Colombia's History Puzzle(1/2)

Hello WSN. This time let me share with you my interpretation of the history 
of Colombia. It is sent in two posts and it may have some common points with 
other colonized nations. Here, Usona means United States of North America, 
and usonian refers to its people. Thanks, Emilio
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Colombia's History Puzzle

Colombia's last 500 years have not been peaceful. Three centuries of spanish 
colonialism plus  180 years of republican life under equally excluding, 
corrupted, racist and violent elites never solved the inherited unequal 
distributions of land, income, opportunities nor the structural dependence 
on neocolonial powers. We have elections but not real democracy, and two 
main elite parties -consevatives and liberals - control the nation. Dozens 
of civil wars between them caused the death of millions of peasants, 
afro-colombians, mestizos and youth taken from popular classes, because 
elites used militars or contracted people to fight for them.  Last time that 
elites sons went into combat was in 1900.

During XX century we had one declared civil war, three undeclared ones and 
two dictatorships. Left candidates and representatives, union leaders, 
teachers, university students, human rights workers, honest periodists, 
judges, peasants have been assasinated by thousands per year during last two 
decades. In 1960s a militar bombing with napalm of 48 peasant-families 
(supported by Usona planes) became a 1000 fold bigger guerrilla known as 
Farc; the repression of a university strike became a guerrilla called ELN; 
the electoral fraud of 1970 ended in another guerrilla called M-19, and the 
church harrasment to father Camilo Torres social-discourse sent him and 
other priests to combat and death on the side of ELN guerrilla. 
Surprisingly, we were called the most stable democracy of Latin America by 
usonian political-science experts.

In the 1950s, pressed by Usona Gov, a colombian militar batallion made of 
peasants (always they) was sent to fight in Corea; those that survived still 
do not know why they fought there, but were happy to travel abroad.

During the last 42 years liberal-conservative parties learned to share 
power,  disolved their theoretical differences, gradually became fervent 
neo-liberals obedient to imperial orders, and established a modus vivendi 
with drug barons -including Usona-Europe mafias-. They recently agreed with 
guerrillas to dialogue for peace -while fighting war- , and have aproved the 
usonian war project called Plan Colombia, plus new debts for war.

This peace process has several obstacles: 1) Elites declare that peace is a 
precondition for social justice -in spite of their 400 years failure- while 
guerrilla argues that social peace is a precondition for peace. 2) Elites do 
not want to share their lands, but expect that somebody pays them for it. 3) 
Elites are using the army and their narco-paramilitars in violations of 
human rights of people. 4) Usona intervention in our internal problem is on 
elites side, is interested in our strategic position and resources, uses 
drug as a pretext, forms part of an andean policy of domination, fears the 
anti-neoliberal stand of guerrillas and considers the whole thing as a 
technical problem of killing-machines and strategies. 5) Colombian top rank 
militars, which administer a good percentage of government budget and are 
heavily corrupted, do not want to be reformed by a peace-dialogue.

In summary, present colombian civil war is still trying to solve problems 
more than 400 years old, at a time when neither Usona neither Marx existed, 
neither drug-traffic was a crime. Usonian official versions reduce the 
problem to the last four decades.

Next there are mentioned some elements present during last five centuries 
after spanish colonization started. Some of them belong to the field of 
necrophylia:

1) The practice of dismembering victims was heavily practiced during spanish 
domination with the plain support of christian hierarchy (to suppress 
indian, slaves and criollos resistance,  as a lesson against popular 
insurrections). Conquerors used to throw indian women and their children to 
feed big dogs when they rejected to serve them sexually (they even had the 
word "emperrar" for this practice). After 1810 independence, during XIX and 
XX centuries, we had dozens of civil wars between the two main elite parties 
(Conservatives and Liberals); soldiers were obtained from small villages, 
plantation slaves and haciendas' peasant-indians and put to kill 
theirselves. If you look at the first edition of book "La Violencia in 
Colombia", there is a picture of around 1950, where many army soldiers play 
soccer with a victim's head.

2) The racial pyramid and the land problem.
Colony meant the take over of the best lands which included docil servants 
as part of them, which were given to spaniards. Indians that were not killed 
entered to serve haciendas, or were simply pushed toward jungles and high 
mountains. Spain also imported african slaves to work in their suggar 
plantations and mines. After a time, many slaves  escaped and created 
independent communities; since then, they became our afro-american natives, 
with their own particular cultures. Soon, it also appeared an important 
percentage of mestizos (mixes of all races), which were neither slaves, 
neither servants of haciendas. In order to distribute land rights, Spain 
created a complex scale to classify people based on "blood purity", with 
more than 36 different words for possible spanish-afro-indian combinations. 
In some regions, today, racism exists from euro-descendants toward the rest, 
from indians toward afros, from mestizos toward indians and afros, etc. 
Today's landlords are predominantly decoloured, and a 4% of them owns close 
to 60% of rural property, while the poorest 60% of peasants only have 15% of 
the lowest-quality land-area, far from markets. So after 5 centuries, our 
elites never solved the unequal property of lands created by the spanish 
conquest, and maintained the racist, authoritarian and patriarcal tendences.

3)  Colombian elites mentality and their political parties.
During the last half of XVIII century, a new kind of criollo's landowners 
appeared. Educated at Europe, and good travellers, they brought the liberal 
ideas from masonic groups, new science and Illustration. Finally they 
succeeded with Bolivar. (Remember that 80% of the signers of Usona 
Independence Declaration had masonic ties, huge lands and slaves). Our 
heroes of independence only wanted to push Spain out of here, but as far as 
racist ideas, land-ownership and slavery, they remained equal -with few 
exemptions-. Due to the hard-mountains topography, big rivers, and dense 
jungles, communications were slow, and the nation was controlled, and still 
it is,  by  a few regional caudillos, quite hard to handle by Spain, or by 
the central government of the new republic.
After Bolivar, two elite parties appeared: Conservatives, which promoted 
ties with the church declared Bolivar as their icon, and Liberals, with 
"free-thinking", masonic influence, and radical anti-clericalism, chose 
Santander as icon. The two of them, plus the church, were of course huge 
landowners, slave-owners, and racists. Church elite, as it may be supossed, 
has always been a close ally to conservative party. After a violent process 
of 180 years of wars, mutual electoral frauds and rivalty,  today (2000), 
the two parties and the church elites support neoliberal ideas and elite 
global order, with a few exemptions inside their ranks. In the process, 
millions of simple peasants, and urban dwellers, learned to hate theirselves 
and to kill theirselves, in defense of their masters ambitions. But land 
reform,  urban property reform,  human rights, or workers wellfare has never 
been acomplished as required in proportion to our development.

4)  Colombian relationship with colonial or neo-colonial powers.
After independence, our heroes had a hard identity problem and question: "To 
whom shall we look like?" Bolivar chose England as his cultural model. He 
brought british mercenaries and got support from the Crown which implied a 
debt that took several decades to be paid. Bolivar mistrusted Usona. He 
ordered vice-president Santander to convoque a Panamerican Congress without 
Usona. But Santander invited them and spoiled the idea of a continental 
block to balance Usona. British influence was important during XIX century. 
Usona neocolonial influence over us became definitive at the start of the XX 
century, asfixiating after WWII, and unbearable during last three decades.

In a famous letter, (1929) Bolivar wrote: "Usona seems predestinated by the 
Providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom". During the 
independence war, Bolivar troops captured a usonian ship loaded with guns 
for spaniards. Usona protested, and some agreement was reached. It is easy 
to see that the interest of Usona in hispanoamerican independence and 
democracy never existed, and Monroe's doctrine "America for Usonians" is 
just the formulation of a continental domination project.

8) Bolivar and Afro-Americans
Libertador Simon Bolivar was a complex and interesting personality. He spent 
his whole huge fortune, his energy and health for the cause of independence. 
In contrast, most ot the other heroes claimed huge lands, pensions and 
haciendas as compensation for their participation. During his last years, 
Bolivar lost power to the liberal radical sector and tried to retain it 
through an autocratic style, and even proposed a monarchic constitutional 
system as the only way to keep unity. He was a hyper-dynamic guy, impatient, 
stuburn, good organizer, a lover of adventures, with a romantic concept of 
heroe, mainly interested in fame; generous with friends, he normally 
despised beaurocratic and possesive minds. He was good in convincig and 
joining regional leaders around his ideas.
Bolivar's mother was a very sick woman, so he was breast-fed and cared by an 
afro-american slave called Hipolita, a very important feminine presence in 
his life.
His father died when he was 3, her mother when he was 9. He inherited a huge 
fortune, had private tutors, and travelled through Europe when young.
After the failure of a revolutionary trial in 1812, he seeked refuge in 
Haiti, the first free nation in the non-british colonies. Petion, the 
afro-american president, gave him arms, ships, soldiers and money to start 
again, with the condition that he should decrete slaves freedom as soon as 
independence were obtained. After Napoleon's defeat, the Sacred Allience 
formed by european monarchies joined and attacked Haiti. At the time, Usona 
remained quiet; reasons are easy to guess.

After independence Bolivar tried to push slaves freedom, but the 
constitutional assembly defeated the idea, and just declared that only new 
born afro-americans would be free -thus getting the time to sell their 
slaves to other nations, prior to the final freedom law-. Slaves were only 
freed like 12 years after Bolivar died.

In some moment Bolivar calmed local elites by saying "I will not permit a 
brown-cracy".
After the failed conspiracy of radical-liberals to kill him, he signed the 
death penalty of Admiral Padilla, an afro-american heroe of the naval war 
who was in jail during the events; however, he exiled vice-president 
Santander (a criollo heroe), one of the two main complot organizers.

Bolivar defended public services in health, education, care for poor 
children, payment in currency for any work, social care without exclusions 
and natural resources preservation. His idea of progress was designed on 
three axes: industry, work and science. Besides the executive, legislative 
and judicial branches of power, he proposed a Moral branch to control the 
other ones.

Also, he made a terrible warn against the use of army force: "Beware of the 
army that points the guns against its own people". This sentence is not 
tought by those that train our militaries at the School of Americas.


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