M-19 accused Gomez Hurtado of being "one of the five political-military chiefs of the oligarchy, and one of those who had voted for unleashing the dirty war against the people." However, the objective of his captors was not to assassinate the rightist
After public negotiations in Panama with representatives of the Colombian political parties, M-19 promised to release Gomez Turtado on condition that the government the military, the establishment parties and their opponents, the unions and workers' parties, as well as the civic and human rights movements, agree to sit around a table to initiate a process of dialogue to find a negotiated way out of the armed confrontation that was becoming more and leased 53 days after he had been taken captive, and on July 29 a meeting was held in the Colombian capital under the auspices of the Catholic Church. It included 40 representatives of political parties of right and left, the employers' organizations, the unions and civic and human rights
The so-called National Dialogue lasted nine hours, and reached concrete conclusions. A Democratic Coexistence Commission (CCD) was to be formed within 30 days. It was to present a plan for a rapprochement between the leaders of the rebel movements and the authorities. However, the meeting was undermined by the absence of the government, which pulled out at the last minute, charging that the event was the product of the violence.
Moreover, guerrillas' representatives did not attend either. The top military command, contradicting the position of the civilian government, threatened to arrest anyone who showed up at the "summit" to represent the rebels.
A last chance to avoid civil war
Despite these setbacks, the July 29 meeting was presented by all the participants as the "last chance" the country had to avoid a devastating civil war. Alvaro Gomez Hurtado was one of the keynote speakers. His speech reflected the powerful psychological and moral impact that had been made on him by his stay among the guerrillas.
The senator said that he was convinced that his captors really wanted to achieve peace in the country, and that in order to reach an agreement with them it was necessary to carry out major reforms. Moreover, he deplored the absence of the government from the meeting and the official indiffer-
A few hours later, M-19 released a document reiterating that it was ready for direct talks with the government, and that this position was shared by the five organizations that make up the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Committee [see /V 141], other than the Ejercito de Liberación National.
The impression of a relaxation that followed the release of Gomez Hurtado contrasted cruelly with the acts of violence continuing in the country. On the eve of the National Dialogue, a death squad assassinated two union activists in Barrancabermeja, the country's oil capital. In the local demonstrations to protest against this crime one person died and several others were wounded by the police. A
A free-fir politica DIALOGUE with the guerrilla Colombia. Up until a few we violently rejected by the gover the Liberal and Conservativ organizations. With a few indiv for military liquidation of the RODRIG
The Catholic Church, through the intermediary of Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, chief of the the Latin American conservative hierarchy, declared that the Barco government had no reason to refuse to participate and to carry on the discussions initiated on July 29. Ex-presidents Belisario Betancur, Alfonso López Michelsen and Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala made similar statements.
Nonetheless, as soon as it saw that Senator Gomez Hurtado had regained his freedom and was packing his bags for a long trip to Europe, the Liberal administration went back to its former strong-arm solution. Protests about abuses committed by soldiers in the countryside continued. In more generalized throughout the country.
mid-August, several rural districts were de-
The government indicated that it was serted as peasants fled to avoid murdering
"pleased" with the contacts in Panama, and let it be known that it would agree to holding a "summit meeting" of personalities tered three houses in Barrancabermeja and representative of all the sectors in question, including two or three representatives of
14 the guerrillas. Gomez Hurtado was refew days earlier, 16 other worker and peasant activists died in attacks carried out by unknown persons. In response to this, the United Workers' Confederation (CUT), the country's major trade-union organization, called on the government to take steps to stop the wave of assassinations of people's leaders and to initiate a direct dialogue with the guerrilla organizations.
On August 19, heavily armed men en-
Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating
Committee delivered a five-point document to Monsignor Dario Castrillón, one of
September 19, 1988 • #147 International Viewpoint zone for murder being talked about again in ago, such a possibility was ent of Virgilio Barco Vargas, by arties and by the employers' al exceptions, all of them were nters of guerrilla resistance. 'FARREL met for the first time. Among its various civilian components, the idea gathered steam of strengthening this forum for dialogue.
the notables involved in the forum. For the first time, seven organizations of armed rebels had agreed on a process of negotiations with the government. Sharp disillusionment at the ment's maneuver was expressed by Monsignor Castrillón, who told the press that "a military response to the subversion in Colombia would be a historic error. " He said that instead Virgilio Barco's government should join in the national dialogue.
The guerrillas responded quickly to Barco's maneuver. On August 23, two fronts of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC, the CP-led guerrillas) and of the Ejército Popular de Liberacíon (EPL, of Maoist origin) attacked an army camp and police station in Saiza, a town in Córdoba. The battle lasted
Ten soldiers, two policemen and 12 civilians were killed. Another five members of the uniformed forces were wounded and 26 were reported missing. The police station was destroyed, as well as some houses from which civilians belonging to a "selfgroup set up by the army had opened fire. According to governmental the guerrillas suffered 15 casualties. In all, 39 people, including 26 soldiers, were reportedly killed bloodiest confrontation since the storming of the Palace of Justice in November
A severe blow to army
The region neighboring Saiza is under the control of General Jésus Cabrales, military chief of Urabá, a militarized region in which the worst massacres of peasants have been perpetrated. Soldiers belonging to the Light Infantry Battalion, to which those who came under attack in Saiza belonged, were in involved in the March 4 massacre in Currulao in which 17 workers were shot down in front of their wives and
COLOMBIA attack was a severe blow to the morale of the army, which has been lord and master of the region up until now. It is quite possible that this event was the cause of the government's new turnaround. On September 1, Virgilio Barco presented a plan for "national reconciliation," the first in the two years that he has been office. It called for a constitutional reform and a timetable for the guerrillas returning to normal life. The pro-government press portrayed the president's proposal as following Salvadoran-type proposal for "reconciliation"
It is a scheme similar to the plans proposed by Napoleón Duarte in El Salvador, as well as to the one proposed in the past by the former Colombian president Turbay Ayala. In other words, it is a plan that will be difficult for the armed rebels to accept. It makes the ending of armed actions and the rebels surrendering their arms a prerequisite for an amnesty for those who accept the plan. The guerrillas are offered very little else - dialogue aimed at reintegrating the guerrillas into civilian life and a parliamentary debate on some superficial changes in
Barco specified that in the meantime the armed forces would continue "the fight against terrorism" and against "those who persist in subversion." The plan does not call for the slightest implementation of the recommendations of Amnesty International and the human rights organizations in Colombia to cut the ground out from under the feet of the death squads.
The chief executive does not envisage any purge of the army or the police to dismantle the parallel structures responsible for innumerable political assassinations and massacres. In these conditions, his proposal does not have much chance of getting anywhere. The outlook, therefore, is grim. In their fight against the dirty war, Colombian workers' and people's organizations need international solidarity. It is the obligation
(The idea of political negotiations for peace first arose in the country during the presidency of Belisario Betancur. It was backed only by the president himself and some guerrilla leaders. The majority of the bourgeois parties were openly sceptical about it.) This time, Virgilio Barco connived to sabotage the meeting, while at the same time saying that a peace plan would "soon" be made public. The Liberal Party and the employers' associations announced, as a result, that they would not attend the CCD because they preferred to examine the president's proposal before engaging in other peace negotiations. Thus, without the presence of the Liberals and the employers' organizations, the multi-party forum was left in political limbo. On the eve of the CCD meeting, the
The battle in Saiza created a sensation in Bogotá. Because of its duration, the number of casualties and the number of guerrillas who took part (nearly a hundred), the 1. In 1986, 976 people were assassinated for political reasons. In 1987, the number went up to 1,200, including 267 alone in the banana growing area of Urabá, where the Light Infantry Battalion operates. In the first seven months of 1988, the number of political assassinations has amounted to more than 600. In the 22 massacres that have taken place up until now, 231 people have died. Those responsible for these crimes enjoy total immunity. Moreover, to date, 1,400 cases of "missing persons" have been reported to the Department of Justice. See also IV 141, May 16, 1988. 2. Besides bumping off their "immediate enemies" (police, judges, a minister, an attorney general, journalists), the drug traffic chiefs are taking advantage of the climate of political violence to "clean out the communists" from the regions and cities where they hold heir assets. They finance armed gangs collaborating with corrupt military officers and promote terrorist attacks against individuals and groups. In the assassination of Jaime Pardo Leal, a former candidate for president of the Unión Patriótica (the CP electoral forof democrats and revolutionists throughout the world to expose what is happening in mation), a judge established a connection between various military officers and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the country's most powerful drug traffickers. An army colonel allowed the escape last March of Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín drug cartel, according to the daily El Espectador. 3. The Simón Bolívar Coordinating Committee proposed in short: 1. Seeking a political solution to the present violence. 2. To humanize the conflict by respecting international law and taking real steps against the dirty war. 3. To conduct a dialogue on the country's energy problem (the multinational contacts for exploiting Colombian oil) between the government, the guerrillas and the society. 4. To carry out constitutional reforms by means of referenda. 5. To support the general strike that the CUT is preparing for. 4. In trying to dislodge the M-19 commando unit that had taken the building, the army killed 84 people, including 15 judges, two lawyers, 28 guerrillas and 39 "missing" since then. The army suffered 11 casualties. ordinary civilians. Fourteen people have remained 15