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Colombia The Legacy of La Violencia
Through the early 1940s, political violence was again
on the
rise in Colombia and was especially intense in the region
of the
country's eastern plains (llanos). Although the PL
retained control
of the government until 1946, the party and, in
particular, its
rural supporters had become the targets for increasingly
violent
attacks by Conservative adherents. Much of the violence
was
motivated by the perceived threat posed to the minority PC
and the
vested interests of its members by the Liberals' reformist
agenda.
In many respects, the July 1944 attempted coup against
the
government presaged developments that took place nearly a
decade
later. Known as the Pasto coup, the military revolt was
staged by
a group of disgruntled officers stationed in the southern
Colombian
town of Pasto near the Ecuadoran border. President Alfonso
López
Pumarejo, who had gone to the area to observe army
exercises, was
briefly held hostage, as were the several cabinet
ministers who had
accompanied him. After the military leadership in the
capital
refused to support the rebels, the leader of the failed
coup--Pasto
garrison commander Colonel Diógenes Gil--was arrested, and
the
president and his ministers were freed. Although the
military
continued to respect its constitutional mandate to support
the
government, the incident suggested that the long-standing
constraints against political involvement by the military
were
being broken down by the deteriorating national situation.
Moreover, as one Colombian scholar noted in 1955, at the
time of
the coup the army was beginning to be perceived by
Colombians as
the only national force that could "shield the nation from
anarchy
and blood-letting."
The period in Colombian history known as la
violencia
(1948-66) marked the return of civil war, which gradually
eroded
the civilians' ability to govern. Acts of violence
perpetrated
against Liberals did not end when the PC recaptured the
presidency.
Instead, the country became increasingly polarized. The
National
Police, which were active primarily in the vicinity of the
national
capital, continued to support the PL. In contrast, police
in the
countryside became active agents for the Conservative
cause and
were accused of harassment and intimidation of Liberals as
well as
of support for if not complicity in the violence. Liberal
supporters in the countryside were driven from their homes
by
Conservative vigilantes who raided their towns and burned
their
dwellings.
The escalating level of rural violence was followed by
the
April 1948 assassination of populist PC leader Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán
and massive rioting in Bogotá. Some forty years after the
event,
the Bogotazo, as it came to be known, remained the largest
urban
riot in the Western Hemisphere. Over 2,000 people were
killed
(see TLa Violencia
, ch. 1). Army troops were
called in
to defend the capital after members of the National Police
sided
with the rioters.
At the height of la violencia, some 20,000 armed
rebels
operated in Colombia. Some of the rebels had organized
themselves
into guerrilla groups that established their own
"independent
republics" in the remote jungles of southern Colombia.
Although the
greatest amount of violence during the civil war took
place in
rural regions, urban violence also became a concern within
a year
of Gaitán's murder. At one point in 1949, the fighting
extended
even to the floor of the legislature, where one Liberal
was killed
and four others were wounded in a gun battle with
Conservative
congressmen. In all, la violencia claimed over
200,000
lives.
The PC government's policies during the late 1940s did
little
to encourage the continued development of professional
armed
forces. The government's earlier concern for maintaining
partisan
balance in the institution was abandoned. Open displays of
favoritism toward Conservative officers in promotions and
appointments became common. By the end of the decade, the
government was regularly calling upon the army to harass
Liberal
opponents and thereby added a new dimension to the
military's
mission. The issue of loyalty within the ranks demanded
increasing
attention as the military became increasingly partisan.
Liberal
officers were ousted or, after 1951, assigned to combat
duty in
Korea.
The 1949 elections, in which the Liberals refused to
participate, were held during a state of siege. The new
Conservative administration, led by Laureano Gómez,
quickly
distinguished itself by sanctioning the use of even
greater force
and brutality against the resistance in the countryside.
As a
result, the administration increasingly relied upon the
military.
At the same time, the nature of the violence in the
countryside
also began to change as partisan allegiance was supplanted
as an
issue by loyalty or opposition to Gómez himself. By
mid-1952 as
much as one-third of national territory was estimated to
have been
controlled by forces opposed to the government.
Throughout Gómez's tenure in the presidency, the boosts
in
military spending that he authorized were designed as much
to
ensure the military institution's continuing loyalty to
his
government as to support the restoration of public order.
During
Gómez's administration, the military's share of the budget
rose
from 16 percent to nearly 25 percent of government
expenditures.
The president also was careful to maintain military
morale. His
1950 offer to send combat troops to Korea was envisioned
as a means
of building the military's fighting spirit. In April 1951,
the
first military reorganization in decades was carried out,
and the
new post of the General Command of the Military Forces
(Comandancia
General de las Fuerzas Militares) was created,
consolidating
administrative and command responsibility for the armed
forces in
one office. Thereafter, only the president and the
minister of war
had greater authority over the armed forces.
Gómez's efforts to ensure the favor and loyalty of the
military
were not well received by all members of the armed forces
hierarchy. On the contrary, many officers viewed the
president's
policies as attempts to break the integrity of an
institution that
was beginning to perceive itself as professional and--in
spite of
its role in the ongoing violence--politically neutral. The
June 13,
1953, coup that brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to
the
presidency was supported by dissident officers as well as
by
military leaders who opposed Gómez's personal
machinations--which
reportedly included an assassination plan against the
military
leader. The coup marked the military's first intervention
against
the government in nearly a century.
Although initially reluctant to assume political power,
Rojas
Pinilla soon warmed to the notion after his coup was
greeted with
popular acclaim. Voted by Congress to serve out Gómez's
term of
office, which lasted until mid-1954, Rojas Pinilla
declared his
administration to be a "government of the armed forces."
In an attempt to end the continuing rural violence, one
of
Rojas Pinilla's first acts as president was to announce a
political
amnesty for all who would surrender their weapons and
abandon armed
struggle. Within months, Rojas Pinilla's offer had been
accepted by
many weary combatants. For the first time in years, the
fighting
diminished. The interlude was brief, however; during the
next two
years, antigovernment activities and attacks on military
garrisons
continued. Especially heavy fighting broke out in early
1955 in the
vicinity of Tolima. The region was declared a zone of
military
operations, and the civilian population was evacuated as
government
troops clashed with an estimated 2,000 guerrillas. The
nature of
the violence again appeared to change when the government
declared
that it was now battling communist-inspired rebels.
Rojas Pinilla continued to enforce the state of siege
throughout his tenure. By early 1954, the Rojas Pinilla
government
had lost its early momentum toward a return to domestic
peace and
democratic government. By the end of the year, the renewed
fighting
in the countryside combined with a growing economic crisis
and
charges of government corruption to undermine further
popular
support for the regime. In early 1955, emulating the
Argentine
ruler Juan Domingo Perón (1946-55), Rojas Pinilla pursued
efforts
to build an alliance among peasants, urban workers, and
the
military. The alliance, which he called the National
Action
Movement (Movimiento de Acción Nacional), was envisioned
by Rojas
Pinilla as forming the support base for his personal rule.
Rojas
Pinilla's appointment of the army's chief of staff as the
movement's coordinator was opposed by key military
leaders,
however, and continuing institutional opposition
eventually obliged
the president to disband his erstwhile political group.
In December 1953, Rojas Pinilla reduced the power
vested in the
General Command of the Military Forces. Authority over the
military
budget again rested with the Ministry of War, whereas
personnel
management decisions were delegated to the General Staff
of the
Military Forces. The General Command retained
responsibility for
the military's administrative functions, including the
military
education system, the administration of military justice,
the
provision of health-care services, and the maintenance and
provision of supplies. The office itself was separated as
an
organic component of the armed forces and placed under the
Ministry
of War. In 1956 an autonomous administrative department of
military
industry was established and assigned a budget separate
from that
of the armed forces. The new office was responsible for
managing
the domestic production of arms, munitions, and explosives
and for
overseeing the operation of the military steel mills.
The military benefited more substantially under Rojas
Pinilla
than under preceding administrations. Between 1948 and
1956, the
size of the armed forces more than doubled, from 14,000 to
32,000
troops. The National Police were brought under the command
of the
armed forces, and an attempt was made to build a
politically
neutral force. A compulsory year of military service was
again
rigorously enforced. The lower ranks of the armed forces,
which had
been weakened by the guerrilla conflict, also were
rebuilt. The
maintenance of good military relations with the United
States
during Rojas Pinilla's tenure facilitated the acquisition
of new
equipment, much of which consisted of then relatively new
World War
II matériel. The air force established two new training
schools--the Ernesto Samper Military Aviation School at
Cali and
the Germán Olano School of Technical Classes at Madrid, in
Cundinamarca Department. A luxurious officers' club, the
Club
Militar, was opened, and generous fringe benefits were
made
available that extended beyond the military's access to
goods at
the well-stocked commissary. Long-overdue raises were also
authorized.
Despite the attention lavished on the military, some of
its
leaders turned against Rojas Pinilla's increasingly
dictatorial
rule. Although the institution's top leaders continued to
vow their
allegiance to the government, they became increasingly
concerned
that opposition charges of graft and corruption were
further
tarnishing the military's historically maligned image.
In May 1957, the military removed Rojas Pinilla from
office in
a bloodless coup. In a face-saving gesture, Rojas Pinilla
was
allowed to select his successors. A five-man military
junta--headed
by Rojas Pinilla's former minister of war, General Gabriel
París,
and including the commanders of the army, navy, National
Police,
and Secret Police--promised a return to civilian rule. The
traditional political parties, which had set aside their
political
differences some ten months earlier in agreeing to form
the
National Front to restore civilian government and
constitutional
guarantees, fully supported the officers' actions
(see The Rojas Pinilla Dictatorship
, ch. 1).
According to plans announced by the junta shortly after
the
coup, the transitional government turned over power to an
elected
civilian president in August 1958. Nevertheless, Rojas
Pinilla, who
had gone into exile, continued to command significant
support
within some sectors of the armed forces, causing
substantial
tensions as the transition proceeded.
Data as of December 1988
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