Following on Friday’s too-brief post, here is a fuller discussion of the reasons why President Ãlvaro Uribe is suddenly facing serious obstacles to a 2010 re-election bid.
We rely heavily here on direct citations from Colombian press and web sources, whose analysis of the country’s politics deserves translation into English.
Four reasons a constitutional reform referendum allowing re-election is unlikely this fall:
1. The congressional leadership elections during the week of July 20 were, in a sense, the final nail in the coffin. As they began a new session, Colombia’s House and Senate elected new presidents, both of them from center-right parties that have been firmly pro-Uribe since their creation. The Senate is now led by Javier Cáceres of the Radical Change party, and the House is headed by Édgar Gómez of the Citizens’ Convergence party.
According to La Silla VacÃa, both politicians are on the verge of leaving the pro-Uribe bloc.
Cáceres is considered to be in opposition. The reason? Within the pro-Uribe bloc they believe that Cáceres will be loyal to Germán Vargas [a right-wing senator, the head of Cáceres' Radical Change party, who supported Uribe until earlier this year, when he publicly opposed re-election], and not to the government, since he needs Radical Change’s approval in order to run for Senate in 2010. … As representatives of this party confirmed to La Silla VacÃa, Gómez struck an agreement months ago with César Gaviria [the former president, now head of the opposition Liberal party] to join the Liberal Party, where he began his political career and in which he will carry out his 2010 campaign, during the second half of this year.
La Silla VacÃa speculates that Gómez and the Liberals may push hard for approval of a new Victims’ Law – which was overturned by President Uribe in June – because “it will be a popular campaign issue for them in 2010.”
The chambers’ presidents are not as powerful as their U.S. counterparts (the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader), but have significant control over the legislative agenda, La Silla VacÃa explains.
Cáceres and Gómez choose who speaks in the plenary sessions, which bills deserve priority and decide when a quorum is sufficient to begin debating a bill. If they turn a blind eye and fail to count attendance at the right moment, they can sink a bill. They also exercise influence over some congresspeople, as they define which senators and representatives deserve a change in their official car or office arrangements. This extra power makes them able to tip the balance when it comes to choosing committee chairmanships.
How did the opposition – still a minority of Congress – carry out this takeover? La Silla VacÃa explains:
Many ask how it was that the President lost control of such important positions at such a crucial moment for the referendum. The explanation is the same as always: bureaucratic resentments in the small Uribista parties who feel abandoned by the president. There were also several Uribistas’ concealed loyalties to candidates like “Uribito” [Andrés Felipe Arias, Uribe's former Agriculture Minister and likely Conservative party candidate if Uribe does not run] and Juan Manuel Santos [Uribe's former Defense Minister and a likely candidate of the Unity "La U" party if Uribe does not run], which ended up strengthening the opposition.
2. Time is running out. Semana describes a rapidly closing window for changing the Constitution in time for the 2010 voting.
While it is dead politically, technically it is still in its death throes. According to the Law of Guarantees, November 30 is the deadline by which the President must announce whether or not he intends to be a candidate for a third term. But in these four months two legally required phases must be overcome within very narrow time periods. First, the Constitutional Court’s revision of the bill, which during the last re-election took more than three months. And second, the convening of elections by the Civil Registry which, according to that agency, would take a similar amount of time. In other words, two processes that normally could take between six and eight months would have to be reduced by half. If the Uribista machinery were the steamroller that it was in the past, those two processes could be “railroaded through” in that time, despite the controversy it would inspire. But if anything was clear after July 20 [when the new congressional leadership was chosen], it was that the pro-Uribe bloc in Congress may still be a majority movement, but now it is not a steamroller.
3. The two chambers of Congress are unlikely to resolve a key difference in their referendum bills: the possibility of consecutive re-election. The Senate passed a bill for a referendum on whether to allow Uribe to run again in 2010. The House bill instead is written in a way that has been interpreted to allow re-election only in 2014. The House-Senate committee charged with “reconciling” the two bills does not appear likely to yield to the Senate’s 2010 version, writes Semana.
The majority of the 25 conferees named by the House have refused to serve on the committee, arguing that they fear legal consequences [more on that below]. However, there is an additional, weightier reason that they never invoke in public: that they don’t believe in the referendum anymore. And if the moment to turn the page is to be the reconciliation of the bills, then that moment has arrived.
4. Too many members of Congress fear legal consequences if they support the referendum. The 2004 constitutional change allowing Uribe to run in 2006 passed only because undecided members of a House committee were improperly offered favors. One of those members, Yidis Medina, is now in prison for accepting the power to name her associates to several lucrative positions in exchange for her pro-re-election vote. That scandal, called “Yidis-politics,” has cast a long shadow on attempts to move a second re-election forward. Notes Semana:
The “Yidis-politics” precedent has made it so that not a single government official even dares insinuate that he might be offering any favors to a legislator in exchange for their support of re-election. Those who did this in the last election ended up in trouble with the law. In addition, the 86 legislators who voted for the referendum [in December] before the National Electoral Council approved the signature count [on the petitions for the bill to be considered] are being investigated by the Supreme Court.
What might happen next, then? Key members of the Uribe government and the leadership of pro-Uribe parties insist that they are still trying to get the referendum bill reconciled by the middle of August, despite the obstacles. If that fails, their next options could be:
1. Convene a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, pushing off the 2010 elections if necessary. This is unlikely According to Semana, “Some recalcitrant ‘Furibistas’ [furious Uribistas, of course] mention the possibility of a legislative act or even a constituent assembly after the referendum sinks. None of that will fly in the Congress. As ex-President César Gaviria affirmed, ‘If the Uribista legislators weren’t able to elect their own congressional leadership, how are they going to process a constitutional reform in such a short period of time?’”
2. Have a referendum to allow a non-consecutive re-election in 2014. “What could happen,” Semana believes, “is a formula that could allow Ãlvaro Uribe to return to power in 2014. This would be a transaction which would give a little satisfaction to the president and allow everyone to wash their hands.” However, the magazine adds, Uribe’s return would be a poor idea.
Colombian democracy would be more fluid if, after eight years in government, its ex-presidents were unable to return, as is the case in the United States. An ex-president with a possibility of returning would cast a very heavy shadow during the interim. It is hard to imagine the Calvary suffered by Uribe’s replacement knowing that, among his followers, there is an expectation of monarchical restoration.
Will Uribe really just leave power next year? Some analysts are unwilling to believe that the president’s re-election drive is over. “The referendum is moribund, but re-election is alive and kicking,” writes Claudia López in El Tiempo today. “We cannot declare victory,” adds opposition supporter Daniel GarcÃa-Peña in El Espectador. “Let’s not forget that in this country magical surrealism outweighs institutional reality, and the ‘Rule of Opinion’ kills the ‘Rule of Law’ (in the chess sense of the word).”
GarcÃa-Peña, along with many other commentators in Colombia, refers to a controversial new rhetorical figure that keeps popping up in President Uribe’s speeches of late. The president keeps saying that the “Rule of Opinion” (Estado de Opinión) “is the superior phase” of the “Rule of Law” (Estado de Derecho). It is not clear what Uribe means by this – his language is rather abstract, poetic and vaguely populist – but it has many observers concerned that it implies a popular president’s prerogative to challenge institutional constraints. Including constraints on re-election? Nobody knows.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
This is off topic, but this months issue of the NACLA Report on the America’s is almost entirely devoted to paramilitarism in Colombia. Jasmin Hristov writes in one article on the new paramilitary groups:
“In short, the Colombian government’s “peace process†was not merely a failure, but pure farce. Paramilitary groups have never been, and are even less so now, a third actor in the Colombian armed conflict (the state and the guerrillas being the other two), as portrayed in the mainstream media. On the contrary, since their inception in the 1960s as U.S.-trained counter-insurgent forces, and their rearticulation in the 1980s as militias working on behalf of landed interests, they have been the Colombian establishment’s right hand. Then as now, they deploy violence both for the sake of destroying civil and armed opposition movements, and of accumulating capital for themselves and those they serve, most dramatically by driving entire communities off their land.”
Available online at: https://nacla.org/currentissue
August 4th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Also, Adam, you are cited in the lead article.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Capital Accumulation through violence: what an noble activity in the country of thugs, the rogue state so to call it, in which now the US will have a full fledge military operation God knows with what purpose other than controlling Venezuela and Ecuador anticapitalist policy schemes. Thanks Eric. What a mess Colombia is.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
The victory of politically convenient simplification, partial and incomplete presentation of the facts and extremely sloppy academic work is what that NACLA article is, but I imagine that none of you will admit that since you’re so busy cheering and circle-jerking.
Typical.
Regards,
Marcos
August 5th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Marcos. Is it difficult for you to admit that Mr Uribe, given the endless evidence to that respect, is a dangerous thug or is it the fact that you also are or all of the above.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Nah, it can’t possibly be more difficult than getting you to at least acknowledge there are problems with how that article presents things. I’ll die the day that happens. Of laughter, hopefully.
Oh, I forgot. The burden of proof and the need for accuracy only matters in one direction. The one most convenient to this little social club.
Details? To hell with them! Popular justice (ie: lynching) needs no details.
Silly me, sorry for bothering you all.
Regards,
Marcos
August 6th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I don’t have any problem with stating that article has many problems with how it presents things – of course it also makes many valid points. To me it seems clear the author hasn’t read the Colombian literature on paramilitarism – that is probably the most general way to cover many of the errors.
Also, I didn’t know blog comment sections could be so seemingly scoldingly personal…
August 6th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Also, very good sum-up on the reelection battle.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Marcos or Kyle – Can you provide some examples of the errors, simplification, sloppy work etc. in the article?
August 7th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Kyle, may ask a question for my own edification? I’m terribly busy right now so all I could was to give the NACLA article a very quick glance. I could use a quick rundown of the problems you find there since I think you know a lot about the subject. The reason I’m asking is because the article’s broad lines seem in agreement with what people in the know have told me about the Justice and Peace Law so I wonder what holes are there in the argument.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:52 am
One example, off the top of my head is that the author states that paramilitaries were of a US creation. For me that is simply wrong – the US did recommend their use but this does not automatically mean created. In fact, there were many armed groups during Colombia’s La Violencia that provide the roots for the current paramilitary phenomena – classic examples being los pajaros in northern Valle and Contrachusmas in Antioquia – Gustavo Duncan (correctly, in my opinion – obviously) points out in his book Senores de la Guerra that there is a regional correlation between the type of armed groups used during la Violencia and the paramilitary manifestation years later – giving the two examples I gave (and others that I don’t remember off the top of my head). Also, if you read the most recent parapolitica book from Nuevo Arco Iris you will note in almost all the chapters similar conclusions. For me, the US made a recommendation (albeit horrible) that the Army use “paramilitary terror/sabotage” (if my memory serves me right, that’s the direct quote…) – but paramilitary groups had already existed in Colombia before this recommendation – this is one for now. I’ll go through it again and post some more stuff later. Though to be clear I do not have a lot against the analysis of the peace process – but there are issues in my mind. I want to make that clear before any expectations arise.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Note I’ll leave out the nit-picking stuff, like what is a “conservative estimate” or issues about statistics – though if statistics are misused or don’t really apply, I’ll point it out. Also, all my comments of course are my opinion – I’m just not going to write the phrase “in my opinion” or IMO or IMHO a million types, so I ask that this be kept in mind. To start, one of my biggest qualms is we don’t get a definition of paramilitarism. We get a lot about what the AUC (which the author assumes to be a coherent group) does/did/acts/acted – but not what paramilitarism is, which I think is essential to an argument like this.
Yet between 2007 and 2008, the number of murdered Colombian unionists increased by more than 71%. For me slightly disingenuous use of a statistic – also, on its own (even with context and knowledge that we all have of who is responsible for the vast majority of these crimes), doesn’t demonstrate anything regarding a new paramilitary phenomenon.
In 2008, 380,863 people were forced to abandon their homes, a sharp increase over 2006. The author means 2007 (the sentence before cites the “same period” which was the line I just quoted about unionists). Again, has no direct implication on the argument at hand – that paramilitarism has or has not ended.
Of note as well – though it may be considered minor – Ejercito Revolucionario Popular Anti-Subversivo de Colombia-ERPAC – this group is run by narco-trafficker Cuchillo (if I’m not mistaken) and according to International Crisis Group is working with the FARC in los llanos y Vichada. They are pure narcos – nothing more. My argument here implies that the AUC as a whole was not a pure narco-trafficking group, but had a political side – which I think is correct, though, of course, there were many pure narco groups in the AUC.
These groups are not completely new, since they include former AUC combatants who have decided to rearm, members of old groups that officially remained active during the peace process, new recruits, criminal gangs, and police and military officers, as well as mayors and governors. OK, some of this is accurate – up until criminal gangs. Police and military units, to me, seems to vary between groups and regions and of course varies in the amount of involvement. Mayors and governmors – haven’t seen any direct evidence of this with the new groups – of course with the AUC. And apparently neither has the author – no source is given at all. The rest of this paragraph goes on to point out how the new groups act like the old AUC – which is fairly accurate but highly limited. Their military modes of operation and sources of funding are similar in many ways. Ways that they are different, the new groups and old AUC, are completely left out of the picture. Many authors describe the AUC as mafio-like, defending their and elite interests, or as “armed bureaucracy” and obviously they looked for and were able to obtain far-reaching political influence. We don’t really see much mafia-like activity from the new groups, we don’t really know what their interests are (outside of financial) and it is hard to tell who else’s interests they may be defending; and only some of the new groups seem to have a political side – these would be some MAJOR differences for me, and none are listed. Also, we don’t know where the money goes with the new groups, or their goals, successes, etc so it’s hard to say if they are “senores de la guerra” – though they clearly aren’t going for national political power so they meet the 5th requirement. Many don’t fit in Kalyvas and Arjona’s schematic for a theory of what is a paramilitary. They don’t really seem to be defending elite interests against threats desde abajo, which would be more Romero’s definition of a paramilitary, some may be doing this though – probably more the narco-elite. Again, whose interests they are defending is tough to say (as I just pointed out). OK, time to move on.
On the contrary, since their inception in the 1960s as U.S.-trained counter-insurgent forces, and their rearticulation in the 1980s as militias working on behalf of landed interests, they have been the Colombian establishment’s right hand. This is the sentence I was referring to earlier about the US creating them – I mis-remembered the quote. But my argument remains pertinent. Paras existed before this and I don’t recall them ever being directly trained by the US…recommended yes, but trained, no. Anyone have a source for this???
the Colombian state’s coercive apparatus and its private, paramilitary extension. I chose this because will to some extent this is perfectly accurate, there remains a massive amount of debate about this. The paras did act in such a manner, but is that all they were? And what do we say when we talk about attacks against parts of the state apparatus by para forces? The state is more than just the ‘Casa de Nari’, the public forces, Congress and the elite. It includes a hoard of branches that went directly against the paramilitary project (hence why corruption and murder were necessary many times against state agents, often judicial). I am in no why denying this line of argument as such, just saying there is more to the para forces than just being the state’s private coercive force. Why the land grabs then? The private wealth? It seems they played that role, but there was much more to the paras.
I won’t comment on the stuff directly about Uribe and his connections – my knowledge is more than just limited there. Though the convivir description could be better – this could be an editing issue or style for length, but poorly described. Gives us nothing of the origins of the groups, just what some of them turned into.
Moving on…
Indeed, one of the most important developments of Uribe’s second term in office, which began in 2006, has been the complete fusion of the legal (the state) and the illegal (paramilitary forces). This started LONG before Uribe’s second term – we just have been learning about it with the Parapolitica scandal – no thanks to Uribe and co. But, yeah, this is not new at all. Poor wording maybe – but no excuse.
The rest before the peace process is all about scandals. I’m not sure myself how well I articulated my points here, and some I avoided for various reasons, but I’ll let that sink in and let people respond, if they want and then I’ll post some stuff about the peace process…
August 9th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Kyle –
FWIW, Peter Dale Scott elaborates on the training by U.S. military personnel of armed “counter-terrorism” groups in Colombia in the 60s, all in his book, “Drugs, Oil and War.” I found the book to be exceedingly well-documented.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Kyle: Thanks very much for your response. Nothing is ever neat and straightforward in Colombia I look forward to your comments about the peace process.
The following excerpt from another report from the same issue “The Oil Palm Industry: A Blight on Afro-Colombia†may help to clarify things, or not.
““Fortunately, the paramilitaries are no longer present,†Armenio Cortés said. “There are some opportunists who call themselves Los Rastrojos. They are drug traffickers and are like the paramilitaries, although they deny that they are paramilitaries. But their business is to buy the coca and take it away. They are focused on this.â€
Hernán Cortés of PCN added that the new paramilitary groups like Los Rastrojos consist of former fighters of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) who had supposedly demobilized under the Justice and Peace Law.
“Only the name is different,†he said. “They are the same people. The top commanders have gone; the new commanders are those who previously were second- and third-level commanders.†Cortés said the new paramilitaries collude with the army and the local political establishment, just as before, and as a result they continue to maintain a culture of fear in order to control the local economy. He also alleges that the palm companies pay the paramilitaries “so that they’ll silence all social protests that oppose the planting of palm.—
August 12th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I haven’t got a chance to read the cited and criticized NACLA article, however I have a fair amount of experience first hand and through media about the Colombian conflict. The main reasons why Colombia is a big a failure are: Lots of drug money (the illegalness of drugs that makes it so profitable), high level of corruption in the government (not only misplacing public funds, but drug dealing and money laundering, which in turn is link to the abundance of drug money) and the lack of education of the average Colombian. (Which is a consequence of the afore mentioned)
Colombia is a Narco-Economy, that shouldn’t surprise or offend any Colombian. Government, FARC, and those few that manage to money launder the capital in between the two are the only ones benefitting from the situation.
Uribe failed us. His family is buying half of the country, taking advantage of the chaos that reigns in rural areas. I’m of the mind that he never wanted to end the conflict. FARC was nothing but relocated during his administration, FARC still operates, let me be clear, FARC still drug deals. At the end somebody has to do the dirty work, meaning someone has to produce the “Cocaâ€. Nowadays with new technology there is no reason for a State to lack control over its territory, there is nowhere to hide. Specially in a country like Colombia, where worth of mouth delivers more accurate information that the media.
Bottom line, the problem of paramilitarism it’s secondary, I can totally understand, people like Carlos Castano or Alvaro Uribe himself, for wanting to take justice into their own hands, building their own armies as they where too victims of the same chaos that has been set in Colombia for decades. It’s frustrating to see the Government do nothing about the security problems instead taking part of the big Colombia farce. But it’s so much money , no one can imagine how much money there is to be made in the drug business, anyone could be corrupted even foreign governments, including the very powerful ones.
About the reelection, I think it’s not proper from a true leader to be advocating he is the only good option for his country, reelection goes against the Democracy. There is an obvious advantage from he who is in power, just now we can see how people still believe Alvaro Uribe is an immaculate figure and will provide a better tomorrow for Colombia.
That’s just my humble opinion, open to criticism, poorly worded, but like Kyle said, “no excuse to make a valid pointâ€.
Cheers.
lled Drug money.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
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