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Colombia INTERNAL SECURITY PROBLEMS
Public awareness of Colombia's internal security
problems
increased in the wake of the November 1985 siege by
terrorists from
the 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril--M-19)
of the
Palace of Justice, the Supreme Court building, in Bogotá.
During
the twenty-eight hours of intense fighting, which was
referred to
as the "twenty-eight hour coup," all thirty-five
terrorists were
killed, but eleven Supreme Court judges, several dozen
other
hostages, and more than a dozen troops also were killed.
In
addition, the artillery shelling and the raging fire that
resulted
destroyed the courthouse.
According to a public opinion poll taken shortly after
the
siege, 85 percent of the population of Bogotá believed
that the
country had reached a crisis point. Within two years, some
reports
suggested, the violence associated with the country's
growing
internal turmoil had escalated to a level comparable to
that of the
late 1940s and early 1950s. Although public consciousness
was
piqued by the 1985 incident, the incidence of challenges
to the
public order had been gradually increasing in frequency
over the
preceding decade. In 1988, however, observers doubted that
a
semblance of domestic peace could soon be restored.
During the late 1980s, various guerrilla organizations
and two
powerful groups of narcotics traffickers, who used the
country as
their base of operations, posed the principal threats to
internal
security. The frequent corruption of public officials by
the
lucrative narcotics operations also had become a serious
national
problem that hindered efforts to maintain domestic order
and
administer justice. Although the guerrilla organizations
had long
been active in the country--with some claiming to trace
their
organizational roots to the epoch of la
violencia--the
threat posed by narcotics trafficking was not officially
recognized
as a security problem until the late 1970s. At around this
same
time, the country's guerrilla groups, having recovered
their
strength after the military's counterinsurgency operations
of the
late 1960s and early 1970s, stepped up their attacks.
Within months
of the inauguration of President Julio César Turbay Ayala
(1978-
82), increasing violence had prompted the new executive to
authorize a series of measures to broaden the armed
forces' role in
the struggle against the guerrillas and narcotics
traffickers. Most
prominent among the new measures was the National Security
Statute.
The statute expanded the arrest powers of the armed forces
and
placed punishment for a variety of crimes under the
jurisdiction of
military tribunals. In addition, in an attempt to curb the
guerrillas' use of the press to gain publicity for their
cause, the
media was subjected to strict censorship. Finally, Turbay
invoked
the state of siege provision of the Constitution
(see Constitutional Development;
The Executive
, ch. 4).
Throughout 1979 and 1980, critics charged that
government
policies allowed the military to carry out arbitrary
arrests,
torture, and "disappearances" in the campaign against
subversion.
Despite this criticism, however, the Turbay administration
continued its tough stance until late 1980--following the
tense
two-month occupation of the Dominican Republic's Bogotá
embassy
during which twelve diplomatic personnel, including the
United
States ambassador, were held hostage. In 1981 Turbay
extended an
offer of political amnesty to the guerrillas; despite
public
disavowals and continued fighting, government and
guerrilla leaders
held secret amnesty negotiations until March 1982. The
terms of the
amnesty were finally rejected, however, by the guerrillas
as well
as by the military, which reportedly feared that it would
demoralize the troops. Nevertheless, as casualties from
the
violence reached their highest level in thirty years, the
state of
siege was lifted on the eve of the presidential elections
in 1982.
With the inauguration of the Betancur administration
(1982-86),
the government indicated its willingness to reach a truce
with the
guerrillas. The 1984 cease-fire agreement achieved with
all but one
of the major guerrilla organizations as part of the
National
Dialogue represented the first armistice ever reached
between a
government and its domestic insurgents. Analysts viewed
the
achievement as ineffectual and temporary, however, and the
ceasefire repeatedly was violated by both sides. From the
perspective of
the Colombian military, the worst feature of the agreement
was that
it did not obligate the guerrillas to surrender their
weapons. In
1984 the government was forced to recognize the challenge
to its
authority posed by narcotics traffickers, when the
minister of
justice (an outspoken opponent of the drug smugglers) was
murdered.
Between the May 1984 reimposition of a state of siege
and the
inauguration of the Barco administration (1986- ),
violence
increased dramatically. Efforts to revive the peace
process reached
a stalemate, and the traffickers became increasingly bold.
During
the late 1980s, two new elements were introduced into the
deteriorating situation when right-wing terrorist groups
began
carrying out their own vigilante-style attacks--operating,
for the
most part, with apparent impunity--and the traffickers
formed their
own paramilitary groups to forestall the government's
campaign
against them.
Data as of December 1988
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