U.S. Silent on Colombia’s Election Irregularities

by Garry Leech
How would Washington have reacted if left-wing paramilitary death squads in Venezuela supportive of President Hugo Chávez had claimed to control 35 percent of that country’s National Assembly following elections four years ago? What would President George W. Bush have said about the man in the red beret if that political control had been achieved through massacres of the political opposition? What would Condoleezza Rice be saying today if those same left-wing militias had used violence and coercion during recent election campaigns to gain a majority in the National Assembly? Do we believe for a minute that the Bush administration would respond with silence?

If we were to transplant the aforementioned hypothetical scenario to Colombia it would constitute a clear representation of that country’s electoral process. The principal difference in the Colombian version is that President Alvaro Uribe and the paramilitary death squads are firmly entrenched on the right side of the political spectrum rather than the left.

Pro-Uribe parties proved victorious in the March 12 congressional elections, gaining a majority in Colombia’s Congress. Many of the pro-Uribe candidates had violence and intimidation perpetrated by right-wing paramilitaries to thank for their victory. As German Espejo, an analyst with the Bogotá-based Security and Democracy Foundation, noted, “The paramilitaries played a decisive role in this election, particularly in the northern part of the country.” The Bush administration, however, has decided to ignore the massive electoral irregularities in Colombia.

In the March 12 congressional elections, as has been the case in most of Colombia’s recent elections, the technical act of voting and vote counting were generally considered to be free and fair. It is in the process of campaigning, however, that irregularities are most evident in Colombia. While the country’s leftist guerrilla groups often attempt to disrupt elections, they have mostly remained outside the electoral process. The role of the paramilitaries, on the other hand, has proven particularly troubling in recent years as they have sought to actively participate in elections in order to directly increase their influence over the country’s governing institutions.

Colombia’s electoral process is undermined by paramilitiaries who use violence and intimidation to determine which candidates can and cannot run in regions under their control and to ensure that their chosen candidates are elected. As the Associated Press noted only two days before the March 12 congressional elections, paramilitary leader Rodrigo Tovar, “who’s accused of several massacres against civilians as well as being a major drug-trafficker, reigned over much of Colombia’s Caribbean coast, deciding who could and could not run for public office.”

An additional factor that aided the paramilitary cause in the congressional elections was the low voter turnout. Preliminary reports show that only 34 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, low even by Colombian standards—42 percent of voters participated four years ago. In one Bogotá precinct, only 80 of the 1,200 registered voters showed up to cast a ballot. The combination of the paramilitarization of the electoral process and voter apathy in many areas not under paramilitary control ensured a victory for pro-Uribe parties.

The paramilitarization of Colombian politics intensified four years ago when it became evident that right-wing paramilitaries were determining which candidates would prove victorious in congressional districts situated in regions under their control. Through a campaign of intimidation and assassination, candidates not supportive of the paramilitaries were eliminated, leaving pro-paramilitary candidates to run unopposed in many districts, often garnering more than 90 percent of the vote. In the paramilitary-dominated department of Magdalena, for example, mayoral candidates ran unopposed in 14 of the 30 municipalities.

Following the 2002 congressional elections, paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso claimed that his organization controlled 35 percent of the Colombian Congress. The paramilitary demobilization process that ensued did not diminish the group’s political influence. Having consolidated control in many electoral districts four years ago, paramilitaries were able to utilize their newly gained regional political power to influence the March 12 elections.

The supposed demilitarization of the paramilitaries has done little to alleviate the threats faced by candidates critical of the paramilitary agenda. Juan David Diaz was a candidate running in the town of Magangue in northern Colombia, where he had exposed paramilitary ties to powerful local business people. According to Diaz, paramilitaries threatened to kill him if he attempted to campaign in the town of 160,000. In another prominent case, independent Colombian Congressman Pedro Arenas from the eastern department of Guaviare was warned by paramilitaries that they would kill him if he ran for re-election. Arenas chose not to run and moved his family out of the region.

According to Espejo, paramilitaries not only use threats and violence against opposing candidates, they also fund congressional campaigns in the northern departments of César, Guajira, Atlantico, Magdalena, Bolívar and Córdoba, where their political influence is most prominent. It was recently revealed that President Alvaro Uribe’s 2002 election campaign received a $43,000 contribution from a company owned by a jailed business leader linked to paramilitaries in Bolívar.

Three pro-Uribe parties—Partido de la U, Cambio Radical and the Democratic Colombia Party—recently expelled seven candidates for plotting election strategies with the paramilitaries. The candidates were only expelled, however, after their links to militias were revealed in the nation’s largest daily El Tiempo. Ultimately, the expulsion meant little as all seven candidates immediately joined smaller pro-Uribe parties in order to continue their congressional campaigns. Meanwhile, the two reporters that broke the story received death threats shortly after the article was published.

Other than one comment by U.S. Ambassador William Woods in December, the Bush administration has kept silent with regard to the paramilitarization of Colombian politics. It is difficult to imagine the Bush administration exhibiting an equivalent restraint if similar electoral irregularities were to benefit Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. In fact, there would likely be immediate condemnations and calls for some form of intervention to “protect” Venezuelan democracy.

But given the electoral shift to the left that is occurring throughout much of Latin America, the Bush administration was not about to undermine Colombia’s President Uribe, Washington’s most reliable ally in the region. Therefore, the Bush White House decided to turn a blind eye to the gross irregularities that occurred in Colombia’s congressional elections; irregularities that would never be tolerated in a nation whose policies contravened U.S. political and economic interests. Consequently, the Bush administration has endorsed the paramilitarization of Colombian politics, a process that is not only further undermining democracy in Colombia, but also laying the foundations for a “Para-state” in which the principal power brokers will be the country’s major drug traffickers.