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June 30, 2003 The Referendum in Colombia: Democratic Participation or Endorsement of Dictatorship? Now more than ever, the referendum proposed by the government of President Alvaro Uribe Vélez and approved by the Colombian Congress is a heated topic of discussion. The recent declaration by the Procurador General that proclaimed 15 of the 19 points of the referendum as unconstitutional have the government on edge, despite Minister of Justice Fernando Londoño’s best attempts to minimize the impact of the pronouncements. According to a recent survey, a mere 3.7 percent of the population claim to have a good understanding of what this referendum is all about. Researchers have also determined that an average person needs 27 minutes to thoroughly read all 19 points of the referendum. If you combine this with the restricted conditions in which the vote is taking place (voters cannot cast partial ballots or declare that they are in agreement with only some of the government’s proposals and not with others), it is hard to consider this vote a strictly democratic act.
Included in the various points of the referendum are several which will especially affect public sector employees, including the proposal to get rid of the state and municipal contralorias that would, if passed, literally leave thousands of public employees out on the street. With no means of earning income to support their families, they would inevitably join the swelling ranks of Colombia’s poor. Equally, the proposal to eliminate the personerias (city clerks) in municipalities with less than 100,000 inhabitants would also add to the chaotic situation of chronic unemployment and poverty. Of course, this proposal to eliminate the employees who exhibit the most vigilance against state excesses would be a huge step backwards for the fight against corruption. If these proposals are approved, it would signify nothing less than the complete privatization of the auditing systems for the nation’s public services and for the management of state employees. In the United States, the Enron scandal has laid bare the risks of using external, private auditing firms. The proposal included in the referendum would leave the oversight of public services in the hands of similar auditing companies. How can the public believe that multimillion-dollar privatization sales can be made without corruption or conflicts of interest if the auditing and administration of the deals are performed by transnational companies with connections to the very same transnational companies that are anxious to buy up these public services at bargain-basement prices? To aggravate the situation even further, the government is proposing a two-year salary freeze for state employees. This proposal is a product of the vision of the technocratic class in the country, which places the blame for the current fiscal crisis on the workers instead of the bureaucratic elite and the predominance of corruption at the highest levels of government. Once again, the workers are being asked to pay the price for corrupt and inefficient management by those with lofty, lucrative posts, who won’t feel the pain of the wage freeze as they enjoy their exorbitant, inflated salaries. According to the Procurador General, the referendum has many procedural faults, including the almost unlimited power it would grant to the executive branch of the government to edit and veto legislative proposals prepared by members of Congress. These changes would severely curtail the three-way system of checks and balances within the government, and leave an inordinate amount of power specifically in the hands of none other than Minister of Justice Londoño. The new changes in the structure of government that would grant Londoño these powers would remain in effect at least until 2006, which is not coincidentally the date that he is scheduled to leave office. Lamentably, it is clear that the vote for this referendum will not be a free expression of the will of the Colombian people as paramilitary groups are already exerting pressure on people to vote affirmatively. Despite these obstacles, opposition groups such as the trade unions, community organizations, and civil society groups are promoting an abstention campaign against the referendum. The three largest trade union confederations have joined together to launch an “active abstention” campaign, which frames the referendum not as a democratic act, but as an act of aggression against poor and working-class communities and a veiled step towards dictatorship. Unfortunately, Colombians have already become accustomed to the violation of their rights to free speech and access to information, just as they have gotten used to the continued violation of their most fundamental right, the right to life. The sectors of the population who are attempting to claim these rights in order to show their opposition to the referendum are being branded and persecuted for being supposed “auxiliaries” of the guerrilla movement. Their only crime is disagreeing with the government. Despite this, resistance in Colombia is continuing against the imposition of a referendum which, using the veneer of participatory democracy, is in reality the continuation of the macabre plan of the country’s political class to subsume the will of the people to their own personal interests and to that of foreign capital. Hopefully the pressure and threats being made by the government and the forces of the ultra-right will not succeed in preventing Colombians from exercising their true democratic right to reject the impositions of this current regime in its descent towards dictatorship. Pablo Emilio Alvarez is the pseudonym of a Colombian unionist currently living in exile because of death threats. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
Copyright © 2003 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved. |
Seen
through the lens of the waves of propaganda launched by the Uribe
administration through the corporate media, this referendum can
perhaps best be described as a proselytizing campaign in support
of promises that cannot be kept, given the current state of the
country and the personal interests of the people holding the reins
of power in Colombia today.