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Pulchritude, the PalaciO, and POwer, 1979–1985 Chapter 9 The nation’s economy outperformed the Colombian political system during this last period under review, repeating the pattern witnessed thirty years earlier during La Violencia. High coffee prices bolstered by expanding production of petroleum, natural gas, nickel, coal, bananas, emeralds, marijuana, and cocaine kept the economy growing while much of Latin America entered the “lost decade” of economic contraction during the 1980s. However, while the economy grew, inflation increased to about 25 percent annually, open unemployment hovered at about 15 percent, and income distribution remained highly skewed in both urban and rural areas. Although one-third of women worked in 1985 and female employment had more than doubled since 1964, minimum wages still paid a miserable three dollars a day. Structurally, the assassination of Gaitán and the containment of Rojas Pinilla blocked the florescence of populism in Colombia, allowing the two traditional parties to pursue moderate and measured economic policies. Those policies maintained or increased wealth concentration and kept the majority of Colombians marginal to economic progress, apparently the price of political stability.1 The social costs of this stable economic and political model included increasing levels of violence, insecurity, and insurgency. The Liberal administration of Julio César Turbay Ayala (1971–1972) and that of maverick Conservative Belisario Betancur (1982–1986) maintained the logic and patterns inherited from the National Front; power and positions were shared between the two traditional parties, with neither administration nor party pursuing significant reforms. Both parties seemed content to play the politics of clientelism, mobilizing reliable rural voters while avoiding fresh policies or programs. Turbay bent to U.S. pressure to eradicate marijuana cultivation in Colombia, but Colombian growers were most hurt by the resulting high-quality sinsemilla planted around the United States from California to Maine, Alaska to Hawaii.2 Turbay bent to military pressure to try civilians in military courts and to allow torture of prisoners believed to be insurgents, policies that only built public sympathy for the victims and for the insurgents confronting the state. Turbay, an old-school party hack and Pulchritude, the PalaciO, and POwer 181 manipulative professional politician, only reinforced the perception that real political change could arrive solely via revolutionary violence. On the other hand, Betancur, the paisa commoner, pursued negotiations and dialogue with various guerrilla groups, but deals fell apart when the president could not deliver on the structural reforms sought by the insurgents. Economic expansion in the context of political stagnation led to social marginalization for more Colombians; Colombia still had infant mortality levels twice those of Costa Rica, and while 80 percent of homes now had access to electricity, some 66 percent did not have potable water. Public faith in institutions—be they the state or the church—dropped in the face of structural cynicism and callousness .3 Emblematic of the times, Colombian filmmakers during the early 1980s focused on La Violencia, saying that today “nuestra realidad es el horror . . .”4 In addition to the farc, the eln, and the elP, the M-19 joined the insurgent ranks in late 1973, emerging as an outgrowth of frustration to exclusionary democracy and antisocial development. Formed by former members and supporters of Rojas Pinilla’s anaPO, M-19 claimed that the 1970 presidential election was stolen from anaPO by the National Front. M-19’s first significant act was the theft of Simón Bolívar’s sword, symbolizing the Liberator’s imagined support for twentieth-century reforms. On New Year’s Eve 1978 and New Year’s Day 1979, M-19 made off with about five thousand weapons from the Canton Norte military arsenal in Bogotá, having dug an extensive tunnel under and into the armory. In 1980, they seized the Dominican Embassy in Bogotá during a diplomatic reception, holding fourteen ambassadors for a large ransom before receiving safe conduct out of the country. Influenced by the urban guerrilla tactics of the Montoneros of Argentina and the Tupamaros of Uruguay, the M-19 had a flair for the dramatic, high-profile operation. Like other South American urban guerrilla movements, the M-19, la guerrilla chévere (the cool guerrilla), cultivated a Robin Hood image, stealing food and goods and then distributing them in poor urban neighborhoods . Operating in the shadow of civil and military power in central Bogotá, the M-19 was a particular embarrassment to the Colombian armed forces, creating an enmity that would be fully expressed five years later at the Palacio de...

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