerate paramilitarism not on the account of military pressures but because they recognized the necessity of such counterinsurgency forces. This was reflected in the appointment of individuals sympathetic to paramilitarism on “antiparamilitary” commissions or in the promotion of military officers despite their well-known connections to paramilitary organizations. Officially, civilian authorities denounced the paramilitaries as murderers and enemies of the state. Unofficially, however, the state’s armed forces were very much involved, with the help of civilian authorities, in supporting and utilizing paramilitary units in their counterinsurgency efforts. Paramilitary groups permitted the state the ability to repress noncombatant civilians while denying any culpability. They fulfilled (and still fulfill) a role that allowed the Colombian state to resist fundamental challenges to its legitimacy, specifically the legitimacy of the neoliberal project being implemented by Colombia’s transnational elite. Paramilitarism performed a level of repression that given the international context of “democracy promotion” state security forces could no longer play in as overt and official manner as was done in previous times.

SEVEN

The Continuation of Low-Intensity Democracy The Pastrana and Uribe Administrations

BOTH THE ANDRES PASTRANA (1998–2002) and Alvaro Uribe (2002–2006)

administrations continued the neoliberal agenda begun under the Barco and Gaviria administrations, with the governments accelerating a process that was slowed during the Samper government given the centrality of the drug scandal and Samper’s own ideological reticence to maintain the same speed of economic reform. Civilian authorities continued to challenge the armed forces on specific issues, while facilitating the violations of human rights by paramilitary groups as well as military impunity. While both administrations committed themselves to the neoliberal economic model and appointed a new generation of Colombia’s transnational elite to key policy positions, the election of Alvaro Uribe also represented a greater role for agrarian elites in national policy. Uribe’s alliances with a faction of Colombia’s economic elite directly tied to the support of paramilitarism, coupled with a substantial expansion of U.S. military aid in the years preceding his election, provided greater possibilities of establishing the state’s hegemony through overt militarist means. The aggressive and antidemocratic shift in U.S. foreign policy after September 11 was an additional factor in an international context more accommodating to openly repressive measures by U.S. allies. The project of establishing the conditions for the capital accumulation of transnational corporations remained the same, and Colombia’s civil-military relations remained subject to the shifts in tactics utilized to achieve this goal in a changing international context. 123

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THE CONT INUAT ION OF THE NEOLIBERAL PROJECT

Pastrana, the son of a former president of Colombia and a member of the Conservative Party, had been a part of Colombia’s political establishment and economic elite for years prior to being elected to the presidency in 1998. He was a committed neoliberal whose economic strategies focused on increasing the number of privatizations, including the privatization of state-owned power and telephone and mining companies.1 Pastrana continued the process of internationalizing the economy, relying upon a group of technocrats similar in their ideological orientation to the group that advised the Gaviria administration (interview with Ambassador Luis Alberto Moreno, July 13, 2004). In December 1999 the Pastrana administration signed a structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund requiring deep cuts in government spending, reducing restrictions upon foreign investment, and accelerating privatizations (Sarmiento Anzola 2001, 78, 86).2 These policies met stiff resistance amongst sectors of civil society, as state workers launched some of the biggest strikes to occur in the 1990s in protest of these policies (Ahumada 2002, 224–26). The Alvaro Uribe3 administration was also firmly committed to opening up the country’s economy, selecting from Colombia’s groups of globalized bureaucrats committed to a neoliberal agenda, some from Pastrana’s own cabinet (Hagen 2002, 26; Ahumada 2002, 19–20). Uribe, like Pastrana, had enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle as a member of Colombia’s economic elite. He was the son of a wealthy cattle rancher and landowner, studied at Harvard University specializing in management and administration, and enjoyed a long political history as a government minister and elected official representing the Liberal Party. As a national senator and governor Uribe was an avid supporter and promoter of neoliberal economic reforms. As president, Uribe has been a strong supporter of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a regional free trade agreement strongly backed by the United States. In addition, Uribe’s government actively pursued negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States, despite concerns by some that such an agreement would further damage the economic lives of the rural population.4 Uribe’s economic policies focused upon accelerating privatizations and austerity measures in order to free up more funds for the government’s counterinsurgency war.5 Finally, the government has successfully pushed through new laws that would facilitate the investments of U.S.-based and foreign-based oil corporations (Newsweek, August 9, 2004, 26). Like the Pastrana administration, Uribe’s policies have been met with extensive popular resistance with almost six hundred thousand Colombians marching in opposition to his privatization plans in June 2003, a thirty-fourday strike by oil workers in June 2004, a twenty-four-hour general strike involving over 1 million workers in October 2004, and strikes on five univer-

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sity campuses in November 2004 (Colombia Week, June 23, 2003; Colombia Week, October 25, 2004; Colombia Week, November 15, 2004). The violence against trade unionists continued as well: by August 2004 the United Workers Central (CUT) had reported that twenty-nine trade unionists had been killed that year (ibid., August 9, 2004). On August 25, 2004, the attorney general uncovered documents linking paramilitary forces with the military in a plan to assassinate union leaders and leftist politicians, and the president of SINTRAEMCALI (Cali Public Employees Union), Luis Hernandez. Hernandez referred to the documents as evidence of a “new genocide” beginning against trade unionists (Colombia Solidarity Campaign 2004). By the end of September 2004 leaders of the union had received death threats, and the bodyguard of one union leader was killed on September 27 (ibid., 2004b). SINTRAEMCALI has worked to block efforts by the Uribe government to privatize some of Cali’s public services and has vocally opposed the general neoliberal direction of the country. As table 7.1 indicates, both governments appointed individuals to key positions within the state who ideologically embraced the neoliberal ideal and/or represented internationalized sectors of capital.

CIVIL-MILI TARY CONFLICT AND THE P EACE PRO CESS IN THE PASTRANA ADMINISTRAT ION

Andres Pastrana won the 1998 presidential election largely on the hope that he would be able to negotiate an end to the internal conflict in Colombia. In order to create an incentive for the FARC’s involvement in negotiations, the government agreed to demilitarize a large region of southern Colombia. The allowance of this “demilitarized zone” throughout the Pastrana administration was an effort by the government to continue a trend in Colombian politics, an attempt to manage a negotiated integration of the guerrilla movement into the country’s low-intensity democracy. This effort was joined by some sectors of the business community, with representatives from some of the economic groups joining the negotiations with the FARC’s high command. In fact, representatives of the economic groups established the Foundation of Ideas for Peace (FIP) at the end of 1999, a policy-planning group focused on advising the government on negotiating strategies and promoting a “negotiated solution to the conflict” (Richani 2002, 140; Fundación Ideas Para La Paz 2004; Rettberg 2003, 12). Richani argues that during the Pastrana administration “the executive branch of government is synchronizing its peace strategy with that of the conglomerates” (2002, 140). Two of FIP’s founding members, Nicanor Restrepo and Ramón de la Torre, were included in Pastrana’s negotiating team. However, other sectors of Colombia’s economic elite were not fully committed to Pastrana’s peace process as it was

TABLE 7.1 The Transnational Elite in the Pastrana and Uribe Administrations (1998–2006)

Minister

Ministry

Administration, Years in Government

Luis Fernando Ramirez

Defense Ministry

Pastrana, 1999–2001

Former employee for the International Monetary Fund; Advisor to the Sarmiento Economic Group

Luis Alberto Moreno

Ambassador to the United States

Pastrana and Uribe, 1998–Present

Advisor to the Sarmiento Economic Group

Jaime Ruiz

Head of the Department of National Planning

Pastrana

Postgraduate degrees from U.S. universities; would go on to become an executive director of the World Bank

Nestor Martinez

Minister of Interior

Pastrana

Former superintendent of banking in the Ministry of Finance; former vicepresident of the Chamber of Commerce; former board member of the Republic Bank

Juan Camilo Restrepo

Minister of Hacienda

Pastrana

PhD from the University of Paris; Representative of FEDECAFE to the International Organization of Coffee

Fernando Araujo Perdomo

Minister of Development

Pastrana

Businessman with investments in tourism and communications

Roberto Junguito Bonnet

Minister of Finance

Uribe, 2002–2003

Former Colombian representative to the IMF

Alberto Carrasquilla

Minister of Finance

Uribe, 2003–2004

Former consultant to the World Bank and the IMF

Transnational Relation

(continued on next page)

TABLE 7.1 (continued)

Administration, Years in Government

Minister

Ministry

Transnational Relation

Santiago Montenegro

Head of the Department of National Planning

Uribe

Economist from Los Andes; PhD from Oxford; former economist at the World Bank

Jorge Alberto Uribe

Minister of Defense

Uribe, November 2003–Present

Former executive of insurance company; masters degree in international management from the University of Besançon in France

Marta Lucia Ramirez

Minister of Defense

Uribe, August 2002– November 2003*

Former secretary of foreign trade in the Pastrana administration

Sabas Pretelt de la Vega

Minister of Interior

Uribe, November 2003–Present

Head of the national retailers’ federation; former member of the board of directors for the Popular Bank and the Bank of the Republic

Fernando Londoño

Minister of Interior

Uribe, August 2002– November 2003

Board member on the Bank of Bogotá and Pacific Bank; secretary to the Federation of Latin American Banks; legal representative for transnational corporations at different times

Sources: Agence France Presse, May 29, 1999; Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC; El Espectador, August 7, 1998, 8B; La Nota, www.lanota.com, “Perfiles de Colombia”; Noticias Oficina de Prensa, Embajada de Colombia-Washington, DC, November 11–12 del 2003; Ahumada 2002, 19–20; Presidential Website, Colombia 2004; McLean 2002, 4; Patria Libre 2004. *Ramirez was replaced in November 2003 by Jorge Alberto Uribe at least in part in an effort to “restructure the defense ministry” without consulting military leaders about the reforms (Agence France Presse, November 9, 2003). She would later join the Interamerican Dialogue.

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heavily criticized for conceding too much to an insurgency that was viewed uncommitted to the peace process (Rettberg 2003, 14–16). Alvaro Uribe, elected president in 2002, who promised a “strong hand” against the guerrillas would receive widespread support from the business community, reflecting reduced support for a negotiated solution (ibid., 16–17). As will be shown, this shift also reflected the greater involvement of agrarian elites in the Uribe administration, as well as a changing international context. In regards to Pastrana’s peace process, the Colombian army was highly critical of the negotiations, specifically the possibility that the demilitarized zone could become “indefinitely” demilitarized.6 In response to the possibility of the indefinite extension of the zone, Pastrana’s first defense minister, Rodrigo Lloreda, resigned in May 1999, with almost half of the army’s generals and scores of junior officers threatening to resign with him. The army was not only angered by the possible extension but was also frustrated by the dismissal from service of Generals Fernando Millán and Rito Alejo del Río for their alleged connections with paramilitary groups and a proposed military reform bill that threatened military impunity over certain human rights violations (Cambio, May 31, 1999, 20; Leal Buitrago 2002, 169–71). After an emergency meeting with the high officials of the armed forces, Pastrana was able to prevent the mass resignation of the army officers in exchange for improving communications between the military and his cabinet, as well as giving the military a greater role in the peace process itself (ibid., 22–23; Cambio, June 7, 1999, 20–21; Leal Buitrago 2002, 169–71).7 The demilitarized zone and the removal of army generals, which led to the protest, like in the Samper administration and the Las Delicias demilitarization, were maintained. The Pastrana administration continued the demilitarization of this southern region of Colombia until February 2002. Generals Millan and del Río were not reinstated into the armed forces, and the military would continue to complain about civilian allegations against their members for human rights violations. Although the Pastrana administration rhetorically committed to the peace process and extended a zone to the guerrillas in order to maintain the negotiations, a number of factors undermined the process.8 The continued paramilitary attacks against peasant communities9 and the continued strengthening of the military capabilities of the FARC, which took advantage of the demilitarized zone to militarily restrengthen its forces and launch a number of successful actions against the armed forces, undermined the peace process. Finally, Pastrana’s peace initiative failed to maintain a consistent strategy or integrate experienced third parties (internationally or Colombian) into the process (ICG 2002, i, 1). The International Crisis Group (ICG) concludes that “the government did almost nothing for three years to force or entice the FARC to stay at the table and talk seriously or even to maintain an experienced negotiating team (2002, 21).

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The continued growth and attacks by paramilitary groups were met with little resistance by the Pastrana administration as his government maintained the decade-long trend of rhetorically condemning paramilitary groups while tolerating and/or facilitating their actions. In February 2000 Pastrana announced the creation of the Coordination Center for the Fight against SelfDefense Groups, which was supposed to organize a campaign against paramilitaries, yet one year after its “creation” the center had yet to meet (Human Rights Watch 2001). Human Rights Watch concluded that three years into Pastrana’s administration, “[T]he Pastrana administration has dedicated most of its time and energy to mounting a sophisticated public relations campaign that highlights its good intentions. But this campaign has yet to translate into effective action that addresses the sources of violence, particularly continuing ties between the military and paramilitary groups” (ibid.). The Pastrana administration did successfully pass legislation that reorganized the Ministry of Defense, proposed a new National Defense and Security Law, and reformed the military’s penal code in August 1999 (the penal code would not come into force until August 2000). The new military penal code specifically prohibited the military justice system from investigating the crimes of disappearance, genocide, and torture (Leal Buitrago 2002, 170–72). After passage of the new penal code, the administration granted the commander of the armed forces the power to dismiss officers and soldiers without explanation (Human Rights Watch 2001, 76; Leal Buitrago 2002, 170–71). However, the administration dismissed from service over three hundred lowranking officers and soldiers in the fall of 2000, with little explanation as to the reasons for their dismissals (allegedly they were let go for their ties with paramilitary groups) (ibid., 76–77). Human Rights Watch discovered that only about thirty of this group had linkages with paramilitary groups. Simultaneously other officers with well-documented histories of human rights violations continued to remain on active duty and sometimes received promotions (ibid., 77).10 The new military penal code continued to allow the possibility that crimes such as rape or extrajudicial executions could be viewed as crimes committed in relation to the military function of a soldier in a particular case, thus allowing military court jurisdiction and continued impunity (Gallon 1999, 2). Finally, a new National Defense and Security Law was signed into law in August 2001, which, according to the administration, “empowers the state to protect its citizens from violent groups. The bill sets the stage for smoother more efficient military operations” (Colombian Government 2001). The bill was criticized because it granted greater authority to the armed forces in defining national security policies and in establishing internal security, as well as allowing greater military powers in specific areas of operation (ICG 2002, 7–8; ICG 2003b, 15). Furthermore, the law reduced the period of time that government human rights investigators could conclude a preliminary investigation against military officials from one year to two

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months (Wilson 2001, A18). The failure to address paramilitarism and the granting of greater authority to the armed forces for internal security complemented a military build-up that was increasingly aided by the United States, most importantly in Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia The Pastrana administration’s resolve to end the country’s internal conflict involved not only negotiations with the insurgency but also the development of a massive $7.5 billion development plan that would be financed by the Colombian government and international contributors. The original proposal in the fall of 1998 focused upon social redistribution and governmental support for areas of the country that had suffered from decades of state neglect. Within a year this original proposal was discarded for one that emphasized military assaults upon coca-growing regions of the country, a neoliberal strategy of creating incentives for foreign investment, and a general strengthening of the armed forces. Consultations with representatives of the U.S. government and increasing problems with the peace process between the fall of 1998 and the fall of 1999 led to changes in the plan.11 The U.S. government made it clear that it would only contribute to a plan focused upon the U.S. war on drugs and a plan that emphasized the importance of state authority to attract the increasing investments of transnational corporations (Godoy 2003; Petras 2001). In 2000 the United States committed approximately $1.6 billion over a two-year period to the Colombian plan, the majority of the aid dedicated to military equipment and training (Crandall 2002, 149–52).12 Additional appropriations would be continued during the Bush administration, as Colombia became the third leading recipient of U.S. military aid in the world.13 Almost $1 billion of the $1.6 billion in the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia was to the Colombian armed forces, which included the equipping and training of three army counternarcotics battalions as well as sixty helicopters to support crop eradication campaigns (Youngers 2004, 143). This aid was provided to the Colombian armed forces, despite their long history of assisting and supporting paramilitary groups. The plan did include a “human rights waiver,” which would allow the president of the U.S. to waive human rights conditions on the aid in the interest of national security (Center for International Policy 2001). President Clinton waived these conditions the first year that a decision had to be made, and President Bush’s State Department has repeatedly concluded that the Colombian government has been meeting its human rights obligations despite extensive evidence to the contrary (Washington Office on Latin America, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, 2002). The plan was ostensibly designed as an antidrug-war strategy to protect coca-spraying planes as they destroyed coca crops in southern Colombia (a region of FARC strength). Paramilitary organizations who

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received 70 percent of all their funding from drug trafficking were largely dominant in the north (Rangel Suarez 2003, 276).14 A political counselor from the U.S. embassy informed Human Rights Watch monitor Robin Kirk that if Castaño continued to have success against the FARC and stayed out of the area of southern Colombia targeted by the U.S. strategy he would be ignored by the U.S. (Kirk 2003, 247). The interests of TNCs shed some light on the justifications for the counterinsurgency direction of the aid.15 Transnational corporations associated with extractive investments, such as the oil industry, played an active role in lobbying for the U.S. contribution to the Colombian plan. Colombia’s oil is extracted almost entirely by transnational corporations such as British Petroleum and Occidental Petroleum through contracts with the government’s oil company, ECOPETROL (Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos) (Dudley and Murillo 1998, 42–46). The vice-president of Occidental Petroleum personally lobbied for U.S. assistance to Plan Colombia in congressional hearings, arguing that “Colombia’s current oil production is 820,000 barrels per day, and the potential to add new production is very high because large areas of the country are unexplored” (Meriage 2000).16 Many of those unexplored areas lie in regions of guerrilla control, such as in Caquetá, Vaupés, and Amazonas, areas in which governmental control must be established before exploration contracts can be signed (Livingstone 2004, 82). Occidental not only directly lobbied in favor of the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia but also financially contributed monies to various congressional campaigns: Between 1996 and 2000, Occidental spent more than $8.6 million lobbying the U.S. government, including for U.S. military aid to Colombia. In the 2000 election cycle, the company gave hard and soft money totaling about $551,000, with about 60 percent going to Republican candidates and political action committees. The CEO of Occidental’s chemical subsidiary, J. Roger Hirl, raised more than $100,000 in support of George W. Bush’s bid for the presidency. (Frontline 2002)

Other oil interests, such as Exxon, British Petroleum, and Texaco, spent almost $13 million from 1996 to 2000 (WOLA 2003b, 6). The lobbying of oil TNCs was complemented by the work of the transnational policymaking group Interamerican Dialogue (see chapter 4), which aided the Colombian ambassador Luis Alberto Moreno in meeting with congressional representatives as well as holding forums addressing the importance of the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia (Interview with Luis Alberto Moreno, July 13, 2004). The Dialogue, along with the Council on Foreign Relations, cosponsored the report Toward Greater Peace and Security in Colombia, which outlined recommendations for long-term U.S. policy in Colombia. The report, which

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was released in 2000, after the June 2000 approval of the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia, concluded that “U.S. support of Plan Colombia, a framework for common action, is vital” arguing that “the core problem has to do with state authority” (Graham and Scowcroft 2000, 2). Finally, the report finds that “Colombia’s spreading lawlessness and criminality are destructive to such U.S. central objectives as deepening democracy, protecting human rights, expanding economic partnership and fighting drugs” (ibid., viii). The Bush administration has more overtly than previous U.S. administrations allowed the Colombian government to use U.S. military aid in the counterinsurgency struggle and even assisted Occidental Petroleum by designating $100 million to finance a special Colombian brigade to protect its central oil pipeline.17 Occidental Petroleum officials even encouraged the U.S. embassy in Bogotá to “convince” the Colombian government that the Arauca region (the destination of U.S. funding for its pipeline) should be considered a higher level security threat (WOLA 2003b, 6). In justifying this shift in U.S. policy U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson argued that the pipeline plan was “something we have to do. . . . It is important for the future of the country, for our petroleum supplies and for the confidence of our investors” (Washington Office on Latin America 2003b, 4). Marc Grossman, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, stated in 2002 that Colombian insurgents “represent a danger to the $4.3 billion in direct U.S. investment in Colombia. They regularly attack U.S. interests, including the railway used by Drummond Coal Mining facility and Occidental Petroleum’s state in the Caño Limon oil pipeline” (Grossman 2002). Finally, the year that the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia was signed into law General Peter Pace, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command argued that U.S. military intervention was important for the “continued stability required for access to markets in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, which is critical to the continued economic expansion and prosperity of the United States” (as cited in Stokes 2003). U.S. policymakers had since the end of the first Gulf War viewed the Andean region and its production of oil (in Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia) as a “vital interest” of national security given the increasing demand for oil in the United States, and the degree of instability in the Middle East (Klare, 2000: 1–2). The relationship between energy interests and Plan Colombia is clearly outlined by Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration (1998–2000), Bill Richardson, speaking in Cartegena, Colombia in 1999: “The United States and its allies will invest millions of dollars in two areas of the Colombian economy, in the areas of mining and energy, and to secure these investments we are tripling military aid to Colombia” (as cited in Ramirez Cuellar 2005, 32). Various military contractors joined transnational extractive industries in pushing for passage of the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia. The aerospace companies United Technologies and Textron spent more than $30 million in

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TABLE 7.2 Top Contributors to Federal Election Campaigns by Transnational Corporations with investments in Latin America, 1995 to 2000

Corporation United Parcel Service Inc. Lockheed Martin Corp. Enron Corp. Boeing Corp. Pfizer Inc. General Electric Exxon Mobil Corp. BP Amoco Corp. Raytheon Co. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. United Technologies Corp. Textron, Inc. Occidental Petroleum Corp. Caterpillar Inc. Texaco Inc.

Contributions $6,546,755 5,251,152 4,359,116 4,014,564 3,798,673 3,483,313 3,280,216 2,989,073 2,214,191 1,986,558 1,957,618 1,873,856 1,544,774 1,300,230 1,272,585

Source: The Center for Public Integrity 2001b.

lobbying and campaign contributions to influence the outcome of where almost $400 million in U.S. aid dedicated to the purchase of helicopters (Center for Public Integrity 2001a). Table 7.2 lists the top contributors to presidential and congressional campaigns from corporations with global revenue of $1 billion annually and business interests in Latin America, petroleum and military contractors who could potentially benefit from the implementation of Plan Colombia, dominate the list. The stated objectives of U.S. military aid, fighting the war on drugs, effectively obfuscated the central objective of securing a business environment stable enough for transnational corporations. These policy objectives were concomitant with the ultimate objective of promoting free-market democracies and integrating Latin American states into a “transnational order” that directly benefited transnational corporations.

RET URN TO OVERT MILI TARISM IN THE URIBE ADMINISTRAT ION

Throughout the four years of the Pastrana government military spending increased, but the U.S. government applied political pressure for greater

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increases in military spending. Different U.S. governmental officials publicly argued in multiple meetings with Colombian governmental representatives between the end of 2001 and the middle of 2002 that more resources should be committed by the Colombian government to its armed forces (Ahumada 2002, 296–97).18 In fact, continued U.S. military aid was made contingent upon a greater budgetary commitment from the Colombian government to its military (Tickner 2003, 85). Colombia’s military budget was $2.9 billion in 2001 and as a proportion of GNP was higher than the Latin American average (Rabasa and Chalk 2001). However, by 2000 less than half of the standing military force was available for operations, with the rest largely concentrated in defending critical infrastructure points (such as ports, oil installations, and airports) and fixed installations (Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 103). U.S pressures for greater “sacrifices” on the part of the Colombian government intensified after September 11 and after the inclusion of the AUC on the U.S. “terrorist list” in the fall of 2001. By mid-1999 the U.S. government was openly expressing criticisms of Pastrana’s negotiating strategies with the FARC. In 2001Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that the FARC had “abused the international community,” and the U.S. coordinator of terrorist policy within the State Department described the FARC as the most dangerous terrorist group in the Western Hemisphere (Ahumada 2002, 286–88; Tickner 2003, 80). Even Pastrana referred to the FARC as terrorists in February 2002 when the peace process broke down (Tickner 2003, 81). The Bush administration’s antiterrorism bill of 2002 would remove the counterdrug only restrictions on U.S. military aid so that the aid could be used throughout the country against Colombia’s “terrorists” (ICG 2002, 14). The Colombian government was to be integrated in the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism,” which replaced the war on drugs as justification for U.S. military aid and political intervention (Vaicus and Isacson 2003; Kirk 2004).19 The United States continued to promote a vision for Latin American militaries that, according to Argentina’s defense minister, was “policing or internal control” (Isacson, Olson, and Haugaard 2004, 2). Between 2002 and 2003 U.S. military training of Colombians doubled from over six thousand to almost thirteen thousand (ibid., 4). In the fall of 2004 the U.S. government increased the number of troops that can be stationed in Colombia from four hundred to eight hundred and increased the number of private security contractors from four hundred to six hundred (ibid.). Alvaro Uribe, elected in 2002, benefited from the collapse of the peace process in February 2002, as he promoted a “hard-line” position against the insurgency (Hagen 2002; Ahumada 2002, 203–04; 285–92). Between 2001 and 2004 military spending increased by almost 33 percent, with overall spending nearing 3.5 percent of GDP (ICG 2004b, 4).20 The attainment of these resources was to be achieved through cuts in governmental spending, tax reforms, and the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Uribe maintained

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the neoliberal trend of previous administrations, despite the increases in governmental spending on the armed forces. Civil-military relations during the Uribe administration have been close, as the Uribe government has disregarded negotiating strategies with the guerrillas and has avoided even symbolic measures to address the human rights violations of the military. Uribe has openly criticized human rights groups for reporting on military abuses, referring to certain nongovernmental organizations as “writers and demagogues at the service of terrorism who traffic in human rights” (as cited in Fernandez 2003). In part this reflects the domestic and international context of this period; however, it also reflects the ties that Uribe has maintained with Colombia’s agrarian elite. This sector has generally opposed the democratization measures promoted by Colombia’s transnational elite as well as the various attempts to coopt the guerrilla insurgency through negotiations. Cattle ranchers, large landowners, and narco-traffickers are strongly linked to the Uribe government (ICG 2003b, 2; Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Washington Office on Latin America 2002). Uribe represents a figure with connections in both sectors of Colombia’s business community—its transnational, modernizing sector as well as in its more traditional, nationalist sector. His father was a rancher in the state of Antioquia and was killed by the FARC. Antioquia has been at the center of the conflict for decades and a region in which some of the paramilitary groups of today first emerged. While Uribe was mayor of Medellin in the early 1980s, the Medellín cartel was consolidating its hold over the region, and Uribe had been accused of assisting the cartel during this time. In addition, as head of the civil aviation authority in the early 1980s he was accused of granting permits to pilots who were accused of transporting cocaine (New York Times, August 2, 2004, A6; Guardian, July 9, 2003; Newsweek, March 25, 2002, 50). Even a U.S. intelligence report from 1991 classified Uribe as a close ally of narco-traffickers and a strong supporter of Pablo Escobar. The report concluded that Uribe was “dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels” (New York Times, August 2, 2004, A6).21 When Uribe was governor of Antioquia (1995–1998) he was a strong supporter of CONVIVIR, promoting their development throughout the department. Paramilitary groups working with regional army brigades, cattle ranchers, banana planters, and members of the Medellín cartel who had become landowners worked to rid the region of the FARC and the UP, especially in Urabá, during his time as governor (ICG 2003a, 8). The years between 1995 and 1997 were the most violent in the history of Urabá (ibid.). The commander of the brigade based in Urabá, General del Río, during this period would be dismissed by Pastrana for working with paramilitary groups but would go on to be a security advisor for the Uribe presidential campaign (ibid., 8–9). Uribe’s campaign manager and presently one of Uribe’s economic

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advisors, Fabio Echeverri Correa, was the head of the Antioquia branch of FEDEGAN, and a strong defender of paramilitarism while leading this organization from 1986 to 1987 (Hylton 2002). Finally, Uribe’s ranch in Córdoba shares a boundary with the property of Salvatore Mancuso, a main AUC commander, as well as commander of a CONVIVIR during Uribe’s time as governor of Antioquia (ibid.). Civilian Informers, Democratic Security, and Neogitations with Paramilitary Groups The administration of Alvaro Uribe not only substantially increased military spending but also has implemented a number of policies related to a “Democratic Security” strategy of national security. As a part of this strategy Uribe pledged to create a network of 1 million informants throughout the country, as well as part-time “peasant soldiers” who would assist the armed forces in their counterinsurgency strategy, bringing back the CONVIVIR strategy of the Gaviria and Samper administrations. By June 2003 over fifteen thousand “peasant soldiers” had been trained in handling explosives, rescuing hostages, and removing guerrillas from towns (Colombia Week, June 23, 2003). They are to serve for two years in their hometowns, living in local army barracks during that time (ibid.). Uribe’s security plans were complemented by an aggressive approach against the insurgency. Within two weeks of his inauguration Uribe declared a “state of internal commotion,” which allowed him to expand the authority of the armed forces to search, detain, and restrict the movement of citizens in specific regions of the country (Giraldo and Podur 2004; Fernández 2003; International Crisis Group 2003b, 5). One of the first regions targeted was the state of Arauca, an oil-producing and refining region where Occidental Petroleum pumps one hundred thousand barrels a day. Violence increased in the Arauca region during the first eight months of the special security period, with attacks upon civilians becoming more frequent (Colombia Week, May 26, 2003). Finally, in late 2003 Uribe launched the “Plan Patriota,” a major military offensive in southern Colombia in an effort to retake territory from the FARC with substantial assistance from U.S. advisors. The pendulum had swung back to an emphasis upon coercive strategies to an extent akin to increases in military power and autonomy during previous administrations after the failure of negotiating strategies and/or spikes in political violence. Barco’s “state of siege” at the end of 1989, the “guerra integral” of the Gaviria administration in November 1992, and the 1995 declaration of “public disorder” during the Samper administration are all similar examples of civilian authorities granting (or attempting to grant) greater powers to the armed forces to defeat the insurgency. The Pastrana administration partially represented an exception to this trend; however, his government was

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central to obtaining the greatest one-time appropriation of U.S. military aid in the history of U.S.-Colombian relations. An important difference with the Uribe administration is a willingness to grant these powers to the armed forces with no pretension that negotiations or a peace process will be conducted with the guerrilla insurgency as well as its effort to make these new powers permanent, very much like the TurbayAyala administration of the late 1970s.22 Uribe’s government is presently attempting to permanently establish this military authority given the constitutional restrictions upon the length of states of internal commotion. The first antiterrorist bill submitted in April 2003 to Congress would give the security forces permanent legal powers to intercept communications, conduct searches, and arrest citizens without warrants (ICG 2003b, 5).23 The increase in the security powers of the armed forces has complemented a more accommodating policy toward paramilitary groups. Uribe not only has tolerated these organizations as in past administrations but has publicly criticized human rights organizations that censure the government for its continued support of paramilitary groups (Fernandez 2003). His attorney general actively undermined the human rights investigations of his office, removing principal investigators from major human rights cases (Human Rights Watch 2002). Finally, the government has pursued a negotiating strategy with paramilitary groups, ostensibly in an effort to “demobilize” their forces. The government and representatives of the AUC began negotiations in 2002. A cease-fire was agreed to in December 2002, and eventually an agreement was signed that would lead to the ultimate demobilization of fifteen thousand members of paramilitary groups by the end of 2005—contingent on the progress of negotiations (ICG 2003a, 1). Paramilitary leaders were allowed to speak to the national congress in July 2004 in order to make their case and propose that their forces be retained as a counterinsurgency force after demobilization (International Crisis Group 2004a, i).24 Those groups willing to negotiate their demobilization were granted a demilitarized zone in order to conduct negotiations free from fears of being arrested or extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges (Newsweek, August 9, 2004, 26; New York Times, July 29, 2004, 3). Internationally, the increasing military aid from the United States, as well as pressures to increase military spending, have played an important role in the demobilization process, while U.S. threats of extradition for narcotrafficking paramilitary leaders created an additional incentive to protect these actors from U.S. prosecution.25 The U.S. “war on terrorism” has also created space for U.S. allies throughout the world to pursue overt authoritarian methods in the establishment of state authority (Cohn 2001) and the Uribe government aggressively advanced this agenda, mitigating the need for paramilitary forces. In fact, the U.S. directly supported the negotiations through the funding of some activities associated with the talks and a meeting between the U.S.

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embassy and an AUC emissary in May 2003 helped to facilitate the process (Colombia Week, June 23, 2003). However, the peace process with the AUC has been fraught with problems, despite the apparent demobilization of thousands of paramilitary soldiers. Paramilitary members repeatedly violated a cease-fire agreed to in December 2002 and paramilitary units that allegedly demobilized continued to operate in their zones of influence. A 2004 report of the United Nation’s high commissioner for human rights concluded that “the main paramilitary groups did not honor, in most regions of the country, the commitment given to the Government to cease hostilities. Infractions, including massacres, homicides and displacements as well the recruitment of minors, continued to be registered” (UN Commission on Human Rights 2004; see also Vivanco 2004). Between December 2002 and August 2004 1,899 assassinations and disappearances were attributed to the AUC (El Pais. 2004). The government had been notified of these violations in 2003 but did little to ensure paramilitary compliance to the cease-fire (ibid.). The disarmament and demobilization plans lack verification procedures to determine the extent to which paramilitary members are complying with the agreement, and the Organization of American States, which has been asked to play a verifying role, lacks the necessary resources to complete the task (ICG 2004, 10). Finally, narco-traffickers contributed large sums of money to the AUC in order to act as “commanders” in the hopes of receiving the amnesties that many expect from the Uribe administration (Newsweek, August 9, 2004, 26). One confidential governmental report concluded that it was “impossible to differentiate between the Self-Defense Forces and drug-trafficking organizations” (as cited in New York Times, November 27, 2004, A3). The Uribe administration ultimately passed a “demobilization law” in June of 2005. Human Rights Watch concluded that the law “. . . gives paramilitaries almost everything they want” (Human Rights Watch 2005, 2). The law was passed in order to establish a process of legally structuring the demobilization process, establishing appropriate punishments and expectations upon those who demobilize. According to Human Rights Watch the new law “. . . does not ensure that paramilitaries confess their crimes, disclose information about how their groups operate, or turn over their illegally acquired wealth. Nothing in the law effectively disbands these mafia-like groups. Disarmed troops can be easily replaced through new recruitment and promises of high pay. Commanders convicted of atrocities or other serious crimes, such as drug trafficking, will get away with sentences little longer than two years, probably in agricultural colonies. When they reenter society, their wealth, political power, and criminal networks will be intact” (ibid., 2). As one demobilized paramilitary fighter argued “The demobilization . . . is a farce. It’s a way of quieting down the system and returning again, starting over from the other side” (as cited in ibid., 1). The Uribe administration has implemented a

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strategy that will ensure the potential use of paramilitary groups in the future, while continuing the expansion of the state’s formal military power. A demobilization process that largely protects paramilitary leaders and allows them the legal ability to consolidate their economic and political power in the regions that they control.

CONCLUSION

Despite the escalation of an overt military response to the guerrilla insurgency, there are no indications that the formal institutional prerogatives of the armed forces will return, as this repression continues within the parameters of Colombia’s low-intensity democracy. Uribe continues to maintain the symbolism of democratic politics, referring to his counterinsurgency strategy as “Democratic Defense and Security Policy” and committing to combat all paramilitary groups that refuse to negotiate with the government. Both the Pastrana and Uribe administrations have continued to maintain the various institutional reforms implemented during the late 1980s and early 1990s with the emergence of Colombia’s transnational elite. However, the failure to co-opt the FARC and the ELN through negotiations or institutional reforms has intersected with the need to establish a secure business environment for transnational corporations and a global “war on terrorism” creating the conditions for the overt repression being engaged in presently by the Colombian state.

Conclusion

There is a vital link between freedom of people and freedom of commerce. —George W. Bush, New York Times, April 18, 2001

H

OW ONE DEFINES “democracy” is more than simply a rhetorical or philosophical exercise. The concept has meant different things to different groups of people. In the worldview of the U.S. government, and many political scientists, democracy consists mainly of electoral procedures, civilian control, and institutional mechanisms to ensure a social order that is conducive to free markets and neoliberal economics. This political framework is conducive to a stable and predictable business environment for transnational corporations, one that furthers the integration of Latin American states into an emerging transnational order. In Colombia, the 1990s witnessed the implementation of important institutional changes that reduced the prerogatives previously wielded by the armed forces. This reduction in the institutional role of the armed forces took place despite the growth of an antistate insurgency. Two questions have guided this book from the beginning: why did these institutional changes take place when they did, and what impact, if any, did they have upon state behavior? I have argued that in order to answer either question our analysis must shift from an overemphasis upon institutional/nation-state factors to an analysis that illustrates the degree that institutional changes within states are tied to their transformation within a changing global capitalist system.

WHY INST I T U T I O NAL CHANGE?

The emergence and consolidation into power of a transnational elite within the Colombian national state was an instrumental factor in the initiation, 141

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formulation, and implementation of civil-military reforms. This globalized political elite tied the interests of the Colombian state to the transnational policies of low-intensity democracy. The pressures of international financial institutions and markets and the United States government-legitimized those actors within Colombia willing and able to use this legitimacy to politically and economically reform the state. The combination of these political and economic processes resulted in a form of elite rule that emphasized the importance of consensual mechanisms (such as expanding civilian authority or decentralizing political powers) as key to obtaining the consent of the governed. However, the coercive practices by the state and para-state actors never were replaced, as institutional reform and political negotiations were insufficient to coopt all sectors of the state’s opposition.

IMPACT UPON STATE BEHAVIOR , BUD GETS, NAT IONAL SECURI T Y, AND PARAMILI TARISM

In all of the administrations examined here the civilian direction was clearest in the areas of the military budget and national security strategies. Colombia’s transnational elite were well represented throughout these governments and worked to incorporate important tenets of neoliberal thought in the development of military budgets. The historical counterinsurgency strategy of containment was for the most part maintained. However, substantial increases in U.S. military aid and increasing U.S. political pressures for greater investment in the armed forces by Colombian governments are working to reverse this trend. During most of the period under study military budgets were allowed to increase, but these increases remained behind the growth viewed as necessary to fight a counterinsurgency war of the scale facing the Colombian state. In regards to national security strategies, civilian authorities developed and implemented various security and negotiating policies, sometimes in the face of open military opposition (such as in the Samper and Pastrana administrations). Human Rights and Paramilitarism As has been mentioned at different points in this book the process of integrating the Colombian state into a transnational order continues to be an ongoing one, fraught with contradictions and reversals, but still progressing in the same direction of integration. One indication of the incomplete nature of this process has been the continued resistance, legal and illegal, to the economic agenda associated with this integration. This continued resistance has been met with state and para-state repression, supported directly by agrarian elites. Regionally based agrarian elites have consistently resisted the various reforms to broaden Colombia’s low-intensity democracy and have represented

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the financial backbone of paramilitarism. Their linkages with the national congress and the army have allowed them to support a brutal counterinsurgency strategy through paramilitary organizations. Para-state and state repression has played a complementary role to the institutional changes implemented in the later 1980s and early 1990s. If Colombia’s ruling elite could not establish its hegemony via formal reform of the state and negotiations, coercion that allowed the national state a degree of plausible deniability was permitted. Paramilitary organizations have effectively weakened or removed the presence of guerrillas from key regions of the country and played a fundamental role in the weakening of the FARC and the ELN. The leaders of political liberalization in the Colombian case have at best done little to oppose the central sources of political repression and at worst have faciliated this repression. Institutional changes such as civilian defense ministries, civilian-led agencies responsible for crafting security strategies or overseeing military budgets, in themselves are not a guarantee that human rights will be safeguarded or that the authoritarian behavior of the state will be reduced. The limited nature of such “democratization,” and its linkage with economic reforms designed to undermine social spending and welfare, while prioritizing the needs of transnational corporations, has required a continued role for coercive sectors of the state (directly or indirectly) in establishing order in the face of popular challenges. The importance of symbolic and rhetorical efforts at addressing Colombia’s human rights problems reflected the necessities of international pressures for democratization that were also often more symbolic than real. The reforms that reduced military power within the Colombian state were in part a reflection of these pressures. Administrations throughout the 1990s and 2000s have avoided the sanction of the United States or the ostracism of the international community through symbolism. These initiatives were indications that efforts were being made to address the country’s human rights crisis but without the implementation of substantive policies. Given the less than genuine interests of the U.S. government in the substantive progress of human rights, these “human rights” efforts were generally deemed sufficient by different U.S. administrations.

COMPARABLE CASES

The politics of democratic transitions and civil-military reforms in Latin America have also reflected a process similar to the broadening and institutionalization of Colombia’s low-intensity democracy. Democratization throughout Latin America has led to the reduction of the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces, while allowing the military a continued internal security role (McSherry 1997, 1998, 2001; Loveman 1994). The process of

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economic liberalization coinciding with political liberalization and the role of technopols/technocrats in initiating such changes were important in countries in Central America, the Southern Cone, and the Andes. The establishment of low-intensity democracy, as in the Colombian case, has also been confronted in some contexts with open challenges to this economic/political order. Thus these processes do not take place without resistance. The Southern Cone, Brazil and Argentina In both Brazil and Argentina technopols have played important roles in the reduction of the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces. In Argentina, technocrats in the Economics Ministry and in the Ministry of Foreign Relations would play key roles in challenging and reducing the military’s institutional power. Ministers of economics included neoliberal technocrats such as Juan Sourroille, Domingo Cavallo (Dominguez 1997, 49–93), and Roque Fernandez led a ministry that consistently and aggressively reduced military resources, reducing spending by 52 percent between 1983 and 1997 (PionBerlin 2001, 146, 148). In Argentina, the technopol Domingo Cavallo, through his role as foreign relations minister (1989–1990), effectively integrated the Argentinian armed forces into internationalized conflicts. Cavallo stressed the importance of an international role given the United States’ New World Order of the early post–Cold War years. The military’s involvement in supporting the United States in the Gulf War was one example. President Menem and Minister Cavallo were the central initiators of an Argentinian role in this conflict, not the defense minister. Cavallo even disciplined the military chief of staff after he suggested that the military had reached an agreement to support the United States in the Gulf War, stating that the military’s role is a “technical, professional, and advisory role” (as cited in Pion-Berlin 2001, 153). This weakening of the institutional prerogatives of the armed forces, which were significantly weakened soon after the transition to “democracy” in 1983, coincided with their continued security role in domestic matters (McSherry 1997). Human rights organizations reported regular harassment from secret organizations, and President Menem called for a greater role for the military in drug interdiction and reappointed military officers of the dictatorship era to positions within the government’s domestic intelligence agency (McSherry 1998, 19). In Brazil, the neoliberal technopols such as Presidents Fernando Collor (1990–92) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994–2002) initiated and implemented the policies that significantly eroded the institutional role of the armed forces. This “civilianization” of the armed forces took place during a period of substantial neoliberal economic reform. In his two years in office, Collor eliminated the intelligence service as a ministry (replacing its head with a civilian) and removed the ministerial status of the National Security Council, placing a civilian in charge of it (Hunter 2001, 37). Cardoso contin-

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ued this trend, creating a unified civilian-led ministry of defense to replace the military service ministers and the head of the armed forces general staff (ibid., 37). These presidents were also instrumental in reducing military resources. The size of the armed forces was steadily reduced from 496,000 in 1985 to 285,000 in 1995 (ibid., 38). However, the Brazilian armed forces still maintain an important internal role in establishing security when the government views their role as necessary. The armed forces took direct action forty-eight times between 1985 and 1997 to repress strikes and public demonstrations and by 1998 still maintained five military ministers in the cabinet (McSherry 1998, 19). McSherry finds that “military political power is enshrined in the Constitution, and there is substantial evidence that central ideological concepts of the national security doctrine—especially the ‘threat from below’— continue to orient the Brazilian military” (ibid.). Venezuela Between 1958 and 1992 civil-military relations in Venezuela represented a successful model of civilian control. Political pacts between dominant political parties and the resources from petroleum exports created the conditions for military subordination to civilian leaders elected in competitive elections. Coup attempts in 1992 against President Carlos Andres Peréz were challenges from sectors of the armed forces that disagreed strongly with the neoliberal direction that Peréz had initiated in the late 1980s. The terrible riots and deaths of 1989 following an increase in the cost of public transportation (associated with Andres Peréz’s neoliberal economic model) led to the deaths of hundreds of Venezuelans at the hand of the armed forces called out to suppress the rioters (Robinson 2000, 323). The traumatic effect of this event was important in generating the sympathy for populist and radical ideologies within the Venezuelan armed forces, as well as support for military coup attempts in 1992 against Peréz (Norden 1998, 158; Buxton 2001, 45–46). Coup leaders, such as Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías, rejected neoliberalism and identified directly with the individuals who would suffer from its implementation. According to Chavéz Frías the poor “cannot buy meat; they cook banana peels . . . to substitute for meat, to give to their children because they have none. The basic cost of a week’s food in Venezuela is approaching 60,000 bolivares. The majority of those who work earn less than 20,000 bolivares. How do they eat, when this isn’t even enough to eat? As a result there is no democracy here” (as cited in Norden 1998, 159). Ironically, the 1989 riots and the 1992 coup attempts took place during a period of political reform, as Andres Peréz introduced direct elections for mayors and governors as well as a liberalization of the electoral system. Andres Peréz’s administration was also notable for the appointment of nonparty technocrats to key policymaking positions (Buxton 2001, 42–45).

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Hugo Chávez Frías would ultimately lead a successful political coalition to win the presidential election of 1998 largely on an antineoliberal agenda. Chávez’s presidency has pursued a political and economic agenda that has not always been consistent with the integration of Venezuela into capitalist globalization or the model of democracy promoted by the United States. The military coups of 1992 and the Chávez Frías presidency of 1998–2006 represent a failure of Venezuela’s traditional and transnational elite to maintain political control during its effort to integrate the economy and political system into the global economy, a failure to establish its hegemony. However, its effort is by no means over as the pressures of the international economy have softened the degree that Chávez Frías can oppose neoliberalism, and political attempts of the United States and Venezuelan economic elites to weaken and remove Chávez Frías from power continue. Guatemala The 1996 Peace Accords in Guatemala brought to an end a thirty-six-year civil conflict in which the country’s armed forces controlled the state and engaged in periods of massive repression against the civilian population. More than one hundred thousand Guatemalans were killed by the country’s “counterinsurgency state” ( Jonas 2002, 264). The Peace Accords with the guerrilla insurgency would mandate a variety of civil-military reforms to reduce the prerogatives of the armed forces (Kincaid 2000, 47–48). The economic transition and emergence of transnational elites to national state power preceded these accords. Guatemala’s economic transition from an agro-export oligarchy significantly protected by the state to a neoliberal economy integrated into the global economy began in the mid-1980s. The violent repression against largely indigenous peasants contributed to an accelerated concentration of land in the hands of export capitalists interested in diversifying the country’s export model, while simultaneously creating an expansion of the country’s cheap labor pool for export manufacturers (Robinson 2003, 106–07; Paige 1983). The various pressures by the United States for the establishment of an internationally legitimate “democracy,” the emergence of a pool of neoliberal technocrats linked with capitalist exporters, and the failure of the state to militarily defeat the insurgency created the conditions for the 1996 Peace Accords (Robinson 2003, 107–13). The Peace Accords included commitments by the government to reduce the military budget by 33 percent, redefine the military’s mission to one of defending the national territory (rather than internal security), disband paramilitary units, and establish a civilian intelligence department in the Ministry of the Interior (Kincaid 2000, 47–48). The various neoliberal governments that came to power from the late 1980s through the 1990s reduced the size of the armed forces and disbanded the established

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paramilitary units. However, by 2000 military bases that were created for counterinisurgency purposes remained open, and intelligence was still in the hands of the military (ibid., 48–49). By December 2003 new illegal armed groups had emerged, linked with the military and conservative politicians, that engaged in hundreds of cases of harassment, intimidation, and assassinations of leaders of popular and human rights organizations.1 The violence has been directed against those groups fighting against military/police impunity and state corruption (WOLA 2003a, 1–3). Those actors involved in land invasions or promoting efforts for greater social equity have also been targeted by these attacks (ibid.). In addition, increases in social spending for the poor and health care (another promised commitment of the accords) were not achieved, and Guatemala remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America (Robinson 2003, 115–16). Guatemala’s transnational elite played a central role in the country’s transition to a low-intensity democracy and the ending of its civil war. However, the country’s political and economic transition has not meant the end of the military’s internal role or the use of paramilitary groups in protecting the status quo. This transition has also not brought an end to the economic violence of poverty experienced by the majority of its inhabitants. In all of the above cases transnational elites have played important roles, not only in economic reforms, but also in the restructuring of institutional power within the state. These political and economic reforms are instituting a new form of elite rule concomitant with the requirements of capitalist globalization, in which the internal role of the armed forces remains prominent, economic inequality and deprivation remain as continuing challenges, and the democratic behavior of states are conditioned by transnational interests.

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Notes

INTRODUCT ION 1. The Colombian state has been engaged in a counterinsurgency against different guerrilla armies since the 1960s, intensifying during the 1980s and reaching unprecedented proportions in the 1990s as guerrilla forces increased their manpower and military capabilities. The central guerrilla opponents of the Colombian state are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Army of National Liberation (ELN) (Granada and Rojas 1995, 125; Center for International Policy 2002). Chapter 2 examines this conflict in greater detail. 2. My use of the term “elite” differs from the use of the term by classical elite theorists, such as Mosca or Michels, who conceptualize an elite as that minority that directly holds and exercises state power on the basis of an inevitable “iron law of oligarchy” (Michels) , organizational skills (Mosca) or an innate superiority (Pareto) (Faulks1999, 39–40). The transnational elite is not restricted to a nation-state, nor to those who directly hold state power, but encompasses an array of actors that are ideologically and materially linked to facilitating capitalist globalization and are in positions nationally and globally to influence and shape state behavior. I elaborate further on this concept in chapter one.

CHAP TER 1 1. Important examples of this institutional focus would include debates about the types of institutional structures most conducive to democratic consolidation (presidential or parliamentary systems) or the importance of the formal rules of the state versus informal ones (see Linz 1994 for the presidential versus parliamentary discussion and O’Donnell 1994 for the discussion of “formal rules”; Mainwaring and Scully

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1995 and Mainwaring and Shugart 1997 for the importance of party institutionalization and institutional rules, respectively). 2. The resurgence of this approach followed works of the late 1970s and early 1980s that focused upon the issue of “state autonomy” in third world studies. The “state autonomy” debates involved those who conceptualized the state as the manifestation of structural forces and those who argued that states can be autonomous from such factors (see for example Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985; Hamilton 1982; Migdal 1988; Poulantzas 1973; Miliband 1969). 3. An increasing amount of what is described as “international trade” actually represents trade between the different subsidiaries of the same corporation, as trade agreements are signed not only in order to reduce the costs of trade between two different companies but also to reduce the costs for trade within corporations (Gilpin 1987, 254; Robinson 1998, 574). In 1994 intrafirm trade accounted for more than twofifths of U.S. imports (Zeile 1997, 1). 4. The work of Sklair and Robinson differs from traditional “transnational relations” approaches that focus upon the influence that actors outside of the state have upon the influence of state behavior, and not how these actors may contribute in restructuring nation-states themselves (see Keohane and Nye 1972; Neustadt 1970). 5. For example, between 1978 and 1992 the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank pressured over seventy countries in the third world to “adjust” or “stabilize” their economies 566 different times in a direction amenable to the interests of transnational corporations in exchange for much-needed development loans and capital (George 1992, xvi). 6. Varas (1989, 8) has argued that “the capacity of civilians to control the military also depends upon the coherence of the state. In other words, civilians will be able to dominate the armed forces to the degree that political groups and social classes establish hegemony over the state.” 7. For example, the rise and attainment of positions within the Council of Foreign Relations or a professorship within an elite university or major policy planning group act as informal signals to governmental policymakers in the United States that these individuals can be trusted with the power that they would wield in public office. This is apparent through a simple examination of the U.S. cabinet, as every single secretary of defense, treasury, and state in the United States between 1961 and 1988 was either a member of the board of directors from a multinational corporation, an elite law firm, and/or a corporate-dominated think tank (Who’s Who in America, 44th ed 1986). 8. Through the sheer size of U.S. contributions to the IMF the United States has maintained a veto power over IMF decisions (Green 2003, 41–42). 9. From the early 1980s aid specifically designed to promote democracy abroad steadily increased, with the government spending more than $500 million annually by the end of the 1990s (Carothers 2000). 10. The NED is made up of four core institutes, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the American

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Center for International Labor Solidarity, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE). The first two institutes represent the interests of the two major political parties, while the Labor Solidarity group and CIPE represent labor and the corporate community respectively. All four institutes are in agreement on the importance of free markets and political democracy. 11. With the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy leaders also conveyed similar messages. Secretary of State James Baker stated in 1989, “[D]emocracies are more willing to open their economies to the world” (American Foreign Policy Documents 1989, Doc. 2, 3–7), or the then deputy secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger in a speech to the Organization of American States argued, “[O]ur new democratic order will be blessed with peace and stability only if the fruits of democracy—growth from a free market economy are also strengthened” (American Foreign Policy Documents 1990, Doc. 621). 12. Important indications of this process have been the increasing use of the armed forces in performing policing roles, the strengthening of police power in general, and the continuing trend of “IMF riots.” IMF riots are episodes in which citizens engage in riots or public disruptions to protest the implementation of a specific neoliberal policy only to be met with military/police repression. Scores of these riots have taken place throughout Latin America in the last two decades leading to the deaths of thousands of Latin American citizens as well as the resignation of several national executives (Robinson 2000a, 322–23; Green 2003, 39–40). 13. David Held promotes one possible alternative democratic system, one that he refers to as “democratic autonomy,” a political system in which direct citizen participation exists in local community institutions with the self-management of “cooperatively owned enterprises.” Social and economic rights for all citizens, as well as mechanisms to allow final control over political agendas of the state also make up central elements of Held’s alternative to “polyarchy” or “low-intensity” democracies” (Sorenson 1993, 10). 14. In 1994 the two main guerrilla groups (the FARC and the ELN) received approximately 37 percent of their funds from taxes on the coca trade (Richani 1997, 45–47). 15. The largest legal economic entities in the Colombian economy are the economic groups, conglomerates linked together through interlocking directorates, holding companies, cross-financing, and family ownership. 16. As will be shown at different points in the text, the different members of these class factions will sometimes overlap into other sectors, as linkages often exist between these factions. However, overall there do exist some important differences in the behavior and political positions of these different sectors. 17 Marxist instrumentalist theorists of the state have extensively studied the relationship between the interests of economic elites and state behavior. Instrumentalists assume that the distribution of important resources in society institutionalizes the level of power that specific individuals can potentially deploy in realizing their goals at any given time or place (Barrow 1993, 14; Gonzalez 2001).

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CHAP TER 2 1. This control was furthered by the country’s topography (divided by three mountain ranges), which undermined the development of national resistance and “centralized military control” over the nation, allowing regional elites effectively to dominate their respective areas, with the national state in the hands of party leaders (Hylton 2003, 55–56). 2. Colombia was one of the least developed countries in Latin America at the beginning of the twentieth century (Safford and Palacios 2002, 251; Pearce 1990, 27). Trade fluctuations, national fiscal crises, and shortages of basic goods were regular parts of Colombia’s economic environment during the nineteenth century. 3. By 1930 Colombia would become the world’s second largest coffee producer (Bushnell 1993,169). 4. U.S. investment in 1929 was $200 million, a substantial increase from the $2 to $4 million invested in 1913 (Pearce 1990, 29). 5. Between 1928 and 1937, twenty thousand peasants participated in rural conflicts throughout the country, and the number of unions grew. The Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC) was also founded during this period (Pearce 1990, 37–39). 6. Fitch finds that in Latin America “where the export oligarchy was not able to establish a clear hegemony, civilian elites often opted for a model of civil-military relations which allowed conditional military allegiance to civilian authority, in contrast to the unconditional obedience stressed in classical professionalism” (1989, 104–05). 7. One of the most infamous strikes took place in 1928 within United Fruit’s banana enclave in Santa Marta. United Fruit dominated the region and the workforce it employed by 1928. In the 1928 banana strike, the army was called in to repress the strike, resulting in the deaths of fourteen hundred peasants and banana workers and two thousand wounded (Fluharty 1957, 38; Pearce 1990, 31; Washington Office on Latin America [WOLA] 1989, 11). The conclusions of a congressional investigation into the massacre found that the “Conservative . . . government had used the army to insure ‘social peace’ for a foreign company, at a total and cold disregard for the welfare of native Colombians” (Fluharty 1957, 38). 8. The ineffectual nature of this reform may not be too surprising given that the Colombian Congress that passed it and Lopez’s cabinet were strongly represented by the agrarian elite (Corr 1972,74). 9. Military officers would detain the president in a failed coup attempt in 1944. López would ultimately resign before the end of his term (Livingstone 2004, 41). 10. Conservative victory was attained through a split within the Liberal Party between the establishment candidate of the Liberal Party and Gaitán. 11. Policies in Colombia have been implemented during ordinary and extraordinary periods, the latter referring to a “state of siege” (1886 constitution) or “state of internal commotion” (1991 constitution). During a state of siege or state of internal commotion presidents can rule by decrees, which suspend existing laws but do not overturn them. The state of siege (1886 constitution) could last for an unlimited

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amount of time, until the president felt that circumstances no longer required its existence. Under normal periods the president is assigned numerous powers under the constitution (as occurred in both 1886 and 1991). 12. John Johnson (1964, 147, 149) argues that a “military-landholding-Church alliance” existed in Colombia during this period. Johnson goes on to note that during this period that “at least 70% of the officers in the three branches” of the Colombian military come from agricultural regions (1964, 107). 13. For example, after 1967 the highest ranking positions of the Department of National Planning (DNP) required postgraduate degrees, and the head of the division required an individual who at least was a Ph.D candidate ( Juarez 1994, 67). The DNP is an executive agency responsible for social and economic development plans and programs, the central government’s budget, and the regulation of foreign investment, which was created during the administration of Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958–1962). 14. In 1975 one-third of the country’s one hundred largest enterprises received at least half of their capital from foreign parent companies, with the heaviest investment in the intermediate-goods sector, goods and services that are used as inputs or components in the production of other goods, such as rubber, glass, or certain chemicals (Dix 1987, 65). 15. Marijuana production was largely funded by North American investors but came to an end in Colombia by the late 1970s due to increased U.S. governmental pressure for its eradication, as well as increasing production of the crop within the United States (Pearce 1990, 110–11; Thoumi 2002, 104). 16. The Colombian cartels exported 15 tons of cocaine to the U.S. in 1978 and 270 tons in 1988 (Thoumi 2002, 111). 17. For example, Pizarro (1992) finds that in 1986 the great majority of the leaders of the FARC participated in the guerrilla groups in the 1950s, including such central leaders as Jacobo Arenas and Manuel Marulanda Velez (“Tirofijo”). 18. As Pearce finds, “between 1968 and 1977, there was an increase of 40% in the harvested area for the seven major crops of capitalist agriculture, sugar cane, barley, soybeans, rice, cotton, sorghum and sesame” (1990, 93). 19. For example, until 1987, the Colombian armed forces had the power to try civilians accused of subversive crimes, which included a variety of crimes associated with legitimate social and political protest (NCOS 1995, 12). 20. Articles in the Colombian military journal Revista de las Fuerzas Armadas such as “Analisis Geopolitico Actual Sobre Problemas Este-Oeste Y Norte-Sur” (1987, no. 122) and “Preservación de la Soberanía Nacional” (1987, no. 122) or “Sur America, Un Concepto Geostrategico” (1987, no. 125) are representations of this mindset. 21. The self-defense patrols were utilized to relieve army units of some patrolling and local garrisoning in territories that came under army control. This program would be discontinued by the end of the 1980s as “self-defense” units would be engaged in the various massacres and political assassinations associated with paramilitarism. 22. ANAPO represented a faction that ran under the Conservative Party label, as it was this party’s turn to select a president.

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23. Their name was inspired by the presidential election of April 19, 1970, that ANAPO lost. 24. According to Livingstone (2004, 51), “in 1975, 197,000 workers went on strike for 1.7 million hours; by 1979 this had risen to 210,000 workers and 4.6 million hours.” 25. “Operation Anori,” launched by the military in the first half of 1973, was responsible for the destruction of many of the guerrillas’ urban networks and capture of key leaders of the organization (Granada and Rojas 1995, 123). 26. Between 1945 and 1975 manufacturing’s share of GDP increased from 14.8 percent to 22.9 percent, with agriculture’s contribution declining by almost 20 percent (Livingstone 2004, 74). The percentage of the population that worked in agriculture declined to 33.8 percent in 1980 from over 50 percent in 1969 (ibid.). 27. Landazabál and other top military leaders had also accused Colombia’ education system and sectors of the mass media of being infiltrated with Communists and of being manipulated by “subversion” (Leal 1984, 286). 28. The M-19 occupied Colombia’s Supreme Court building with the expressed purpose of putting Betancur on trial for the various violations of the truce ostensibly agreed upon by both sides. Any chance for negotiations or discussion between Betancur and the M-19 were immediately rendered moot by the almost immediate attack upon the palace by the army, which liquidated the entire M-19 force as well as scores of civilians held inside the building (Carrigan 1993). Though Betancur had the opportunity to halt the military exercise before it reached its bloody end, his failure to do so reflected either his fear of military reprisal or support for the military action. 29. Renewed financial assistance from the IMF followed these reforms, as well as increased foreign investment, with a large proportion invested in a large coal-mining project (Martz 1996, 214). 30. In May 1985 the World Bank agreed to a “Trade Policy and Export Diversification Loan” whose aim was to open up Colombia to international trade (Edwards 2001, 30). 31. In 1984 the top 3 percent of Colombia’s agrarian elite owned 71.3 percent of arable land, with 57 percent of the poorest farmers living on 2.8 percent (WOLA 1989, 9). 32. The credits and assistance that the Barco administration received from the World Bank in exchange for the various policies pursued by the government were primarily dedicated to servicing the foreign debt, while Barco’s ambitious social development plans were left underfunded or never developed (Ahumada 1996,102). 33. These pressures continued in early 1989 in meetings between World Bank representatives and the then head of the Colombian Department of National Planning (Urrutia 1994, 303). 34. The World Bank historically had played an important role in Colombia’s development, and its various developmental loans and its reports to commercial banks on the status of Colombia’s economy were important to maintaining Colombia’s access to international credit as well as giving legitimacy to reformers within the Barco government (Cepeda 1994, 148–49).

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35. Former World Bank employees included Barco himself; Oscar Marulanda Gómez, economic advisor in the Ministry of Finance; and Miguel Urrutia, the director of the Monetary Board. Barco’s minister of finance, Luis Fernando Alarcón, formerly worked for the Interamerican Development Bank (Cepeda 1994, 151, 159–63). 36. Efforts had been made to reform the 1886 constitution since the LópezMichelson administration (1974–1978) and in each of the administrations that followed, only to be frustrated by Supreme Court decisions that struck down these different attempts as unconstitutional (Posada-Carbó 1998, 6–7). 37. The Barco government, like the Betancur administration, hastened the retirement of the defense minister (Generaral Rafael Samudio) because of Samudio’s public criticisms of Barco’s peace strategies (Pardo 1996, 319). 38. The guerrillas had been involved with the security of coca growers in their zones of influence for much of the 1980s as the guerrillas found it difficult to oppose an industry that potentially could improve the lives of peasants and provide the guerrillas with another source of income and personnel (Molano 1992, 210–11). 39. Of course this idea would undergo some modification after September 11, as the guerrillas would be reincarnated again into “terrorists.” 40. In the year prior to these decrees, in April 1988, the government established military authority over the Urabá region, granting a military general authority over the civilian population and elected mayors (Pearce 1990, 255). This military authority focused its efforts on limiting union and peasant mobilizations and not necessarily controlling the paramilitary violence that was the justification for the military’s control (WOLA 1989, 41). In fact, the commander of the brigade that was responsible for the region accused the banana unions of working with guerrillas. Scores of union members would be killed by paramilitary groups working with the brigade (NCOS et al. 1995, 40). 41. Bejarano and Pizarro (2002, 22–23) argue that the U.S. drug war, specifically its pressure to militarize the Andean region’s strategy, has been the “most important contributing international factor to the deterioration of state authority in Colombia,” as more resources were dedicated to the national police and army, reducing potential resources to other sectors of the state such as the judiciary.

CHAP TER 3 1. A half-time advisor to this organization was Fernando Cepeda, who assisted the executive committee (Fundación Ideas Para la Paz 2002, 7). 2. This support for neoliberalism and free trade was most recently highlighted in the Interamerican Dialogue’s support of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The Dialogue released a report on the agreement proposing mechanisms for governments to keep their publics informed of the benefits and dowfalls of free trade “in order to build public support for economic cooperation and agreements that contribute to freer trade” (Interamerican Dialogue 1998).

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3. An important issue to consider is whether or not there are examples of policy planning organizations within Colombia without these ties to transnational corporations. The National University, a potential alternative, is Colombia’s most prominent public university, with a long tradition of scholars who have studied the contemporary violence in Colombia, its history, and potential solutions. It organized one of the first institutes, the Institute of Political Studies and International Relations (IEPRI), specifically to better understand Colombia’s political violence (Interview with IEPRI historian Gónzalo Sánchez, June 1999). Yet the governments of the 1990s have generally bypassed the members of IEPRI for individuals linked to Los Andes, transnational capital, or other sectors of the capitalist class within Colombia. Another alternative might have been the Centro de Investigación y Educación (CINEP, the Center for Investigation and Education), a Jesuit-run human rights and research center, which for more than twenty-five years has dedicated itself to examining the politics revolving around human rights policy, the armed forces, and economic development. Yet this organization has consistently been isolated from the central policy circles of the national government. These institutions are considered left of center, more social democratic, and less optimistic about the neoliberal agenda to end the internal conflict. 4. Representatives of the banking sectors favored all aspects of Gaviria’s economic program (opening of international trade, relaxation of exchange controls, labor reforms, financial reform, and privatization). In fact, the directors of the Central Bank (Banco de la Republica) would go on to hold positions within Gaviria’s cabinet as the banking sector had “strong links to [the] ‘modern’ intellectual community” (Edwards 2001, 37). 5. By the mid-1990s the profits of some illegal drug export syndicates competed with those of the largest financial conglomerates (Thoumi 2002, 110). 6. This preference for a negotiated, political solution would not represent a consistently held position by all of the economic groups, as support would fluctuate with the military behavior of the guerrillas and the state of the larger economy. However, representatives of the economic groups were active in both the Samper (1994–1998) and Pastrana administrations (1998–2002) in the promotion of a negotiated solution. 7. Defense secretary Frank Carlucci, in a speech in front of the Interamerican Naval Conference, stated that “our common security goal must remain a democratic Western Hemisphere” and that the “military must never be part of the problem” (American Foreign Policy Documents 1988, Doc. 424, 701–02). Secretary George Schultz in a speech in Bolivia argued that “we must expand our military assistance programs to those countries where the direct cooperation of the defense establishment with civilian agencies is essential” (American Foreign Policy Documents 1988, Doc. 91, 220–21). 8. The notion that the problems with Colombia’s political system lay in its lack of pluralistic competition and a restricted political regime was consistent with the belief of much of the country’s political scientists at this time (Delgado 1993, 216). 9. In the peace negotiations that the Barco administration had held with the M19 guerrilla group in 1989 and 1990 a central theme was “the need for a new political

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constitution that would once and for all put an end to the National Front and create a truly democratic system in Colombia” (Boudon 2001, 76). According to one M-19 leader, “we went into the mountains not to impose Communism but to open democratic spaces” (as cited in Boudon 2001, 76). 10. In January of 1988 the FARC recommended that specific reforms of the constitution focus upon the “state of siege,” the ability of the state to detain civilians and that an assembly to reform the constitution include all insurgent groups (Pardo 1996, 79–80). 11. The day of the elections for the Constituent Assembly the armed forces launched an attack upon the central headquarters of the FARC, as Gaviria argued “there were no territories closed to the public forces” (as cited in Leal 2002, 87). 12. Though Gaviria would speak of the popular will in support of a new constitution there was a 74 percent abstention rate for the election of the assembly’s members, as only one-fourth of Colombians eligible to vote turned out (Ahumada 1996, 183; Bejarano 2001, 57). 13. Gaviria’s concern that Botero not view the decision as an attack upon him, given his “honorable service,” is interesting in light of the fact that exmembers of the paramilitary group Muerte a Secuestradores, MAS, alleged that the brigade he commanded between 1981 and 1982 provided instruction, armaments, and logistical information for MAS. Botero’s involvement with MAS was never investigated, nor was he ever disciplined for these alleged linkages (Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura et al. 1992, 75). 14. The expansion of civilian authority over the country’s domestic intelligence continued. On December 13, 1991, Gaviria announced the creation of an intelligence committee run directly by the president that would define the policies and priorities of the country’s intelligence systems and also evaluate the work of the state security corps (FBIS, December 18, 1991, 39). Gaviria also instructed the armed forces to restructure the entire Armed Forces Intelligence Department to improve its capabilities against a guerrilla force that had strengthened beyond the abilities of the previous intelligence system to resist (FBIS, April 15, 1991, 35). 15. These were established on February 11, 1991, through Decree 416, in which a tax would be levied on oil, gas, coal, and nickel exports and on international telephone calls. Also those paying more than 1 million pesos in annual income tax would face a 5 percent surcharge (Financial Times, February 13, 1991, 4).

CHAP TER 4 1. Within the armed forces there existed a division between those who supported Samper and others who opposed his government (FBIS, June 22, 1997). Samper utilized those divisions to his benefit, strategically promoting officers close to him at key points during his administration (Semana, August 4, 1997, 36–40). 2. The head of this conglomerate, Julio Mario Santo Domingo, even asked his friend Henry Kissinger to intervene on behalf of Samper with the United States government, but Kissinger did not get involved (Samper Pizano 2000, 255–56).

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3. In addition, one of Samper’s “close personal friends” and his advisor to international affairs was Monica de Greiff. Prior to Samper’s administration she had worked for Shell administering the company’s public relations in Colombia (Perea 1996; Montufaur 1994). 4. Most of the exports have gone to the United States, placing Colombia in the top eight of U.S. international suppliers (Dunning and Wirpsa 2001). 5. In February 1991, Colombia nearly went from a net exporter of petroleum to actually importing petroleum to meet its needs because of the activities of the insurgency and the persistent strikes of USO, the oil workers union (El Tiempo, February 15, 1991, 6A). 6. Between 1994 and 2004 British Petroleum invested approximately $3 billion in Colombia, making it Colombia’s largest foreign investor (Trutor 2004). 7. In 1986 the Foreign Assistance Act was amended by U.S. Congress to require that the president certify that major drug producing and/or transit countries be certified as seeking to reduce the production/flow of drugs from their country (Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 20). 8. The contraloria supervises the administration of public funds, akin to the General Accounting Office in the United States (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [IACH] 1999). 9. Rosas Vega would later go on to lead the National Association of Coffee Exporters. 10. Prior to 1994–1995 Colombia’s coca cultivation covered 20,000 to 30,000 hectares; by the end of the Pastrana administration (1998–2002) the country was cultivating between 100,000 and 150,000 hectares (Pardo 2000, 19). By 2002 it had increased to over 165,000 hectares (ICG 2002, 13). 11. The “reasons of state” were Bedoya’s opposition to the demilitarization and his refusal to abide by human rights conditions that the U.S. government was placing on any new military aid to Colombia. 12. The International Crisis Group (ICG) refers to this division as between “softliners” and “hard-liners” with the former described as “more conscious of the legal and strategic limits on the military” (International Crisis Group 2003b, 9–10). 13. This more “flexible” thinking did not necessarily reflect a history of respect for human rights. In 1990 Bonett was associated with at least two cases in which brigades he commanded were involved in the toruture and disappearance of political leftists (Organización Mundial Contra la Tortura et al. 1992, 71–72).

CHAP TER 5 1. Financial interests represented 42 percent of the properties controlled by the economic groups, with industrial enterprises, service, and construction representing 21.3 percent, 12 percent, and 5 percent, respectively (Ahumada 2000, 47).

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2. The agricultural crisis in Colombia coincided with effective repressive measures in coca-growing regions of Peru, as well as the spread of a fungus that damaged Peruvian coca crops (Tate 2001, 47). 3. Between 1991 and 1994 the FARC and the ELN had increased their receipts from all sources (drug taxation, extortion, kidnapping, etc.) by 72 percent and 115 percent respectively (Granada and Rojas 1995, 127). Overall, funding from the taxing of narco-traffic represented 40 percent of the ELN and FARC earnings combined from 1991 through 1994. 4. One of these initiatives included Colombia becoming a signatory of Protocol II of the Geneva Accords, which mandates the adherence of human rights laws within internal conflicts. It would be officially ratified by the Colombian Congress during the Samper administration. 5. The position of the Superior Council was rewarded by the armed forces, as the armed forces even granted the magistrates, Luz Stella Mosquera y Myriam Donceto de Montoya, the honorary positions of brigadier generals. The reward was given in honor of their “services to the armed forces” (Peréz Casas 1997). 6. An individual could be detained up to thirty-six hours before being taken to a judicial authority (IACHR 1999, chapter 2). 7. Not only were counterinsurgency training lessons being given to Andean armies, but many of the same U.S. personnel involved in the Central American wars simply shifted their operations to the Andean region (Call 1991, 47).

CHAP TER 6 1. I use the term paramilitary to describe these actors because of the established and continuing support that they have received from the Colombian armed forces. For further discussion of this issue see M. Romero (2003, 36–37) and F. Cubides (2001, 127–49). 2. Some of the central works would include Carlos Medina Gallego (1990), Alejandro Reyes Posada (1991), Carlos Medina Gallego and Mireva Tellez Ardilla (1994), Mauricio Romero (1998, 2003), and Fernando Cubides (1999). 3. On the importance of irregular forces for “weak states” see D. Davis and A. Pereira (2002). 4. A counterinsurgency strategy that utilized paramilitary organizations was also reflected in U.S. strategies and/or training in Vietnam, Guatemala, and El Salvador during those nations’ respective counterinsurgency struggles (NCOS et al. 1995, 8). 5. Central examples include “Rules of Counter-Guerrilla Combat” approved by the Commanding General of the Armed Forces in 1969, the “General Instructions for Counter-Guerrilla Operations” of the General Army Command promoted in 1979, and the “Manual of Combat against Bandits and Guerrillas” adopted by the commander of the army in 1982 (NCOS et al. 1995, 21–24).

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6. The Magdalena Medio region of Colombia was an early epicenter of paramilitary activity. By 1993 78 percent of the land was owned by large landowners, with cattle ranchers dominating the area (Vargas 2004, 112–13). 7. One 2002 study concluded that paramilitary groups controlled 182 out of 1,098 municipalities in 27 of the 32 departments in the country (as cited in ICG 2003a, 14). 8. On the percentage organized in the AUC see Osorio 2003. The largest group within the AUC and the core of its leadership is the ACCU (Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá). The ACCU was joined by other groups representing different regions of the country (Romero 2000, 69). One factor inspiring the development of a national movement was the failure of Gaviria’s “total war” strategy to defeat the insurgency (Leal Buitrago 2002, 138–39). 9. This position was reenforced by a Supreme Court ruling. The ruling addressed the provisions in Law 48 (of 1968), which allowed the military to distribute restricted weapons to civilians and form self-defense groups, concluding that they were unconstitutional. 10. This commission and elite corps would be granted permanent, legal status by the congresito in August 1991 (El Tiempo, 1991, 13A). Congresito refers to the interim legislative body that was established during the writing of the 1991 constitution. 11. Two of Barco’s ministers of defense, Generals Rafael Samudio and Miguel Vega Uribe, were implicated in human rights violations (Organización Mundial Contra Tortura et al. 1992, 306–07). 12. The historical context of this “afterthought” needs to be emphasized; the formulation of a plan to struggle against a force that was central to the bloodiest part of Colombia’s recent history (the late 1980s) was not a priority. In fact, the country would have to wait until 1993 for the government to specifically identify paramilitarism (separate from its relationship with narco-traffic) as a security threat requiring a strategic plan of action (Cubides 1999, 175). 13. Henry de Jesus Pérez, the leader of another paramilitary force, had actually begun to struggle against Escobar before 1993 as Escobar’s war with the state directly affected his landowning allies and ranchers in the region in which Jesus Pérez operated. His paramilitary organization also engaged in operations with the Elite Corps and its searches for the cartel leader (Semana, 1991, 16–17). 14. The linkages between this elite police/army unit and Los Pepes came to light in April 1993 with the testimony of several members of the bloc. These whistle-blowers were immediately confronted with death threats and were accused of working with Pablo Escobar by the commanders of this unit. By early 1994 one of the key whistleblowers, agent Jaime Rincón Lezama, had disappeared (El Espectador, 1994, 8A). Fidel Castaño’s brother, Carlos Castaño, claims that he had been assisting the country’s domestic intelligence agency, DAS (Administrative Department of Security), which had been central to the anti-Escobar campaign since 1989 (Aranguren Molina 2001, 129, 137). As Carlos Castano has argued, “we were tolerated by the attorney general, the police, the army, the DAS and even President Cesár Gaviria Trujillo who never ordered that we be pursued” (ibid., 142).

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15. For evidence of UNIBAN’s links with paramilitarism see Pearce (1990, 250–55). 16. The sympathizers within the executive branch included the high commissioner for peace, Daniel García-Peña; the interior minister, Humberto Martinez; the justice minister, Horacio Serpa; the foreign relations minister, Rodrigo Pardo; the human rights advisor, Carlos Vicente (phone interview with Daniel García-Peña, May 6, 1999). 17. Author interview with Daniel García-Peña, Washington, DC, May 6, 1999. 18. The CONVIVIR had been responsible for the displacement of almost two hundred thousand peasants in the first two years of existence (Hylton 2003, 88). 19. Many of these security groups did not disappear after 1999, but only became semiclandestine and began to work more directly with the paramilitaries (Cubides 2001, 131). 20. Author interview with former national security advisor, June 28, 1999, Bogotá, Colombia.

CHAP TER 7 1. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pastrana sought the advice of foreign executives on developing different strategies to increase foreign investment and exports as well as other economic policies (Wall Street Journal, 1999, A15). The chairman of Drummond Limited, a transnational coal company with over $1 billion in investments in Colombia referred to Pastrana as a “breath of fresh air” (ibid.). 2. A number of factors contributed to Colombia’s economic crisis, including the capital flight and reduction in foreign investment due to the Asian financial crisis, a contraction of coffee prices, and U.S. pressures upon the Samper administration, which weakened “business confidence” in the economy. The internationalization of the Colombian economy facilitated the country’s vulnerability to these shocks, as by 1999 the country was in recession (it contracted by 4.5 percent) and had an unemployment rate of 20 percent (Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 5–6; Livingstone 2004, 63). 3. While a member of the Senate in the early 1990s Uribe worked to pass key pieces of Gaviria’s neoliberal reform agenda (Ahumada 2002, 19). When Uribe was a national senator, according to Jana Silverman, he sponsored a “labor reform” bill in 1990 that made it easier to “outsource, hire temporary workers and otherwise reduce the security of unionized workers” (Silverman 2004). 4. See El Tiempo, July 23, 2004; El Pais, July 23, 2004. 5. The government was focused upon budgetary commitments promised to the IMF in a loan agreement in January 2003 (Colombia Week, November 10, 2003, www.colombiaweek.org). Plans were developed to privatize as much as $10 billion in government holdings (ibid., July 26, 2004). 6. This opposition was most vehement within the army, as the navy, the air force and the national police did not express the same degree of discomfort with these policies (The Economist, June 12, 1999, 31–32; Cambio 16, May 31, 1999, 26).

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7. The public confrontation with Pastrana on one level is surprising given the selection of General Fernando Tapias at the head of the armed forces, an individual viewed by Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda as representing a “global vision” and “cultured” view, rather than the militarist, authoritarian views of General Bedoya and his allies within the army (Leal Buitrago 2002, 167; see also New York Times, August 14, 1998, A2). 8. The demilitarization of the zone was often exaggerated as a major concession by the government, as the region that was demilitarized had been one in which the state had little historical presence. The lack of state presence had allowed the FARC to dominate the region long before Pastrana’s “demilitarization” (Alternativa, no. 21 [March] 1999: 18–19). 9. Different studies concluded that between 1997 and 2000 the number of massacres was 1,403 to 2,564 (depending on how one defines a massacre; four or more victims versus three or more victims). The vast majority of these massacres were committed by paramilitary groups (ICG 2002, 16). 10. Furthermore, the Pastrana administration continued the trend begun in the previous two administrations in cutting the budgets of central human rights institutions that were established to investigate human rights crimes. One national prosecutor claimed that “there are not enough cars for us to use to do our investigations and no gasoline for the few that we have” (Human Rights Watch 2001, 74). 11. The first detailed draft of Plan Colombia was published in English right after U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering visited Bogotá during one of these consultations (Rabasa and Chalk 2001, 67; see also Livingstone 2004, 162). 12. The U.S. contribution would ultimately represent the largest amount of “new” money for the plan, as the $4 billion figure from the Colombian government simply represented monies already designated to ongoing programs (Alberto Romero 2001, 242–44). According to Jaime Ruiz, the central author of the Colombian plan, the Colombian contribution did not represent new money but an estimation of the costs that the war on drugs had been costing the government. Ruiz’s Department of National Planning came up with the figure, but it represented primarily speculation on the part of the department (as cited by Godoy 2003, 15; see also Alberto Romero 2001, 242–43 and Leal Buitrago 2002, 183). 13. In the four years of the Pastrana administration the United States dedicated more than $2 billion in military aid to the Colombian government (Ahumada 2002, 283). By the end of 2002, the requirements that this military aid could be utilized only for counternarcotics missions were lifted, as the Colombian government could apply the U.S. assistance against the guerrilla insurgency, whether or not it was a part of a drug war mission (Hagen 2002, 28). 14. In mid-1999 the Colombian government discovered a vast cocaine-processing complex in the control of paramilitary forces. The complex made it clear that paramilitary forces were involved in processing, packaging, and distributing cocaine, a level of involvement that equaled, if not surpassed, the taxation and protection of coca growers in southern Colombia by the FARC (Richani 2002, 108; Montalvo 2000, 10).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

163

15. Stephen Dudley, who has reported extensively on Colombian politics, has been told repeatedly by paramilitary leaders that they actively protect business interests, including the interests of transnational corporations (such as Dole, British Petroleum, Drummond Limited, and Coca-Cola). The strong presence of paramilitary groups in areas of TNC investment and a recent lawsuit filed against Drummond and Coca-Cola for hiring paramilitary groups to assassinate union leaders are suggestive of such connections (Dudley 2002). 16. Meriage would go on to request consideration for an expanded version of the plan for areas of the country in which his company’s operations were based. In regards to Colombia’s potential, the government’s oil company, ECOPETROL, signed an unprecendented thirty-two exploration contracts with foreign companies in 2000 and twenty-eight in 2002. Projections of potential reserves shift between 25 billion and 37 billion barrels, a third to half the amount of Venezuela’s proven reserves (Washington Office on Latin America 2003b,7–8). 17. The Washington Office on Latin America reports that the pipeline program was designed in 2001 by Andres Sotó, a Colombian who worked for Occidental Petroleum at the time and would later become the vice-minister of defense (WOLA 2003, 6). 18. Between 2000 and the end of 2003 the U.S. government provided approximately $3 billion in aid for Colombia, and the Bush administration proposed an additional $424 million in aid for the 2004 fiscal year (ICG 2003b, 12). 19. President Uribe would also promote this connection to the “war on terrorism. In one speech, he compared Colombia to the situation in Iraq, asking if the countries around the world were mobilizing to invade Iraq, ‘why don’t they consider an equal, similar deployment to put an end to this problem [in Colombia]’” (as cited in Kirk 2004). 20. The increased resources and powers has not meant an end to the “rationalization” of military spending. Uribe’s first defense minister, Marta Lucia Ramirez, focused her attention upon obtaining greater results from the armed forces in their operation against the insurgency, centralizing the acquisition of military equipment within the defense ministry (rather than allowing individual forces to make these purchases) in order to reduce corruption and obtain greater economies of scale (ICG 2003b, 9). 21. The intelligence report also alleges that Uribe’s father was killed, not by the FARC but possibly by drug traffickers (New York Times, August 2, 2004, A3). 22. Coincidently, the retired President Turbay-Ayala began a campaign in the summer of 2004 to convoke a referendum to amend the Colombian constitution in order to allow President Uribe a second term in office (Colombia Week Online, August 16, 2004). 23. Other bills submitted to Congress included one bill that would remove the power of the Constitutional Court to suspend application of laws deemed unconstitutional or evaluate whether a declaration of a state of emergency by the government is valid (ICG 2003b, 6). Uribe’s plans also included the reduction of resources dedicated to the national ombudsman’s office, the Defensoría del Pueblo (Livingstone 2004, 33).

164

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On August 30, 2004, the Constitutional Court struck down the antiterrorist bill due to procedural errors in the voting (Colombia Week Online, September 2, 2004). 24. Salvatore Mancuso has stated that approximately 30 percent of the members of Congress are “para-legislators,” individuals supported by paramilitary leaders (ICG 2002, 26; Giraldo and Podur 2004). 25. There were indications of divisions within the paramilitary movement during the Pastrana administration, with some paramilitary leaders calling for attacks upon the state when some of their financial supporters were being harassed. Castaño opposed a strategy of direct conflict with the state (Leal Buitrago 2002, 164; Rangel Suarez 2003, 285–86).

CONCLUSION 1. The murder in 1998 of Bishop Juan Gerardi, who had been involved in developing a report on the impunity of human rights violators within the military, is one major example of the continued threats facing human rights workers.

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Index

Asociación Nacional de Usurarios Campesinos (ANUC), 39–40 Asociaciones Comunitarias de Vigilancia Rural (CONVIVIR), 118–119, 135–136 Association of Banana Growers of Urabá (AUGURA), 65, 108, 118 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), 109, 111, 119–120, 134, 136–138

Agrarian elite, 10, 24, 43, 58, 106, 108–110, 118, 123, 128, 135, 142 Agrarian reform, 28–29, 37–39, 45 Agüero, Felipe, 8 Ahumada, Consuelo, 10 Alberto Moreno, Luis, 126, 131 Alberto Uribe, Jorge, 127 Alejo del Río, Rito, 128 Alianza Americana Anitcomunista (Triple A), 120 Alianza Nacional Popular (ANAPO), 39–40 Amnesty International, 94, 99, 103, 135 Andean Trade Initiative, 46, 48 Antioquia, 74, 135, 136 Antiparamilitary initiatives, antiparamilitary measures, 105–106, 112–113, 117–118, 121 Antiqueño group, 57, 78 Antiterrorism, 108, 134 Ardilla Lulle Group, 78 Arias Gaviria, Herman, 118 Arauca, 136 Asociación Patronal Económica Nacional (APEN), 29

Barco, Virgilio, 43–44, 46–48, 52–53, 66, 97, 112–113, 123 Decree 813, 112 Decree 814, 112 Decree 815, 112 Decree 1150, 62 Decree 1191, 112 Presidential Commission for the Reform of Public Administration, 62 Presidential Council of Security, 62 state of siege, 48, 136 Barco administration. See Barco, Virgilio Bavaria group, 57

187

188

INDEX

Bedoya, Harold, 76–77, 85–86, 102–103, 120 Betancur, Belisario. See Betancur administration, 9, 11, 42–45, 110 austerity plan, 44 economic modernization program, 46 Betancur administration. See Betancur, Belisario Bloque de Busquedo (Search Bloc), 115 Bonnet, Manuel, 86, 120 Botero, Fernando, 63, 72–75 Botero Restrepo, Oscar, 65 Bush Administration, 46–47, 59 Andean Strategy, 58 Bush, George W. See Bush Administration, 130, 132, 134 Cali Cartel, 74–76, 81, 83, 115 Camilo Zuñiga, Hernando, 120–121 Capitalist globalization, 2, 3, 5, 10–14, 19–22, 24, 60, 69, 104, 146 Carlos Galan, Luis, 48 Carothers, Thomas, 20 Castaño, Carlos, 109, 111, 117, 119, 120, 131 Castaño, Fidel, 114–115 Carter Administration, 41 Cavallo, Domingo, 144 Cepeda, Fernando, 47, 53–55, 65 Chávez Frías, Hugo, 145, 146 Clinton Administration, 77, 79, 130, 132 Colombian coffee economy, 26, 40, 90 Colorado, Gil, 98 Comisión de Racionalización del Gasto y de las Finanzas Públicas, 84 Commision of Public Spending, 84 Conaghan, Catherine, 17, 20 Congress, 29–30, 40, 44–45, 61, 65, 76, 84, 95–96, 99, 100, 116, 137 Contraloria General de la República, 84 Conservative Party, 25, 27–29, 31–32, 60–61, 124

Constitutional reform, 9, 25, 31, 47, 60, 94, 101 1991 Constitution, 60–62, 65, 74, 95, 99 CONVIVIR, 118–119, 135–136 Coordination Center for the Fight Against Self-Defense Groups, 129 Corona Foundation, 53 Council on Foreign Relations, 13, 131 Counterinsurgency, 4, 24, 38, 49, 65, 68, 85, 89, 93, 101–103, 106, 109–110, 116, 124, 131, 137, 142, 143 Counterinsurgency State, 146 Cox, Robert, 15 Dávila, Andrés, 10 Decree 3398, 107 Defense Ministry, 6, 21 Declaration of Cartegena, 60 Decertification, 78–79, 81–82 Demilitarization, 86, 128 Demilitarized Zone, 125, 128 Democracy promotion, 3, 18, 59, 87, 98, 122 Democratization, 9, 11, 14, 18–21, 60, 65, 135, 143 Departmento Adminstrativo de Seguridad (DAS), 66, 113 Desch, Michael, 8 Dirty war, 22, 107–108, 110 Dominguez, Jorge, 16 Drug Cartels, 47, 59, 84–85, 114 Cali Cartel, 74–76, 81, 83, 115 Medellín Cartel, 48, 108, 114, 135 Dryzek, John, 19 Economic elite, 10, 24, 77, 90, 95, 123–124, 146 Economic Groups, 24, 26, 34–35, 53, 58, 60, 72, 74, 78, 87, 125 Economic Reform, 13–14, 123 ECOPETROL (Empresá Colombiana de Petróleos), 131

INDEX

Ejército de Liberación Nacional—ELN, 36–37, 40, 61, 68, 79, 85, 89, 93, 139, 143 Ejército Popular de Liberación—EPL, 3 Escobar, Pablo, 115, 135 FARC. See the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, 3, 22–24, 36–39, 41, 43, 45, 61, 68, 75–76, 78–79, 84–86, 89, 93, 110, 125, 128, 131, 134–136, 139, 143 Federación de Ganaderos de Antioquia (FEDEGAN), 43, 116, 118, 136 Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FEDECAFE), 29 Fitch, J. Samuel, 7 Foreign Assistance Act, 102 Foreign Operations Act, 102 Foundation of Ideas for Peace (FIP), 125 Frechette, Myles, 81, 102 Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, 124 Frieden, Jeffrey, 17 Frontino Gold, 109 Fuero Militar, 94 Fundación Ideas Para La Paz (Foundation of Ideas for Peace), 53 Gaitán, Jorge, 27, 29 García-Peña, Daniel, 76, 119 Gaviria, Cesár, 5, 47, 51–58, 60–61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 80, 87, 90, 92, 93–94, 96–98, 100, 104–105, 113–114, 116–118, 123–124, 136 armed forces reform, 63 Decree 2047, 114 economic reform plan, 55 national security plan, 66 state of siege, 61, 62 structual adjustment agreement, 124 Gaviria administration. See Gaviria, Cesár

189

Gelbard, Robert, 82 Gill, Stephen, 16 Gills, Barry, 21 Gómez, Alvaro, 100 Gómez, Laureano, 30–31 Gramsci, Antonio, 15 Gramscian School of International Relations, 15 Greiff, Gustavo de, 115 Gremial, Consejo, 77 Hegemony, 14–16, 25, 27, 29, 42, 123, 146 Hommes, Rudolph, 53, 55, 63, 68 Human rights violations, 6, 43–44, 51, 89–90, 94–97, 99, 100–105, 110, 121, 123, 128–129, 135, 138 Human Rights Watch, 94, 129, 131, 135 Hunter, Wendy, 8 Huntington, Samuel, 18 Import Substitution Industrialization— ISI, 13–14, 31, 33, 40, 42, 57 INCORA (Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform), 39 Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC), 45 Institutionalist/state centered model, 7 Insurgency, 3, 22–23, 38, 42, 66, 68, 76, 86, 89, 91–92, 101, 104, 106, 107–108, 110, 111, 128, 130, 134, 136 Guerilla insurgency, 45–46, 49, 60, 65, 67, 78, 80, 93, 94, 96–97, 105, 108–111, 117, 120–121, 125, 135, 137, 139, 144 Interamerican Dialogue, 13, 54–55, 131 International Financial Institutions, 11–13, 17, 20–21, 26, 34, 50, 72, 142 International Military Education and Training (IMET), 59–60 International Monetary Fund, 13–15, 17, 20, 33, 43–44, 46, 71, 124

190

INDEX

José Bonnett Locarno, Manuel, 120 José Serrano, Rosso, 82–83 La Uribe, 75, 78 La Violencia, 29–32, 34–36, 40–41, 106 Landazábal, Fernando, 43, 65 Leahy, Patrick, 102 Leahy Amendment, 102, 121 Leal, Buitrago, Francisco, 9 Liberal Party, 27–28, 30, 32, 60–61, 65, 110, 124 Lleras Restrepo, Carlos. See Lleras Administration, 37 Lloreda, Rodrigo, 128 Los Pepes, 114–116 Low intensity democracy, 2, 18–21, 51, 58, 77, 81, 87, 89, 104, 112, 125, 139, 142–143, 147 M-19, 4, 39, 41, 43, 60, 62, 110 demobilization of forces, 61 Malloy, James, 17, 20 Mancuso, Salvatore, 136 McCafferty, Barry, 102 Medellín Cartel, 48, 108, 114, 135 Military impunity, 90, 94–96, 98, 104–105, 123, 128–129, 147 Ministry of Defense, 67, 85, 96, 98, 103, 118, 129 Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS), 98, 108, 116 Narcoterrorism, 46 Narcotrafficking. See narcotraffickers or drug trafficking, 9, 24, 35, 47–49, 57, 59, 60, 81–82, 85, 96–97, 106, 108, 114, 135–138 National Association of Industrialists (ANDI), 57, 116 National Department of Planning, 67 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 18, 53

National Front, 10, 31–32, 35, 37–39, 42, 49 National Indigenous Organization (ONIC), 45 National Security Council, 6, 92, 144 Nef, Jorge, 19 Neoliberalism. See Neoliberal Thought, 1, 13–14, 19–22, 56, 67, 71–72, 74, 87, 92, 104, 124–125, 130, 135, 142, 146 Neoliberal economic reform, 5, 10, 16, 20, 54–55, 123–124, 144 Neoliberal experiments, 17 Neoliberal economic policies, 46, 50, 51, 106 Occidental Petroleum, 79–80, 131–132 Oil Workers Union, 97 Organization of American States (OAS), 94, 97–98, 101, 138 Paige, Jeffrey, 20 Pajaros, 30 Palace of Justice, 43 Paramilitaries, 4–6, 20, 22–23, 43, 45, 80, 90–93, 98, 104–110, 111, 112–117, 119–123, 129–130, 135, 137–139, 143, 146–147 paramilitary dominated zones, 111 Pardo, Rafael, 53, 56, 65, 92–93, 96–97, 99, 114 Pastrana, Andres, 6–7, 53, 55, 74, 86, 123–125, 128–130, 133–136, 139, 142 national defense and security law, 129 Pastrana administration. See Pastrana, Andres Patriotic Union Party, 113. See also Union Patriotica Patterson, Anne, 132 Pearce, Jenny, 27 Peasants and Ranchers of the Magdalena Medio (ACDEGAM), 109

INDEX

Perez, Mariano Ospina, 30–31 Pion, Berlin, David, 7, 8 Pizarro, Carlos, 48 Pizarro, Eduardo, 36 Plan Lazo, 38 Plan Patriota, 136 Policy planning groups, 15–16, 24, Political liberalization, 12, 143 Political violence, 22, 24, 30, 105, 118, 136 Privatization of repression, 4 Ramírez, Luis, 110 Rational Choice Institutionalism, 8 Reagan, Ronald, 48 National Security Decision Directive, 48 Reglamento de Combate de Contraguerrillas (EJC3-10), 107 Rettberg, Angelika, 78 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. See FARC Reyes, Alejandro, 109 Richani, Nazih, 10 Robinson, William, 2, 11–12, 20 Rojas-Pinilla, General, 31, 37, 39 Romero, Maurico, 9, 110 Ruiz-Novoa, General, 38 Samper, Ernesto, 5, 51, 54, 69, 71–72, 74–78, 80–87, 90, 97–102, 104–105, 117–121, 123, 128, 136, 142 congress exoneration, 76 Decree 356, 118 Decree 717, 100 Decree 2895, 117 Las Delicias demilitarization, 128 Salto Social, 71 Samper administration. See Samper, Ernesto Santodomingo Group, 34, 57–58, 74, 78 Sarmiento Angulo, 57, 58

191

Sarmiento Group, 78 Self-Defense Groups, 107–110, 112–113, 117–118, 120, 138 September 11th, 123, 134 Servicios Especiales de Vigilancia y Seguridad Privada (Special Services of Private Security and Vigilance), 118 Silva, Eduardo, 17 Sindicato Antioqueno Group, 58 SINTRAEMCALI (Cali Public Employees Union), 125 Sklair, Leslie, 12–13 Sociedad Agricultores de Colombia (SAC), 43, 57–58, 67, 107 Special Economic Zones, 61 Suramericana group, 34 Tapias Stahelin, Fernando, 86 Technocrats, 16, 20, 33, 46, 52–53, 67, 124, 144–146 Technopols, 16, 18, 21, 53, 62, 144 Terrorism. See terrorists, 96, 106, 116, 134 Theory of global capitalism, 2 Trade unionists, 22, 24 Transnational capitalist class, 12–14 Transnational corporations, 3, 12–13, 17, 20–21, 23, 26, 33, 49, 55, 63, 71–72, 74, 77, 82, 109, 123, 130–131, 133, 143 Transnational elite, 4–5, 23–24, 47, 51–52, 60–63, 68–69, 71, 85, 89, 92, 103, 105, 123, 135, 139, 141–142, 146–147 Transnational state, 2, 12 Turbay-Ayala, Julio Cesar, 41–43, 137 Turbay-Ayala administration. See Turbay-Ayala, Julio Cesar Tutelas, 1 Twentieth Brigade, 117 Union Intergremial, 77 Union of Banana Producers of Urabá (UNIBAN), 108, 118

192

INDEX

Union Patriotica (UP), 22, 45, 110, 135 Unit for Justice and Security, 67 United Confederation of Workers, 45 United Workers Central (CUT), 125 University of Los Andes, 52–53, 63, 65, 67, 73 United Nations, 94, 97–98, 119, 138 United States, 2, 6, 10–11, 17, 21, 41, 58, 77, 81–83, 97, 101–104, 115–117, 121, 124, 130–134, 136–137, 141–144, 146 Special Operations Command, 103 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 18, 20, 38, 54, 96 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 59, 120 U.S. Congress, 59, 102 U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy, 47 U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, 6 U.S. Drug War, 10, 23, 47–49, 59–60, 72, 81–82, 84, 96, 101, 113, 116–117, 121, 130, 133, 134 U.S. foreign policy, 3, 17–18, 90, 123 U.S. military aid, 23, 37, 48–49, 60, 66, 86, 101–103, 123, 130, 132, 134, 137, 142

U.S. National Security Doctrine, 37–38, 40, 47, 106–107 U.S. Plan Colombia, 130–132 U.S. Southern Command, 101, 117, 132 U.S. State Department, 6, 49, 59, 94, 102, 104, 110, 117, 121, 131, 134 U.S. Training and Military Doctrine, 66 War on Terrorism, 134, 137, 139 Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (School of the Americas), 103 Uribe, Alvaro, 6, 123–125, 128, 134–139 Uribe administration. See Uribe, Alvaro Uribe, Miguel Vega, 43 U.S.-Colombia Business Partnership, 79–80 Washington Office on Latin America, 135 Whitehead, Laurence, 11 World Bank, 13–15, 17, 20, 33, 44, 46 World Economic Forum, 13 World Trade Organization—WTO, 17 Zúñiga, Camilo, 83

POLITICAL SCIENCE

GLOBAL CAPITALISM, DEMOCRACY, AND CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN COLOMBIA William Avilés Through the lens of global capitalism theory, William Avilés examines democratization and civil-military relations in Colombia to explain how social and international forces led to the ostensibly contradictory outcome of democratic and economic reform coinciding with political repression. Focusing on the administrations in power from 1990 to the present, Avilés argues that the reduction in the institutional powers of the military within the state reflected changes in the structure of the global economy, the emergence of globalizing technocrats and politicians, and shifts in U.S. foreign policy strategies toward “democracy promotion.” These same factors explain Colombia’s establishment of a low-intensity democracy—a structure of elite rule in which the strategies of coercion (state and para-state repression) and consensus (competitive elections, civilian control over the military) maintain control and legitimacy. In the age of capitalist globalization, a low-intensity democracy is most concomitant with neoliberalism, establishing the political and economic environment most suitable to the investments of transnational corporations. “There are many recent titles on Colombia, but this one offers something original by showing how the prevailing theoretical paradigm for democratization and civil-military relations is inadequate because it cannot explain the Colombian experience.” — William I. Robinson, author of A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World “Books that bring together globalization, democracy, human rights, violence, and civil-military relations and examine them within a case-study approach are almost nonexistent. This book offers an insightful analysis of the Colombian conundrum from a more holistic perspective about these issues.” — Nibaldo H. Galleguillos, McMaster University WILLIAM AVILÉS is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. A volume in the SUNY series in Global Politics James N. Rosenau, editor State University of New York Press www.sunypress.edu