Martial Law in Colombia:
SERPA, FERNANDO
Martial Law in Colombia A return to constitutional government still seems a long way off By Fernando Serpa THE BACKBONE of Colombia's economy is agriculture, espe?cially coffee. Cattle makes meat...
...For the past five years, Colombia has been living under martial law...
...Colombia must import (principally from the U.S...
...all the machinery, technical know-how and most of the manufactured goods it uses...
...Mario Ospina Perez, the new President, was greatly influenced by Conservatives eager to remain in power at any cost...
...The army scourged whole provinces: bands of police and detectives set fire to the buildings of the Liberal newspapers El Tiempo and El Espectador...
...The guer?rillas put down their arms...
...When a heart attack sent Gomez into temporary retirement, Robert Urdaneta took over, and the violence increased...
...On its eve, Dario Eschandia, the Liberal candidate, who had urged his fol?lowers to abstain, was attacked by police with drawn guns...
...Thereafter, the regime terrorized the people and made honest elections impossible...
...The Pan-American Highway is still without a link between Panama and Colom?bia...
...As its first act, it named the General chief executive for the Presidential term 1954-58...
...The people reacted sympathetically to the new government's promises of equal justice to all Colombians, regardless of politics, race or religion, and to the announced program of "peace, justice and liberty" that was to cul?minate in honest elections...
...Later, the Govern?ment claimed that the protest was a "Communist plot" and appointed an army colonel as Rector of the University...
...loans and technical aid have not helped very much...
...In June 1953, Gomez returned to office and ordered the dismissal of General Rojas Pinilla, army chief of staff...
...In the last year, there has been considerable abatement of violence, but conditions are far from ideal...
...A Presidential election was held under martial law...
...Both Liberal leaders were forced to leave the country...
...Two blocks before the Presi?dent's residence, they were met by troops, who mowed them down with rifles and machine guns...
...When the "election" was over, Laureano Gomez, chief of the Conservative party's extreme right wing, a power?ful orator and a man of fanatic con?victions, emerged as President...
...Fernando Serpa contributes to El T tempo and Vanguard ia Liberal...
...The following day, his fellow students inarched through Bogota's streets toward the Presidential Palace, demanding pun?ishment for the murderers and the dismissal of Interior Minister Pablon...
...On April 9, 1948, Liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated on Bogota's main street...
...All of this changed dra?matically in 1948, when riots in Bogota set off almost five years of reactionary terror and near-civil war...
...his brother was killed shielding him...
...Another man who surrendered to authorities on a promise of safe-conduct was assassinated by the police...
...It ranked with Uruguay as one of the hemisphere's freest re?publics...
...On June 8 of this year, however, the police invaded University City and killed a student...
...Manufacturing has been on the upswing...
...The Liberals refused to recognize Gomez's victory, and he was hounded by members of the police and army, many of whom joined the "guerrillas...
...The very unfavorable balance of trade means that poverty and social unrest are growing steadily...
...In 1945, the Conservatives won a free election by capitalizing on a Liberal party split...
...Iron and steel factories began production in Paz del Rio this year...
...Coffee, Colombia's principal source of foreign exchange, supplies jobs for at least a third of the population...
...Protective tariffs help the textile factories of the Antioquia region...
...Co?lombia also exports bananas, but their contribution to the national wealth is limited...
...the homes of ex-President Alfonso Lopez and Liberal party chief Carlos Lleras were burned...
...Colombia does most of its trad?ing with the United States, some with other parts of the hemisphere...
...As a result of tin's outbreak, the return to constitutional government was postponed, and a Constitutional Assembly, composed of Conservatives and dissident Liberals named by President Rojas Pinilla, was called into session...
...Oil, extracted in the Magdalena River valley and the Catatumbo region, provides some foreign exchange...
...Foreign investors prosper, 'politicals' fill the prisons Before World War II, Colombia had a long history of orderly de?mocracy...
...Although the Government, billing itself as "a military regime in the service of all the people of Colombia," continued to be dominated by Conservatives, the Liberals had faith in the prom?ised return to constitutional govern?ment...
...But technical difficulties hamper internal transportation...
...The gold mines produce a slight profit, but emerald and silver deposits are difficult to exploit...
...The General, supported by Ospina Perez and Urdaneta, over?threw Gomez and exiled him...
...Everyone's financial condition, including the Government's, is af?fected by its price fluctuations...
...The streets were strewn with dead bodies and riddled books...
...Cattle makes meat imports unnecessary, though dairy products are scarce...
...It is now believed that democratic government cannot return In Colom?bia until martial law ends and new elections are called...
...And "the oldest commercial airline in the Americas" has de?veloped a monopoly here, impeding the establishment of new lines...
...The following year, Ospina declared himself dic?tator and dissolved Congress...
...European trade, revived since the war, has been helped by the crea?tion of the Gran Colombia merchant fleet, in association with Ecuador...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 52
