Murder under the cover of "democracy"
A FOURTH Internationalist leader in
Colombia, Rene González, gave the following interview to
Gerry Foley in Europe at the end of 1988. Colombian Fourth
Internationalists have recently joined A Luchar
("To Struggle"), a broad militant left organization
(see IV 141).
H AS THERE been any letup in
the dirty war, since the proposals for "dialogue"? No, it has intensified over recent months. There have been dozens of massacres this year. The paramilitaries are going into towns and slaughtering the people who live there with impunity. On average, 40 to 50 people have been dying in these massacres.
Besides this, there are almost five political assassinations a day, according to the exposés of Amnesty International and the international human-rights organizations. There is systematic torture and selective murder of left-wing activists and leaders. • Are these massacres limited to the rural areas in which fighting has been going on?
Essentially, yes. The pretext used is that these are areas of guerrilla activity. The army is directly implicated in the actions of the paramilitaries. In the last massacre, in Segovia, in the department of Antioquía, the paramilitaries had to go through an area totally controlled by the army [see IV • Has the growing importance of the drug traffic and local gangsterism had an effect on the dirty war?
In the most recent period, the income from the drug traffic has been decisive for the Colombian bourgeoisie. The recycling of dollars from this trade has enabled them to pay the foreign debt and maintain a more or less acceptable situation, in the context of the acute economic crisis in Latin America.
But this is leading to severe erosion of values and the judicial institutions of the state.
DROITS а інот PUMANDS DIRITTI UMANI HUMAN
Moreover, the Mafiosi are buying great expanses of land. So, there is a collaboration between landlords and Mafiosi in driving peasants off these lands. • But why do they want to drive the peasants off the land, rather than keep them there and exploit them?
We do not yet have a real proletarianization on the land, in the sense of the buying and selling of labor power. For the moment, what these landlords are interested in is extending their land ownership. In this country, land is very important because of the income it provides and the power it brings in the political apparatus. • What value could these lands have without people?
The Mafia is accumulating lands and expelling the peasants from them with the idea of converting these lands into plantations. This extends to lands on which there is already an agricultural proletariat, as in the case of the banana-growing area, where there is also an alliance between Mafia capital and the banana plantation
An example of the latter is the Urabá area in Antiquía, where five massacres have occurred recently. There the attacks have been directly against the workers, to prevent them from waging trade-union struggles, because they have a strong union, and to keep wages down. • Does the Mafia have its own
Yes. It has its private armies. It is estimated that the Ochoa and Escobar clans in Antioquía have nearly 10,000 armed men. There are only 120,000 in the Colombian
COLOMBIA • What role has the Mafia played in the massacres?
There is no doubt that it is implicated. On the other hand, some civilian sectors of the regime have been trying to clear the government of responsibility by putting the blame on the Mafia. The Attorney
Mafia is involved, and that these massacres have to do with the power that it is acquiring in terms of land. But despite the fact that the authorities are For example, after the Segovia massacre, the government used this outrage as an excuse to go deeper into debt, to buy more arms, more airplanes, more helicopters, more guns. It beefed up its reactionary system of laws still more. Now anybody can be arrested on suspicion, and there are no legal safeguards. • What about the urban areas? How extensive is repression there?
In the cities, the murders are more selective. There have not been any massacres. This reflects the peculiarity of the country. The left is strong in the countryside, but still very weak in the cities. In the countryside, there are big mobilizations and social bases that the left can influence. But it is not like that in the cities. We have a labor movement that since the 1940s has put a straitjacket on rank-and-file trade unionists. It is not based on industrial unions, and in fact the labor legislation in force firmly casts it in a craft-union, economist
There is another aspect to this. The economic crisis has not yet hit rock bottom, with the result that the intermediate layers in the cities have not yet been polarized between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary camps. They are holding to a neutral attitude, believing that their individual problems can be solved in the context of dependent capitalism.
The shantytowns are growing constantly because of the strong flow from the coun tryside to the cities. (In 1960, 70% of the population lived in rural areas; today the percentage has been reversed, with 70% living in cities.) These immigrants are very poor, and maintain many values of the rural communities.
This is true also of the new proletarian layers in the shanty-town belt around the cities. But nonetheless the country has been undergoing a gradual process of urbonizion, and es e canthe chaime themele 17 tionship of forces with the regime from the
International Viewpoint #157 • February 20, 1989
COLOMBIA countryside. It is obvious that we have to change it from the cities.
One of big discussions that the Colombian left is having now is about how to overcome the unevenness between the countryside and the cities. Because, as I said, in the cities, the workers' movement is still very much in the background, and has not waged any major political or solidarity struggles in recent years, nor any major industrial struggles that might provide a national outlet.
There is also a worrying development. Sectors of workers who consider themselves relatively well paid and have legal channels for negotiations are gradually separating themselves off from a population that is sinking deeper into poverty as a result of the effects of the foreign debt and the economic crisis. The problem is how to prevent a gap opening up between a movement of relatively well-paid workers — in comparison with the standard of living of the Colombian people - and the population as a whole. • What has been the recent experience in concrete trade-union struggles?
This discussion is sharpening, because recently a general strike was called to demand the right to life [i.e., not to be murdered] and better security. It did not produce the expected results. Only 10% of the workers struck. This outcome was especially grave, because since November 1986 a process of unification had been going on that embraced the 80% of the Colombian union movement. It included the trade-union forces led by the Communist Party, A Luchar, the independent (Maoist) unions and the old CSTC, which was the Communist Party's old confederation, as well as a fringe of the right-wing union movement.
Of course, this unification has not yet changed the structures of the union movement. The labor law and the regime represent a strong pressure for maintaining craft
18
unions. One of the Colombian bourgeoisie's main concerns for three decades has been to prevent the emergence of industrial unions. Even when unification processes develop, as has happened among workers in the electrical and banking industries, the regime will not accept united negotiations or a single list of demands. The relationship of forces with the regime has to be changed in order for industrial unions to operate in Colombia.
But the CUT [United Confederation of Workers] did manage to unite 80% of Colombian trade-unions in a single confederation. So, we had a country suffering from impoverishment and from lamentable conditions from the standpoint of human rights, in which human life is worth nothing, and a confederation uniting 80% of the union movement, and so everyone thought that the strike was going to produce major results. But that is not what happened.
The government went onto a war footing, claiming that what was involved in the strike was the trade-union arm of the guerrillas. It clamped down with military control over the cities, and arrested and murdered union leaders in the days leading up to the action. In the electrical workers union in Cartagena, for example, the army came and took away 200 to 300 workers. Moreover, it staged an ideological terror operation directed at the population, which of course had a big effect on the intermediate layers and the hesitating sections of the trade-union movement. • What impact did this have on the thinking of those fighting in the countryside?
Among the guerrillas, there is a sector that is considering whether it might not be a good idea to resume dialogue that would enable it to gain. certain space and a certain letup in the army offensive and in the dirty war in order to try to get more of a hearing within the mass movement. Other sections, on the other hand, are more inclined to wage a military offensive in an attempt to change the relationship of forces in the cities.
Such arguments have been going on despite the fact that the armed movement has had a rather stable united front of action in recent years — the so-called Coordinadora Simón Bolívar, which represents the entire armed movement in Colombia.
The regime is not insisting on dialogue, and does not have a big interest in it. It sees that nothing is happening in the cities, and so has nothing to worry about on that front. On the other hand, it sees the massacres and assassinations as a means by which it can continue to liquidate the left.
Proposals for dialogue were put forward in the early fall of 1988 by the government, but in totally unacceptable conditions, showing that the government had no real interest in this. What it proposed was a timetable for surrender, in return for amnesty. It said nothing about the paramilitary gangs nor about the alliance between the Mafia and the paramilitaries, nor about the violations of human rights. And this is when even spokespersons for the regime publicly admit that there are reasons for the existence of the guerrillas.
We think that at this time it is important to carry on open political activity, that is, to put forward proposals so that the country will know what sort of alternative A Luchar offers, in opposition to the line of the Communist Party and the policies of the bourgeois and reformist forces. The problem is that the country does not have a political culture. Its political life has been totally dominated by a very backward form of electoralism, buying and selling votes, patronage. It has lived under the shadow of a very powerful militarism and clericalism. So, we think that it is important to seek mechanisms for dialogue in the means of communication, despite all the obstacles.
The poverty of the people alone, or the sharpening of the economic crisis, will not by themselves produce a change, opening people's minds to another type of project. • What sort of political response has there been to the killings and massacres?
A much more stable left united front is being discussed now. But the problem is that every organization has different tactics. For example, the CP is staking a lot on electoral and parliamentary activity. It insists that this is the way, through slowly widening the possibilities for constitutional action. So far it has had 700 killed in the period from the start of Belisario Betancur's truce until now.
However, it has not taken an aggressive line in response or tried to push for mobilization, but followed a sterile course of trying to solve this problem by constitutonal and parliamentary means. In the last elections, it made deals with the most corrupt fringes of the Liberal and Conservative parties, the traditional bourgeois parties. Its excuse was that this was the
A LUCHAR
February 20, 1989 • #157 International Viewpoint way to get more posts in the provincial bodies and the national parliament, and that this would offer them more civilian and institutional cover against the dirty
Obviously, this policy is disastrous. It is not just that more and more social and left activists are being killed, but this strategy is not producing any result in the mass movement or changes in people's consciousness. A lot of people in the government respond to questions from organizations such as Amnesty International about attacks on the CP by saying, "In fact, these people made political alliances with us,' " that is with the government party in the last elections.
On the other hand, A Luchar comes from a very ultra-left tradition. Our joining the movement has served to give impetus to the discussion that has been going among their ranks about conducting more open political activity.
They have operated according to the conception that the political problems could be solved with very general and very ultra-left rhetoric. What we are trying to do is work out slogans that open the way for unity in action, and help the CP's ranks to see that their leadership is going about things the wrong way.
In strikes also, the CP's approach is to try to hide behind the trade-union bureaucracy, and it makes a lot of concessions to the bureaucrats. A Luchar operates • Is A Luchar strong in the unions?
Yes. It has more and more of a presence in the unions. But before going into that, I should say that the other big left force in the unions, the PCml, the so-called Popular Front, oscillates between the positions of the CP and A Luchar.
In the past period, A Luchar has been growing in the union movement. It has five out of the 30 leaders of the CUT. If there were an election among the ranks, we could probably get about ten of the 30 members of the Executive. In the regional leaderships of the CUT, A Luchar has a lot of strength. It has majorities in the leadership councils. It is also involved in the agrarian unions and the cooperatives. It does work among the Indians. A Luchar reflects the Colombian left, in that it is mainly rural-based. • What is A Luchar's attitude to elections?
Up until now, it has maintained an abstentionist policy. Discussion has not opened up on elections, but it will next year when there will be elections. For the moment, the discussion is centering on whether or not it is legitimate to move into constitutional openings instead of what policy we should have in the electoral front or for these institutional openings. In a country where it it so difficult to carry on open political activity, there is a certain justification for this.
For example, about 15 months ago, the CP presidential candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal, was murdered. He headed the best presidential campaign the CP has ever run. He represented not just a Communist record but also a trade-union background. He had a lot of prestige in the country, and followed a policy of class independence as a candidate. Then, the CP changed this policy once Pardo was dead for a policy of regional alliances with the two capitalist parties. This had a big impact on A • What sort of internal political life does A Luchar have?
It is planning to hold a cadre school in January to discuss many things linked to the situation in Colombia, but also from the standpoint of the Marxist classics and previous revolutions (Central America, the Russian revolution, and so on). The discussion is to take up the question of tactics and strategy, the relationship between constitutional and non-constitutional action, between open and conspiratorial struggle. In other words, a series of classical discussions on Marxism, not in an academic way, but rather in relation to reality and the concrete needs in the country.
Our press has been regularized. It is a weekly paper. The idea has been raised also of devoting special pages to ideological and cultural questions. The left has to reflect a lot about the country, its history and the international context, which is quite difficult for us. What we are seeing in Latin America is a workers' movement that it not getting any results, and no results are foreseeable in the intermediate
The image you get from the media is that US public opinion is totally right wing. I say that not because I think it but that is what the capitalist- and imperialistcontrolled media project. It seems that the election of Bush is practically a third term for Reagan, that what is coming is a much more offensive policy in Central America, that the Nicaraguans' economic problems will increase. In the Eastern bloc countries, the bureaucracy still seems to be strong, controlling the situation. Latin American left leaderships, including that of A Luchar, there are illusions about
At the same time, Latin America is riddled with economic crisis; there are phenomena such as the PT in Brazil [see page 13], mass mobilizations in the Dominican Republic, a crisis in Peru. There seem to be possibilities for trying to to achieve coordination among the mass and trade-union movements and also among revolutionaries.
COLOMBIA • Is there a distinct Stalinist influence in the organization?
No. The problem is rather the general authoritarian tradition in the country. These traditions also have an effect on the left. But the leadership of A Luchar does not have the concept of a monolithic party in the society they want to build. The organization's program in fact talks about political pluralism in the state that is to be built, and mass democracy. It doesn't talk about soviets, but that is another discussion, and we are not pushing it. • Are there prejudices about Trotskyism?
First of all, there is not much knowledge about it. In the situation I spoke of, the workers' movement in the advanced capitalist countries and the anti-bureaucratic opposition in the Eastern bloc countries do not seem to be a real forces on which you could rely. They don't see these movements as being able to provide material support and other needs. From this point of view, we seem to them to be not very rea-
We have discussed the international aspect more in connection with proposals for Latin-American coordinating bodies, that the continents needs some kind of unity, that we cannot accept a situation where the imperialists have a single policy regarding the debt and the masses and revolutionary leaderships do not have a united policy. • What is the most pressing interna-
There has to be more understanding of our situation. Both social democrats and Communists hide behind the fact that there is formal democracy in Colombia. When you knock on the doors of governments and governmental bodies, neutral European countries, even Eastern bloc countries, they see that we have a democracy and not a dictatorship, that this is not Chile. Bodies like Amnesty International make exposures, but there is no concrete mechanism for following them up. Such outrageous massacres as the one in Segovia are not reported in the European press.
However, the fact is that the situation in Colombia is worse than the one in Chile. At least in Chile there was a plebiscite. There are far less murders in Chile than in Colombia, there is far less persecution. But in Europe, people do not talk about Co-
If international public opinion were aware of what is really happening here, I am sure that the internal situation would be a bit more favorable, and if international public opinion were mobilized against it, the situation would be much 19 more favorable. *
People's front or national front?
International Viewpoint #157 • February 20, 1989
USSR in the republic was not homogeneous. Together with the contradiction between the central and republic authorities, there was the traditional conflict between "genuine" and "Siberian" Estonians. Not trusting the local cadres, in the 1940s Stalin preferred to mould the administrative apparatus from people who had no experience of living in the conditions of the "bourgeois" republic.
Estonian settlements in Siberia, which