The reasons for
COLOMBIA
Although the UDF does not simply represent the ANC, it does pose the problems of relations with the latter organization, which considers itself a framework for uniting the liberation movement.
The force that the independent unions have built will obviously weigh heavily in the balance against the regime. Thus, at the time of its founding the UDF appealed to the unions to join it. Most of the community unions did so immediately.
WHEN THE Colombian army's Cascabel tank shot down the high iron
But the unity unions refused to take this step in order not to divide and cedar gate of the Palace of Justice in Bogota, it marked the start their supporters, who have very diof one of the bloodiest and most ruthless actions carried out by the verse political sympathies. In order to
Colombian armed forces in the last thirty years.
avoid this pitfall, the CUSA chose to affiliate both to the UDF and to the
Twenty-seven hours after the tank opened fire, under the eye of the
National Forum. In the case television camaras, the cost of this act of war left Colombians shocked media workers union, this question was
More than a hundred persons were killed, including 35 civilians at the center of a split between the
(clerks, lawyers, etc.) and 11 judges.
various provincial branches of the org-
In March 1984, the unity unions stepped up the pace. At the fifth summit meeting, the principle of industrial unionism was adopted. Those unions that could not, or did not want to, organize immediately on industrial lines were offered the status of observers. The community unions then left the conference.
In addition to these two poles, a third grouping of unions has emerged, the AZACTU (the Azania Confederation of Trade Unions), which is affiliated to the National Forum. This grouping of general workers unions is opposed to the principle of nonracialism supported by the other unions. It advances the principle of a Black leadership. This is one of the reasons for its refusal to participate in the preparatory meetings for the November 30 congress.
Finally, after some people thought that the community unions were going to reactivate SACTU, at the beginning of 1985, they took the decision to rejoin the unity unions. So, it is not hard to predict that the political problems that existed will remain inside the superfederation.
The historic portent of the founding of this federation, must, however, be stressed. First of all, it will be the biggest trade-union federation in the history of South Africa. In 1927, the
Industry and
Commerce
Workers
Union had up to 100,000 members, and the SACTU reached its peak in 1961, with 53,000 members.
Secondly, no one any longer challenges the role that the working class must play in transforming the apartheid capitalist society. The creation of the superfederation does not solve all the problems of political action for the working class, but it cannot be said to be an event that is without importance for the South African revolution.
International Viewpoint 9 December 1985
RODRIGO O' FARRELL
Moreover, the new building housing the Supreme Court of Justice, the Council of State, and the extensive libraries maintained by these highest judicial bodies of the country was reduced to ashes and twisted steel.
The day's losses also include some "disappeared" number of whom is not yet known.
The responsibility for the operaby the Conservative presi dent Belisario Betancur who in the first years of his term had managed to gain the aura of a populist leader and "peace maker" in Colombia and internationally. He had begun discussions with the Colombian guerrilla groups, signed an agreement for a ceasefire with most of them, and played a central role in founding the Contadora Group.
The assault on the Palace of Justice, however, recalled in the minds of many Colombians an event that has marked the political life of the country since 1948, another slaughter carried out under another Conservative government on April 9-10, 1948.
Aroused by the murder of the Liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, the Colombian people rose up spontaneously to try to topple the regime of Mariano Ospina Perez. Government soldiers, opened fire indiscriminately on the masses, who had only machetes and pistols.
The government was saved by the complicity of the Liberal Party lead. ers who refused to lead the uprising. April 9 has gone down in Colombian history as one of the main episodes of the so-called period of "la violencia,"
a full-fledged civil war launched by the reactionary political forces two years before, and whose end in 1957 represented a strategic defeat for the democratic aspirations of the masses.
It gave rise to the era of restricted democracy that continues today.
Despite the change in the relationship of forces in favor of the proletariat and its allies in recent years, the massacre at the Palace of Justice seems to represent the opening of a similar period of trauma. 11:40 pm, November 6, when 31 guerrillas alighted from two trucks. After some skirmishes with guards in the parking lot of the building, the guerrillas occupied the Palace, and began to face a team of secret agents that came in to mount a counter-attack. putting the hostages in order, when
Plaza de Bolivar. Two of them tried to enter the building, one through the main door and the other through the blocked parking area in the back.
At almost the same time, four police helicopters dropped specially trained "antiterrorist" troops on Terrace No. 16.
The Casa del Florero museum alongside the Palace of Justice was taken by the police and army and converted into a military operations headquarters. This is where the hostages who managed later to escape were taken. Some of the "rescued" civilians taken there disappeared with-
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the bloodbath
out trace, and without the authorities offering the slightest explanation.
Carlos Martinez Saenz, the director of Socorro Nacional (National Aid), who risked his life to take a message to the guerrillas, revealed that he saw three live guerrillas in the Casa del Florero taken prisoner by the military.
The armed forces, however, deny that they took any prisoners. least one lawyer who was in the court on legal business at the time of the events and who got out alive has been declared missing by his colleagues.
In the meantime, in the Plaza de Bolivar, the armed forces rained bullets indiscriminately on the Palace without any consideration for the hundreds of civilians trapped there. The most well known of them, the presiding judge of the Supreme Court, Alfonso Reyes Echandia, made an urgent public appeal at 5:00 in the afternoon through a radio station that reached him by telephone.
"We are hostages of M-19. Our lives are in danger. Please tell the army to stop shooting. We all have guns pointed at us. He added; "The occupiers are ready to negotiate a solution to the situation on the basis of a concrete proposal, but for that they demand the withdrawal of the troops." The military take over Reyes Echandia tried desperately and them was the
Jaime Betancur was released to Betancur knew guerrillas' demands, had sent journalist. by four demands. They to publish a well as the the Application the Truce, to had made with the International Monetary Fund, to have time made available the media "so ment for its to carry out ago in Corinto, and these demands out of hand.
The military operations were coordipersonally by the minister of defense, General Vega Uribe. When he was called to the president's palace, he demonstrated his lack of respect for Betancur's authority by taking an hour and a half to show up.
At 8:00 pm, Betancur convened the Council of Ministers. He proposed a were to be called upon to surrender unconditionally exchange for guarantee of their lives and an assurance that they would be tried before
The ministers were still offering ideas about how to get this proposal to the guerrillas, when General Vega Uribe said that this plan was inappropriate" because if the military siege stopped, the guerrillas would interpret this as a victory and might even strengthen their defensive positions.
"All aspects of the operation are underway. If the Council agrees, will continue." The ministers and the president indicated their
The cathedral clock was striking 10:00 pm, when the army launched its second attack. A series of heavy bazooka missiles were aimed at the third floor. They exploded, shaking the neighboring buildings. Then flames began to devour the eastern wing of the building, causing the deaths of many hostages who were held there. Some of them tried to escape from the smoke, but were cut down by the hail of bullets.
The government propagandists tried to attribute this fire, which burned thousands of legal records, to the occupiers. They claimed that the M-19 had a deal with cocaine traffickers, who had threatened the judger considering extradition requests from .le US. In a clandestine news conference in Bogota on November 9, the M-19 rejected these charges.
Colombian public opinion could not understand what justified the carnage. The vengeful nature of this operation becomes clear if you take into consideration the traditional hatred of the professional armed forces for the judicial branch. Hundreds of judgements by military courts have been modified or overturned by the Supreme Court or the Council of State.
For example, the Council of State convicted General Miguel Vega Uribe in July of practising torture during the repressive campaigns of 1979 and 1982, when he was director of the Brigade of the Military Institutions. The army's appeal against this verdict was underway at the time of the November 6-7 events, and up in smoke.
and liquidated.
president in were suspicion by
He was met of struggle against
Betancur elements these had the
August 24, signed similar
Maoist the was continuing that the cry major offensives the accords.
a war and of position in
Reorganizing, soldiers and cessfully to armed forces.
Already before the holocaust of
November 7-8, the president's popularity had reached a low point (only
18% supported him, according to the polls). The massacre dealt it a final
International Viewpoint 9 December 1985