COLOMBIA UNDER A NEW PRESIDENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00353R000100080001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 2, 2002
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 5, 1974
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For RBI, gipfM/1AR~90 5fW9i100080001-7
1035/74
August 5, 1974
SUBJECT: Colombia Under A New President
INTRODUCTION
The inauguration of 61-year-old Alfonso Lopez
Michelsen as President of Colombia on August 7 will
place the country on a slightly left-of-center course,
but the new administration will bring no major shifts
in either US-Colombian relations or domestic policies.
After the Liberal Party leader is inaugurated, changes
in policies from those of incumbent Conservative Misael
Pastrana will be more tactical than strategic in nature.
Lopez refers to himself as center-left and is in fact
somewhat more moderate than Pastrana, but both men be-
long to the broad Colombian center.
The absence of significant differences between
the Liberal and Conservative parties throughout Colom-
bian history in large part accounts for the size of
the country's political center. It also explains the
success of the National Front coalition in which the
two parties have been allied since 1958. The 16-year
Front concludes with Pastrana's departure from office.
In an effort to ease the transition from coalition
rule, the agreement calls for continued Liberal-Con-
servative parity in appointive positions during the
first post-Front government. Thus, Lopez will fill
half of the appointive positions in his administration
with members of the opposition party. Although Lopez'
presidency will be the last under the National Front
and his party will control the Congress, there is
little likelihood that he will attempt to isolate the
Conservatives politically until late in his four-year
term.
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The new administration will look a great deal
like the present one below the appointive level. Al-
though retirements will be encouraged to bring younger
technicians into the government, there will be few
new personnel at the working level. Domestically,
this is likely to mean that the transition to new
programs will be very slow. In the area of foreign
relations, some 'rather abrupt changes will be noted,
but these will be largely superficial. Observers
both inside and outside Colombia are likely to see
little major change, and what they see is likely to
be orderly and gradual.
The new Congress convened on July 20. Lopez,
whose party has a majority of 59 percent in the Sen-
ate and 58 percent in the Chamber of Deputies, is
likely to experience little difficulty with legisla-
tion, as a simple majority is needed for the passage
of most bills. The Congress functions very slowly,
however, and Lopez is expected to ask for and receive
"extraordinary powers" to initiate anti-inflation
measures and to reorganize some governmental institu-
tions.
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DOMESTIC PROGRAMS
Soon after the April 21 election, Lopez began
taking preliminary steps toward initiating new legisla-
tion and organizing the new congressional leadership.
For several months now a variety of commissions have
been formulating, an income and salary policy and de-
veloping legislation concerning electoral reforms and
the reorganization of the offices of Comptroller
General and Attorney General. Also soon after the
election, Lopez asked the National Industrial As-
sociation, the Union of Colombian Workers, and the
Colombian Workers Confederation to name representa-
tives to participate with Lopez' own representatives
in establishing an ad hoc agreement on salaries and
income.
Lopez considers-such a policy essential to con-
trolling inflation and lowering the cost of living--
his main campaign pledge. It is evident that he will
move slowly in this area, however. He will practice
fiscal austerity in government, including unspecified
tax reforms and decreased foreign borrowing, and will
urge similar restraint on the rest of the country.
He will also attempt to raise the income level of the
small farmer, still in many ways the backbone of the
nation's economy, by increasing the availability of
technical assistance and credit through the Agrarian
Reform Institute, which is to be streamlined. Large
land holdings are certain to be left untouched, how-
ever, as much of Lopez' financial backing has always
come from wealthy landowners.
Since the election, Lopez has elaborated on his
plans for other domestic policy changes. He is com-
mitted to augmenting personal freedoms and rights,
although he has made it clear that he would not hesi-
tate to suspend such guarantees if necessary to pre-
serve order--not an inconsequential provision in a
country with Colombia's history of violence. He has
made a. controversial pledge to "modernize" church-
state relations, by which he means to extend to
non-Catholics tax-exemption privileges and to
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recognize civil marriage. This last provision will
lead to a de facto recognition of divorce, as Lopez
has pointed out.
Two of the earliest bills Lopez can be expected
to send to congress will propose lowering the voting
age to 18 years and guaranteeing equal rights to women.
These were major campaign promises, and their enact-
ment will go far toward counterbalancing possible.
disappointment with what is certain to be the more
cautious pace of economic legislation.
Lopez, who served as foreign minister from 1968
to 1970, will continue the policy of "international
pluralism" followed by all National Front administra-
tions. He is likely to be somewhat more aggressive
than his predecessors in initiating trade relation-
ships with Communist governments, particularly China,
but he will be in no hurry to elevate trade missions
to diplomatic status.
Colombian-US relations are likely to remain good,
although they may be strained occasionally by Lopez'
quest for pluralism. Lopez has criticized some as-
pects of US policy toward Latin America, singling out
seeming inconsistencies between friendly overtures by
the Department of State and strict enforcement of pro-
tective trade regulations by the Department of Com-
merce. He has also expressed. the view that US policy
on Cuba is out of date. Lopez apparently considers
his criticism of the US constructive, and certainly
it will not interfere with normal bilateral relations.
Lopez supports lifting OAS sanctions against
Cuba and has considered moving unilaterally to re-
establish relations with Havana. If a formal resolu-
tion is introduced at the OAS seeking to normalize
Cuban relations multilaterally, however, Lopez is
likely to support it. His relations with the military
government of Chile can be expected to be cool so
long as human rights remain an issue.
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As part of the same picture of international in-
dependence, Lopez has already taken a protectionist
stand regarding natural resources. He envisions re-
structuring foreign investment regulations to favor
mixed enterprises with state control. Such a change
is taking place in the iron-ore and gold industries
now; nickel and petroleum will probably follow. Lopez
insists that foreign investment will continue to be
welcomed, however, and his announced desire to increase
exports implies a high level of foreign participation.
He will emphasize income from mineral exports, food-
stuffs, and labor-intensive goods for sale to countries
with high local labor costs.
Politically, the new president is likely to be
faced with two major problem areas: youth and the
transition from coalition to adversary politics.
Students at Colombia's universities and larger urban
secondary schools overwhelmingly supported Lopez'
candidacy, and many worked long and hard for his
campaign. Among other things, they were captivated
by his promise to lower the voting age to 18 years.
Now viewing the campaign with several months' per-
spective, Lopez is beginning to realize that the
students' hunger for social change far exceeds his
ability (or wish) to reorder Colombian society. The
enthusiasm of youth will not long be held by Lopez'
program to increase the number of individuals covered
by social security, nor by his plan to guarantee at
least four years of education to all children. The
more thoughtful among the youth may even question--
with some justification--the government's ability to
finance such programs. Ironically, Lopez' almost
certain moderation of his predecessor's restrictive
policy toward student demonstrations could well lead
to more student violence than the country has seen
since widespread campus disorders in 1969 and 1970.
The problem of party politics is more subtle.
Today, as in 1958 and earlier, the Liberal and Con-
servative parties are unexpectedly alike, despite
their names. They are strongly hierarchical in the
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sense that internal power and authority flows from
party leaders through descending levels of organization
to the rank and file, with little if any reverse flow.
Notwithstanding party splits--which are common, as
in 1970 when two Conservatives sought the party's last
turn in the presidency under the National Front--both
parties are traditionalist and essentially agrarian.
They date from the country's independence in 1819,
and the intervening years have had remarkably little
effect on them. To the extent that they have matured
or otherwise changed, they have done so in like pro-
portions, preserving their sameness. The alliance
of the two parties since 1958 has further precluded
their independent development.
If one of the purposes of the National Front
coalition was to provide for the tranquil develop-
ment of new political institutions, then it failed.
In fact, its structure doomed it to failure in that
regard. By providing for Liberals and Conservatives
to alternate in the presidency and for an equal
sharing of other government positions, the coalition
destroyed the two parties' need to compete. No mat-
ter what happened, the party out of power was guaranteed
the presidency within four years, and beyond the
presidential office, neither party was ever really
out of power. There was little need to campaign for
votes, no need to seek legislative trade-offs, and
no need to promote or defend policies. There is
little wonder that in this context no new ideologies
developed.
Further complicating the transition from coali-
tion government is the existence of the National
Popular Alliance (ANAPO). Nominally a vehicle for
the lingering aspirations of ex-dictator Gustavo
Rojas Pinilla after his overthrow in 1957, ANAPO
quickly took on a magnified importance because of
the National Front itself. Liberal and Conservative
politicians who were for any reason dissatisfied with
the constraints of the coalition seized upon ANAPO
as a protest channel. Although ANAPO candidates were
prevented by the National Front from running for public
office under the ANAPO banner, they could run as
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alternative candidates of either major party. In
this way dissident Liberals and Conservatives were
able to band together while the letter of the law
establishing the coalition was observed. At the
same time--almost without notice by the major parties--
ANAPO began to amass an independent constituency of
its own.
Following ANAPO's creation in 1962 its candidates,
running as Conservatives, garnered 2 percent of the
vote in presidential elections in that year, 23
percent in 1966, and 40 percent in 1970. Their show-
ing similarly improved in intervening off-year elections.
In 1972, however, when the National Front began its
phase-out in local and regional government, ANAPO
electoral strength dropped to 19 percent. Also par-
alleling the phase-out of the coalition and the ac-
companying return of authentic political competition
between the Liberal and Conservative parties, the
leaders of ANAPO began to return to their former
parties. By the 1974 election, in which ANAPO's share
dropped to 10 percent, virtually the entire leader-
ship had abandoned the party.
ANAPO is in eclipse now, but the party's con-
stituency remains a significant political factor.
Just under 1.6 million voters supported the party's
presidential candidate--Rojas Pinilla himself--in
1970. The number decreased to one-half million in
this year's election, not only because of the party's
overall decline but also because the attraction of
Rojas was absent. The candidacy of his daughter
placed the magic Rojas name on the ballot, but tradi-
tionalist Colombian voters were far from ready for
a female president. Nevertheless, although some of
ANAPO's supporters drifted away or failed to vote
at all in 1974, there remains a large group of citizens
ready either to follow a populist candidate (pre-
sumably male), or to turn to any reasonable alterna-
tive to the Liberal-Conservative establishment, or
both.
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No Colombian politician can forget that the
primary reason for creating the National Front was
to end the bloody violence that characterized Liberal-
Conservative politics during the 1940s and early 1950s.
No doubt Liberal and Conservative leaders in 1958 hoped
that during the coming years of coalition the earlier
bloodshed mentality would somehow be outgrown. it
remains to be seen whether this has been achieved, but
it is probable that major violence between the parties
is a thing of the past.
It may be argued that while mature political
organizations have failed to appear during the life
of the coalition, the armed political gangs of the
pre-coalition era have now become institutionalized
in the form of guerrilla groups. Originally devoid
of ideology and only loosely tied to local Liberal
and Conservative bosses, those groups surviving the
past two decades have gravitated toward any willing
source of support. In the case of the three principal
contemporary insurgent groups, support has meant
pro-Moscow, pro-Peking, and pro-Havana ideologues.
For the new President--as for all of his precursors
under the National Front governments--insurgency will
be a problem with political, as well as internal
security, significance.
The insurgents are well established and indulge
in few pretenses. Unlike some guerrillas elsewhere
in Latin America, they shun the Robin Hood image of
taking from the rich to give to the poor. They do
some leftist sloganeering, probably in deference to
Communist sources of materiel and funds, but their
convictions are only superficially Marxist. They
wage a war of attrition against the establishment,
attacking isolated police posts and ambushing small
army patrols, but they also murder simple villagers
for no apparent reason. They live off the land, taking
what they need or want from others or from nature.
Although they have historical links to the Liberal-
Conservative establishment, and more recent links to
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organizations of the far left, they have an independent
momentum that makes them self-sufficient. Most Colom-
bians see them as almost a part of nature, although an
unpleasant one, and seem reconciled to their presence.
PROSPECTS
There is very little likelihood in the forseeable
future of large-scale political violence along the
lines of that which almost tore Colombia apart 25 years
ago. Nevertheless, the chances of fairly serious
violence erupting are greater now than at any time
since 1958. The peacekeeping qualities of the National
Front have all but disappeared. The forces favoring
continued peace--the military and the considerable
weight of traditional Colombian conservatism--are
probably no greater a deterrent now than they were
in the 1940s when the height of violence was reached.
The election in April slightly increased the chances
of renewed problems in the sense that the dramatic,
across-the-board, Conservative loss presages the
party's elimination from the meaningful exercise of
power for an indefinite period. In the same sense,
the inauguration will be an even more important turn-
ing point.
Of all the possible establishmentarian presidents
from both traditional parties, Alfonso Lopez is an
excellent choice as peacekeeper. Not only does he
speak for the Liberal Party, but he also can be counted
upon to accord the Conservatives their role under the
remaining parity provision of the National Front.
In addition, he is a rare member of the establishment
with a modicum of appeal to the lower classes, in-
cluding the former Rojas Pinilla constituency that
is now at loose ends. During the 1960s, he established
a leftist Liberal Party splinter group favoring ac-
celerated social and economic reform. Although he
gradually drifted back into the Liberal mainstream,
he continues to have a broader appeal than might
otherwise be the case.
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As a realist presiding over a difficult period
in Colombian history, Lopez can be expected to do
nothing to narrow the focus of that appeal. In
choosing the six Conservatives he will appoint to
his cabinet, he is almost certain to defer to their
party leaders; he is equally certain to please the
military establishment with his choice of defense
minister. He also will move as quickly as prudence
will permit to reinvigorate the torpid agrarian re-
form program and control the nation's inflated economy.
He will not be seriously challenged by either rural
insurgency, which is likely to continue, or the poli-
tical left. The open question centers on the Con-
servatives and how they will play the new role of
"loyal opposition."
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