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Colombia The Rojas Pinilla Dictatorship
Initial response to the coup was enthusiastic and
widespread;
only the elements at the two extremes of the political
spectrum
protested the action. Rojas Pinilla's first goal was to
end the
violence, and to that end he offered amnesty and
government aid to
those belligerents who would lay down their arms.
Thousands
complied with the offer, and there was relative calm for
several
months after the coup. Other immediate steps taken by
Rojas Pinilla
included the transfer of the National Police to the armed
forces in
an effort to depoliticize the police, relaxation of press
censorship, and release of political prisoners.
The government also started an extensive series of
public works
projects to construct transportation networks and
hospitals and
improved the system of credit for small farmers. Rojas
Pinilla
attempted to respond to demands for social reform through
populist
measures patterned after the policies of General Juan
Domingo Perón
(1946-55) in Argentina. The National Social Welfare
Service, under
the direction of his daughter María Eugenia Rojas de
Moreno Díaz,
was created to meet the most pressing needs of the poor,
and the
public works projects began to provide jobs for the masses
of urban
unemployed. The tax system was restructured to place more
of the
burden on the elite. Poorly administered, however, these
reform
programs met with little success. Rojas Pinilla was unable
to
restructure Colombian society.
Rojas Pinilla attempted to recruit political support
from
nontraditional sources. He courted the military by raising
salaries
and constructing lavish officers' clubs, and he counted
the church
by espousing a "Christian" doctrine as the foundation of
his
government. Through the creation of a "third force," Rojas
Pinilla
attempted to fuse the masses of peasants and urban workers
into a
movement that would counter the elite's traditional
domination of
the country's politics; however, this served more to anger
the
elite than to create a populist political base.
Support for the Rojas Pinilla regime faded within the
first
year. Toward the end of 1953, rural violence was renewed,
and Rojas
Pinilla undertook strict measures to counter it. Following
a
substantial increase in police and military budgets, the
government
assumed a dictatorial and demagogic character. The
government
reversed its initial social reform measures and relied
instead on
repression. It tightened press censorship and closed a
number of
the country's leading newspapers, both Liberal and
Conservative.
Under a new law, anyone who spoke disrespectfully of the
president
could be jailed or fined. Many were killed or wounded at
the socalled Bull Ring Massacre in February 1956 for failing to
cheer
Rojas Pinilla sufficiently. The administration became
increasingly
corrupt, and graft in government circles was rampant. In
addition,
economic deterioration, triggered by a drop in coffee
prices and
exacerbated by inflationary government policies, seriously
threatened the gains made since World War II. Efforts of
government
troops to suppress the widespread violence degenerated
into an
enforcement of the president's tenuous hold on power, and
their
methods became more brutal. Scorched-earth policies were
introduced
to confront the 20,000 belligerents estimated to be active
in rural
areas.
Rojas Pinilla tried to provide a legal facade for his
dictatorship. A new constitution (the Constitution of 1886
was
abolished in 1954) created a Legislative Assembly composed
of
fifty-nine Conservatives and thirty-three Liberals, twenty
of whom
were nominated by the president. The assembly elected
Rojas Pinilla
to the presidency in 1954 for four years; in 1957 it
confirmed him
as president until 1962, an action that consolidated
mounting
opposition to Rojas Pinilla and precipitated his
subsequent fall
from power.
By early 1957, most organized groups opposed Rojas
Pinilla.
Liberal and Conservative elites, to whom the populist and
demagogic
Rojas Pinilla had become a greater threat than their
traditional
party adversaries, decided to stop feuding and to join
forces
against the president under the banner of the National
Front.
Conservative and Liberal leaders had been negotiating an
alliance
since early 1956. In July 1956, Gómez--in exile in
Spain--and
Lleras Camargo signed the Declaration of Benidorm, a
document that
laid the foundation for the future institutionalization of
a
coalition government. The moderate Conservatives,
supporting Rojas
Pinilla until 1957, did not join in negotiations with the
Liberals
until that time.
Although factionalism between moderates and
reactionaries
slowed the process, all concerned parties signed a final
agreement
in San Carlos in 1957. Based on the Sitges Agreement
signed between
the reactionaries and the Liberals in Sitges, Spain, in
1957, the
San Carlos Agreement stipulated that a Conservative,
either
moderate or reactionary, would be the first president
under a
National Front and that he would be elected by a National
Congress
previously elected by popular vote. The Sitges and San
Carlos
agreements, which sought to reduce interparty tensions and
provide
a basis for power-sharing between the parties, also called
for the
following: restoration of the Constitution of 1886, which
had been
abolished by Rojas Pinilla; the alternation of the
presidency
between the two parties every four years; parity between
parties in
all legislative bodies; a required two-thirds majority
vote for the
passage of legislation; the establishment of an
administrative
career service of neutral parties not subject to partisan
appointment; women's suffrage and equal political rights
for women;
and the devotion of at least 10 percent of the national
budget to
education.
As the party leaders laid the basis for a coalition
government,
the tides of discontent turned against Rojas Pinilla. When
Rojas
Pinilla ordered the arrest of Guillermo León Valencia, a
Conservative leader involved in the formation of the
National
Front, Rojas Pinilla was confronted with student
demonstrations,
massive strikes, riots, and finally the declared
opposition of the
church and the defection of top-ranking military officers.
In May
1957, faced with a multitude of protesters and top
military leaders
requesting his resignation, Rojas Pinilla resigned and
went into
temporary exile in Spain. Power reverted to a five-man
junta led by
General Gabriel París, who promised the free election of a
civilian
president in August 1958.
In December 1957, Colombians voted overwhelmingly in a
national
plebiscite to approve the Sitges and San Carlos agreements
as
amendments to the Constitution of 1886. Congressional
elections
were held soon thereafter, with the result that the
reactionary
Conservatives emerged as the largest faction of the
Conservative
half of Congress. Gómez vetoed the proposed presidential
candidacy
of Valencia, who until then had been the strongest
Conservative
candidate. As a result of this division within the PC,
faction
leaders agreed to allow a Liberal to be the first
president under
the National Front and to extend the provision of the
coalition
government from twelve to sixteen years. These agreements
were
ratified by Congress as constitutional amendments in 1958.
In
August of that year, Lleras Camargo, a Liberal, was
elected as the
first president under the National Front.
Data as of December 1988
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