The population is descended from three racial groups--Indians,
blacks, and whites--that have mingled throughout the nearly 500 years of
the country's history. No official figures were available, but according
to rough estimates in the late 1980s, mestizos (white-Indian mix)
constituted approximately 50 percent of the population, whites 25
percent, mulattoes (black-white mix) and zambos (black-Indian
mix) 20 percent, blacks 4 percent, and Indians 1 percent.
Recognizing the impossibility of objective racial classification and
not wishing to emphasize ethnic or racial differences, the national
census dropped references to race after 1918. Nevertheless, most
Colombians continued to identify themselves and others according to
ancestry, physical appearance, and sociocultural status. Social
relations reflected the importance attached to certain characteristics
associated with a given racial group. Although these characteristics no
longer accurately demarcated distinct social categories, they still
helped determine rank in the social hierarchy.
The various groups were found in differing concentrations throughout
the nation, largely reflecting the colonial social system. The whites
tended to live mainly in the urban centers, particularly in Bogot� and
the burgeoning highland cities. The large mestizo population was
predominantly a peasant group, concentrated in the highlands where the
Spanish conquerors had mixed with the women of Indian chiefdoms. After
the 1940s, however, mestizos began moving to the cities, where they
became part of the urban working class or urban poor. The black and
mulatto populations were also part of this trend but lived mainly along
the coasts and in the lowlands.
Descendants of Indians who survived the Spanish conquest were found
in scattered groups in remote areas largely outside the national
society, such as the higher elevations of the southern highlands, the
forests north and west of the cordilleras, the arid Guajira Peninsula,
and the vast eastern plains and Amazonian jungles, which had only begun
to be penetrated by other groups in the twentieth century. The Indian
groups differed from the rest of the nation in major cultural aspects.
Although some continued to speak indigenous languages, Spanish,
introduced by missionaries, was the predominant language among all but
the most isolated groups.
Historical Development
In the first fifty years after the discovery of the Americas, the
Spanish began to settle in present-day Colombia, introducing their
culture and social system and imposing their values on the African
slaves they imported and the indigenous population they conquered.
Spanish colonists settled in the Caribbean coastal zones, the highland
plateaus, and the areas along the major rivers but were initially
unsuccessful in settling Choc�, the eastern plains, and the Amazon
Basin. Patterns of colonial settlement were reinforced throughout later
periods, leaving frontier areas-- usually less hospitable land--open for
settlement by nonwhites-- especially blacks, mulattoes, and retreating
Indian tribes.
The Spanish created a hierarchical society in which they occupied the
top stratum in terms of prestige, wealth, and power; slaves and Indians
occupied the bottom. White skin became synonymous with being Spanish and
therefore of high status. Offspring of mixed unions fell somewhere in
between, adopting the dominant culture if recognized by their Spanish
fathers, remaining on the social periphery if not. As the character and
value system of the nation were formed, notions of color, class, and
culture merged to elevate whites, subjugate blacks and Indians, and
allow upward mobility for mulattoes and mestizos who dissociated
themselves from the heritage of their nonwhite ancestors in favor of
becoming "Spanish."
Probably more than any other Latin American people, Colombians
remained conscious of their Spanish heritage. The persistent supremacy
and relative purity of the Spanish heritage was brought about by a
combination of factors. The indigenous population was sparse,
heterogeneous, and thus relatively easily subdued, driven into less
accessible and less desirable areas or absorbed by the Spanish
population during the colonial era. Blacks, viewed as slaves until the
mid-nineteenth century and as manual laborers thereafter, remained
segregated economically, geographically, and socially. Although Indians
and blacks outnumbered whites and people of mixed blood in certain
regions, they remained minorities without shared identity or cohesion on
the national level. The lack of immigrants from other European nations
and the emphasis on traditional Spanish institutions--particularly Roman
Catholicism-- helped white Colombians retain their Hispanic
identification. Finally, a diverse geography and resultant regionalism
exacerbated the lack of communal feelings among the masses and provided
little basis for national cohesion within any group except the tightly
knit white elite.
As Colombian society developed, there was little change in its rigid
stratification. Various intellectuals, clergy, and politicians
unsuccessfully attempted to debate the status of Indians and blacks and
to prevent discrimination against them. Being a recognized member of the
national society and thereby eligible for its benefits and a chance at
upward mobility required allegiance to a culture and a behavioral
pattern based almost entirely on traditional Spanish values. Anything
outside this pattern was anomalous and was considered un-Colombian.
Independence did little to alter the colonial framework of the
society. In the struggle for independence, the peninsulares
(those born in Spain) were backed by Spanish troops, and the criollos
(those born in the New World of Spanish descent) were backed by mestizo
and mulatto troops; nonetheless, the values and outlooks of the two
factions were similar. Many of the peninsulares left after
independence, allowing the criollos and some persons of mixed blood to
take over their positions in the society. To this extent, the system was
opened up to qualified mestizos and mulattoes, but those who moved up
did so as individuals whose mobility was based on education, wealth, and
culture rather than on a change in the status of their group. No attempt
was made to upgrade the status of blacks, who remained on the periphery
of the national society, or Indians, who remained almost completely
outside it.
Both Indians and blacks continued to reside on the outskirts of
national life, as much because of their class and culture as their
color. As a group, however, blacks were more integrated into the
national society and left a greater mark on it for several reasons.
First, they had been a part of Spanish society since the Middle Ages,
whereas Indians were relative newcomers. The Spanish had long possessed
Africans as personal servants and did not find them as alien as the
Indians they encountered in the New World. Moreover, it was more
difficult for the blacks to maintain their original culture because,
unlike the Indians, they could not remain within their own communities
and did not initially have the option of retreating into isolated areas.
They did not arrive in and were not grouped into organized social units,
and, coming from different areas of Africa, they often did not share the
same language or culture. Although slave revolts sometimes occurred, no
large community of escaped slaves survived in isolation to preserve its
African heritage, as did the Maroons in Jamaica. Finally, despite their
position on the bottom rung of the social ladder, black slaves often had
close relations--as domestic servants--with Spaniards and were therefore
exposed to Spanish culture much more than were the Indians.
Blacks thus became a part, although a peripheral one, of Colombian
society from the beginning, learning Spanish and adopting the ways of
the Spanish that were permitted them. They thought of themselves as
Colombians by the end of the colonial period and felt superior to the
Indians, who officially occupied higher status, were nominally free, and
were closer in skin color, facial features, and hair texture to the
emerging mestizo mix.
The proportion of white ancestry has been an important measure of
status for the mixed groups since the colonial era, when each degree of
mixture was recognized as a distinct category. The plethora of terms for
color still being used in the 1980s reflected the persistence of this
colonial pattern and a continuing desire among Colombians to classify
each other according to color and social group. A complex racial
terminology led to persons of the same class using different terms to
define themselves racially. These terms also cut across class lines so
that persons at one level defined themselves as being racially similar
to those at other levels.
The confusion over classification affected most Colombians because
most of them did not define themselves as being white, black, or Indian,
which are distinct and mutually exclusive groups, but as belonging to
one of the mixed categories. Factors that helped Colombians order their
perceptions of color were, in addition to the interplay of biological
and social data, geographic residence and membership in a social class.
Residence in a region often automatically categorized an individual. For
example, blacks and mulattoes were so prevalent in Choc� that the word Chocoano
(resident of Choc�) was virtually synonymous with the word black
throughout much of Colombia. Whites and mestizos in Choc� were commonly
migrants from neighboring Antioquia, so that any light-skinned person
might be called an Antioque�o regardless of his or her origin.
Migration and rural or urban residence could also determine a
person's status. A dark-skinned mulatto who because of wealth and
prestige would be a member of the local elite in a rural area along the
coast would not be so considered outside his or her region. Conversely,
movement from a larger to a smaller town might enhance an individual's
status. Usually the only Colombians whose status was invariable were the
national elite, Indians, and blacks.
Perceptions of one's own color and that of others also varied with
class membership. A lower-class person in either an urban or a rural
area was likely to be more concerned with the daily struggle for
survival than with skin color, especially if the person's peers were of
a similar racial background. Members of the upper class were equally
secure in their status as white Colombians, whether or not they appeared
Caucasian to the casual observer, because their status automatically
defined them as such. The racial segregation of the polar extremes of
the class structure--with virtually no blacks or Indians in the elite
and equally few whites in the lower class--reinforced cultural and class
distinctions.
It was among the self-conscious, racially mixed members of the middle
sectors that color and ethnic designations were critical and likely to
contribute to status. All other factors being equal, light-skinned
mestizos with straight hair found mobility easier than darker-skinned
counterparts. A man, especially a black or mulatto, might improve his
social position or that of his children by marrying a lighter-skinned or
wealthier woman. Mestizos might place more emphasis on acquiring other
accoutrements of whiteness, such as an education, a cultured life-style,
or a genteel occupation.
Contemporary Trends
In the late 1980s, whites continued to occupy the highest positions
in the government, economy, and society. Most of them resided in the
large urban centers, and even those who did not considered themselves
urban in orientation. Membership in the white group was usually
concomitant with upper- or middle-class values and behavior patterns and
adherence to Roman Catholicism and its teachings--in name if not in
practice. Whites modeled their life-styles, family patterns, and human
relations largely on European and North American norms and in turn
dictated them to the rest of society.
The white group usually emphasized racial and cultural purity and
wealth derived from property. This emphasis was particularly true in the
capital and in the seats of colonial aristocracy, such as Popay�n. The
exception was in Antioquia Department, where a great deal of
miscegenation took place and where social distinctions rested largely on
economic achievement rather than ethnic considerations.
Non-Antioque�o whites continued to stress colonial notions of the
superiority of mental over manual labor, encouraging genteel
remunerative activities derived from owning land or a career in law,
medicine, or architecture. Creative or journalistic writing, literary
criticism, and university professorship were also considered appropriate
careers or sidelines for whites who were financially secure. For those
less well off, business, commerce, and industry provided more lucrative,
if less traditional, positions.
Although North American cultural influence has grown substantially
since the 1950s, whites remained culturally tied to Europe--particularly
to France and Spain. Children continued to be sent to Europe and the
United States for schooling, to learn languages, and to become
cosmopolitan. Only in the twentieth century did white Colombians begin
to seriously study nonwhite facets of their country's social system and
incorporate them into their scholarly and creative works.
Insistence on racial purity within the white group varied among
regions and sometimes was not as important as light skin and an old,
respected Spanish surname. In fact, many people who came from families
that had been considered white for generations were actually descendants
of people of mixed ancestry who purchased certificates of white ancestry
from the Spanish crown. Whites did not usually marry dark-skinned
individuals, however, unless economic hardship necessitated bringing a
wealthy mulatto or mestizo into the family.
From the earliest years of the colonial period, miscegenation among
whites, Indians, and blacks occurred so much that people of mixed origin
soon came to outnumber all other groups combined. In fact, racial mixing
was so great that Colombians usually referred to themselves as a mestizo
nation--in this case meaning simply "mixed"--despite the
absence of a significant cultural synthesis.
In the mid-1980s, people of mixed origin were found throughout the
society--in all classes, occupations, and geographic regions. The status
of individuals of mixed blood varied, from those who bordered on being
white to those who had recently moved out of marginal status as black or
Indian. Probably the only factors that tied the mixed group together
were a general recognition that status as a mestizo or mulatto was
better than that as an Indian or a black and some feeling of belonging
to the national society.
Colombians perceived considerable differences between mestizos and
mulattoes. Mestizos found upward mobility easier than mulattoes in most
areas, probably because mestizo physical characteristics were more like
those of the idealized Colombian: light brown to white skin, straight or
wavy hair, and caucasoid facial features. Moreover, once a person was
considered mestizo, his cultural identity automatically became that of
the dominant white group, whereas mulattos often exhibited black
cultural and social traits that made upward social mobility more
difficult.
Many blacks left slave status early in Colombian history, becoming
part of the free population. Some were awarded freedom by their owners,
and some purchased their liberty, but probably the greatest number
achieved freedom by escape. There were numerous revolts, particularly in
the Cauca Valley and along the Caribbean coast, that liberated many
slaves. Those who achieved freedom sometimes moved into Indian
communities, and their zambo offspring became part of the
indigenous group. Others founded their own settlements. A number of
towns, such as Palenque in northern Antioquia Department and Ure in
southern C�rdoba Department, kept the history of revolt alive in their
oral traditions. In the Choc� area, along the Pacific, many of the
black communities remained relatively unmixed, probably because there
were few whites in the area and the Indians became increasingly
resistant to assimilation. In other regions, such as the Magdalena
Valley, black communities had considerable white and Indian admixtures.
The distribution of blacks in the 1980s continued to reflect that of
the colonial period. The greatest number lived in the lowland areas on
the Caribbean and Pacific coasts and along the R�o Cauca and R�o
Magdalena. In the Choc� region, they had largely replaced the Indians
and, along with mulattoes, constituted 80 percent of the population. On
the Caribbean islands of San Andr�s and Providencia, which Colombia
acquired from Britain at the end of the colonial period, there were
several thousand blacks. Despite the length of time during which
Colombia had jurisdiction over them, most blacks on these islands
retained their Protestant religion, continued to speak English, and
regarded themselves as a group distinct from mainland residents.
Descendants of slaves preserved relatively little of their African
heritage or identification. Some place-names were derived from African
languages, and some traditional musical instruments brought into the
country by slaves were used throughout the country. Religion in the
black communities remained the most durable link with the African past.
In the 1980s, wholly black communities were disappearing, not only
because their residents were moving to the cities but also because the
surrounding mestizo and white populations had begun moving into black
communities. Eventual absorption into the mixed milieu appeared
inevitable in the 1980s. Moreover, as blacks moved into the mainstream
of society from its peripheries, they perceived the advantages of better
education and jobs. Rather than forming organizations to promote their
advancement as a group, blacks concentrated on achieving mobility
through individual merit and adaptation to the prevailing system.
When the Spanish arrived in 1499, they found a heterogeneous Indian
population that numbered between 1.5 and 2 million, belonged to several
hundred tribes, and spoke mutually unintelligible dialects. The
complexity of their social organization and technology varied
tremendously, from stratified agricultural chiefdoms to tropical farm
villages and nomadic hunting and food- gathering groups. Throughout the
colonial years, the indigenous population constituted an estimated 50
percent of the total population, but by 1988 it had dropped to roughly 1
percent. About sixty tribes were scattered throughout the departments
and national territories.
In the agricultural chiefdoms of the highlands, the Spaniards
successfully imposed institutions designed to ensure their control of
the Indians and thereby the use of their labor. By the end of the
sixteenth century, political and religious administration was organized,
and efforts to convert the Indians were well under way. The most
important institution that regulated the lives and welfare of the
highland Indians was the resguardo (reservation) system of
communal landholdings. Under this system, Indians were allowed to use
the land but could not sell it.
Similar in some respects to the Indian reservation system of the
United States, the resguardo system lasted with some changes
into the late twentieth century and was an enduring link between the
government and the remaining highland tribes. As land pressures
increased, however, encroachment of white settlers onto resguardo
lands accelerated, often without opposition from the government. The
struggle of the Indians on these lands to protect their holdings from
neighboring landlords continued into the late 1980s. Nevertheless, the
Virgilio Barco Vargas administration (1986- ) created new resguardos,
including one in Guain�a Commissaryship, and reconstituted others.
The highland Indian communities have been the subject of most Indian
legislation since the 1940s. The National Indian Institute was
originally founded in 1943 as a private body. It was later attached to
the National University of Colombia (Universidad Nacional de
Colombia--UNC) and eventually became an advisory body to the Directorate
of Indian Reservations within the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.
The institute was reorganized in 1958 to include representatives of
several ministries concerned with Indians, as well as members of the
Colombian Institute of Anthropology. Division of the resguardos
was immediately suspended, as far as possible, and a new program of
community development directed at the incorporation of the Indians into
the national society was begun.
In 1960 the Directorate of Indian Reservations was reorganized and
became the Division of Indian Affairs; together with the National Indian
Institute it was transferred to the Ministry of Government. The Division
of Indian Affairs carried out its programs and policies through eight
regional commissions for Indian welfare and protection. The location of
the commissions corresponded to the resguardo zones and in
general to areas inhabited by Indians who were already somewhat
integrated into the national system.
In contrast to the highlands, the lowlands were less densely
populated at the time of the conquest, and the natives possessed a
simpler culture than the highland tribes. The tropical forest areas were
inhabited by farmers whose slash-and-burn agriculture limited the size
of settlements to 100 or 200 persons. Most of these tribes lived along
rivers and depended partially on fishing for subsistence. Indians of the
eastern savannas and the Amazon Basin were nomadic, traveling in small
hunting and gathering bands and frequently living along rivers. When the
Spanish arrived, many lowland groups retreated to areas that were less
accessible or attractive to the Spanish. These nomadic tribes and forest
dwellers fared better than their highland counterparts in maintaining
independence from the Spanish because of their simpler, more mobile, and
more self-sufficient lifestyle. Their contacts with outsiders were
generally limited to missionaries.
In the past, the government generally had not attempted to legislate
in matters affecting the forest Indians. During the colonial period,
Roman Catholic missions were granted jurisdiction over the lowland
tribes. With the financial support of the government, a series of
agreements with the Holy See from 1887 to 1953 entrusted the
evangelization and education of these Indians to the missions. The
missions were coordinated with the government's Division of Indian
Affairs through a representative in the National Indian Institute. In
1960 the secretary of the institute became the chief of the Section of
Indian Protection in the Ministry of Government and was responsible for
the Indians of the nation's peripheral regions. Barco's resguardo
initiative affected forest tribes as well as highland tribes.
Although all tribes in Colombia had had some contact with outsiders,
the degree and effect varied considerably. Some tribes, such as the
Maku, Chiricoa, Tunebo, and others from Amazonas Commissaryship,
remained very primitive nomadic hunting and fishing groups. Others had
begun to cultivate such crops as cacao, sugarcane, corn, and bananas.
Some of the most successful tribes developed effective methods of
raising cattle. Nonetheless, it was difficult for Indians to retain land
that they traditionally held, especially in the highlands, where the
competition for cultivable land was keenest.
In the 1980s, there was considerable disagreement in Colombia over
the number of remaining Indians, their concentrations, and their
relationship to the national society. Some Colombian scholars argued
against integrating Indians, contending that the indigenous peoples had
as much right as any other element of the society to survive intact
under government protection. However, this protection was only partial.
The government lacked a comprehensive policy, and what legislation did
exist seemed oriented toward assimilating the Indians. Other factors
pointing toward gradual absorption of the Indians were expansion of
colonization into Indian territories, government plans for the
development of natural resources in Indian areas, and the Indians'
increased contact with and integration into the national system through
economic inducement.
Colombia - SOCIAL CLASS
The upper class comprised two interrelated groups, the traditional
landed elite and the new rich, who owed their status primarily to
successful entrepreneurship. The former continued to base its elite
status on distinguished lineage and a respected family name, together
known as abolengo, and on the ownership of large tracts of
land. It frequently provided personnel for the highest offices in the
government, the church, and the military. Abolengo remained
virtually the sole determinant of upper-class membership in rural
communities and in some traditionally oriented cities, such as Popay�n.
In larger cities and in areas accessible to its influence, however,
wealth was probably equally or more important in determining elite
status. In urban areas, a person's family history was frequently not as
significant as the financial ability to maintain the life-style that had
come to be associated with the social elite.
The traditional elite continually lost individual members to the
middle class, either through the gradual loss of inherited wealth or
through the division of estates among many heirs. In the past, however,
and even in the 1980s, displacement of families was kept to a minimum
because of the custom of mutual aid among relatives. If one branch of an
elite family suffered financial difficulties, friends and relatives
rallied to its support, helping children to obtain the customary good
education and enabling the family to maintain a facade of well-being.
In the modern urban industrial communities, however, the financial
climate had become more demanding as ever-increasing emphasis was placed
on wealth and its display as a criterion of high status. The decline in
extended-family cohesion and the dispersal of relatives that accompanied
urbanization made it even less likely that an elite family would feel
obligated to sustain all of its members at the accustomed level. Thus,
many of these persons were forced to accept middle-class employment and
living standards and might even fall into the lower class.
The newer members of the upper class were generally thought to be in
a transitional state from the middle to the upper class. They had
acquired economic and social success through entrepreneurial skills in
banking, commerce, and industry. Some of the representatives of this
group were self-made men, often mestizos, who had worked their way up
the social ladder from the middle class. Others were European immigrants
or their descendants who had been successful in the business community.
Some observers believed that the new rich constituted a lower sector
of the upper class because they lacked the lineage, cultivation, and
landowning tradition of the old elite. Although the new rich often
regarded themselves as equal to the elite, they were not so considered
by the rest of society. The barriers between these two groups were
dissolving, however, at least in the major urban centers, where changing
social standards, intermarriage, and shared political interests tended
to overrule tradition.
Further linkages between the traditional elite and the new rich were
provided by the many persons who had roots in both groups. Although the
entrepreneurial upper class was sometimes regarded as entirely of recent
origin, many of its members had aristocratic forebears and had long been
recognized as part of the traditional elite. Because of the declining
productivity of traditional agriculture and the increased opportunity
for investment in industry, business, and commercial farming, the sons
of large landowners had been among the first to enter these new areas of
economic endeavor during the 1920s.
Education was traditionally correlated with upper-class membership.
Upper-class children received the best education in the most prestigious
schools, beginning at one of the exclusive private schools and ending
with a degree from one of the country's wellknown universities.
Intellectual and professional careers, particularly in law, medicine,
and journalism, were preferred by sons of the elite. It was not unusual
for a member of this class to obtain an advanced degree and take a
position as a university professor for several years before entering
high government office or assuming a managerial position in a family
enterprise.
The upper class was very successful in maintaining exclusiveness and
controlling change through a system of informal decision-making groups
called roscas--the name of a twisted pastry. These informal
groups existed at different levels and across different spheres and were
linked hierarchically by personal relationships. Their composition
varied according to level-- municipal, departmental, or national--but
each group tried to include at least one powerful person from every
sphere. A rosca was a vitally important system in both the
social and the political context because it was at this level of
interaction that most political decisions were made and careers
determined. Only when a man was a member of such a group could he
consider himself a member of the upper-middle or upper class.
Roscas linked influential individuals and institutions in
such a way that an important university, a commercial bank, an
investment bank, an association of industries, and agricultural
interests might all be coordinated and controlled by a few persons.
Several competing groups in an area often bargained and traded favors
among themselves. A casual observer might not recognize the linkages
within such groups until he began to do business in the area or needed
something done in an official capacity. Colombians moving up the social
ladder became increasingly aware of the importance of such groups.
Colombia - Middle Class
The emergence in the twentieth century of a fairly large middle class
paralleled the development of urban society and of the modern
institutions of government, education, and social services. Although
Colombia had always had a small element of self-employed shopkeepers,
clerks, and overseers, they had been limited in number and had no sense
of shared identity.
Most of the modern middle class had developed since the 1920s. As a
class, the various middle groups distinguished themselves from other
members of society by regular employment in occupations that generally
did not qualify them for membership in the elite.
The nucleus of the middle class was in the most highly industrialized
urbanized areas--the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, and
Cundinamarca--where institutional changes had been most pronounced.
These areas had the highest percentage of people employed in
professions, government, business, and trade--all predominantly
middle-class occupations.
The middle class owed its heterogeneity to its late development and
continued expansion. It consisted of self-employed small businessmen,
professionals, salaried employees (including office workers), other
white-collar personnel, and some members of organized labor. The
expansion of the government bureaucracy provided a number of positions
for the middle class. Teachers were usually included in the middle
class, as were most military officers, most of the clergy, and some
intellectuals, artists, journalists, and musicians.
Owners of medium-sized farms, primarily in the agricultural
departments of Caldas and Antioquia, made up most of the rural middle
class. They derived the greatest benefits from governmental efforts at
agricultural credit, technical training, community development, and
expanded primary education. In addition, they possessed a relatively
modern outlook in contrast to other farmers in more remote areas who had
accumulated enough wealth to be placed at the top of the middle class
but preferred a modified peasant existence and traditional outlook.
The diversity of the middle class, which placed some of its members
scarcely above the lower class in life-style and income and others on
the lower edge of the upper class, was striking. Infinite status
gradations characterized the internal structure of this class. However,
by linking several of the most important status or prestige factors, the
middle sector can be divided into two main parts: an upper middle class
and a lower segment in transition from the lower class. The sectors were
differentiated primarily on the basis of the attitudes and values they
held and on their origin in the social system.
The upper middle class gradually merged into the elite class and was
composed primarily of professionals, medium-sized landowners,
entrepreneurs, managerial personnel, and some government bureaucrats.
Some of these were descendants of the traditional elite who had fallen
on the social scale and clung to the illusion of their families' former
status. They often did not consider themselves members of the middle
group and continually attempted to regain a place in the upper class by
modeling their manners, behavior, and attitudes on those of the elite.
The members of the upper middle class tended to share a concern for
culture and outward appearance, exhibited by conspicuous consumption.
Standards of social behavior were stringently observed, and active
support was given, particularly by women, to the Roman Catholic Church
and numerous religious associations. The completion of academic
secondary school was considered essential for the child of
upper-middle-class parents, and a university degree was becoming
increasingly necessary. Whereas membership in the elite was still
determined primarily by family background and values, upper-middle-class
status was largely determined by a good secondary education.
The lower middle class, constituting the bulk of the middle class,
came primarily from upwardly mobile members of the lower class. A large
number were clerks or small shopkeepers. Many had only a precarious hold
on middle-class status and tended to be less concerned with imitating
upper-class culture and behavior than with making enough money to
sustain a middle-class life-style. Families at this level tended to be
just as concerned as those at higher social levels with giving their
children an education. Many hoped to send at least one of their children
through a university, regardless of the financial burden.
Colombia - The Lower Class and the Masses
The lower class and the masses together constituted the largest
sector of rural and urban society--about 75 percent. The line between
the lower class and the masses was fine; it was based more on an
increased awareness of the social, economic, and political systems among
members of the lower class than on any other criterion. Those at the
upper levels of the lower class--organized labor, small farmers,
merchants, and some white-collar workers-- were in a transitional stage
and possessed some attributes of middle-class status.
The lower class was more politically aware than the masses, although
the levels of participation were uniformly low. Feelings of common
identity were generally lacking among groups in the lower class,
although class consciousness existed within such groups as organized
labor and landowning campesinos. Generally, members of the lower class
were regularly employed with some degree of security, although they were
frequently unskilled and unorganized. Included in this category were
domestic servants, construction workers, taxi drivers, barbers,
repairmen, and small shopkeepers. The rural lower class included small
independent landholders, called minifundistas, and even some
day workers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers, who provided some
security for their families.
In contrast, the masses were composed of the illiterate and the
impoverished who lived on the margin of subsistence and possessed little
or no security, skill, or stable employment. They included Indians and
blacks as well as many other dark-skinned persons. They resided on the
sociopolitical periphery of the society and maintained their traditional
way of life; most of their energies were consumed in the struggle for
survival. Although the masses possessed some political potential and
some awareness of the political system, they lacked an effective,
evaluative understanding of it as well as sufficient class cohesion to
articulate their desires.
At the top of the lower-class hierarchy and merging into the middle
class were the regularly employed industrial workers. Often
distinguished from white-collar employees only by their blue-collar
occupations, unionized factory workers received relatively high wages
and were protected by labor legislation. They were better organized than other
employed members of the lower class and were sometimes able to exert a
degree of pressure on employers and political parties to obtain their
demands. In general, they were conservative politically and opposed
government initiatives to change the status quo. This conservatism
existed because, despite their stability relative to other members of
the lower class, their status in the society was fairly tenuous, resting
solely on maintenance of their occupation. Loss of job would seriously
impair a factory worker's ability to maintain his status.
Social life in the lower class was less structured and more informal
than in the middle and upper classes. There was less restraint and
concern with the rigid standards of behavior that regulated the social
activities of those higher on the social scale. Participation in
religious activities, particularly celebrations of saints' days and
festivals, was an important part of social life, as were spontaneous
neighborhood and family gatherings.
The rapid growth of the urban sector since the 1940s resulted
primarily from the influx of migrants from the countryside. Agricultural
workers continued to leave the rural areas and come to the towns and
cities, hoping to improve their way of life. Most were uneducated--at
best barely literate--and unskilled, two attributes that considerably
limited their prospects for employment and their ability to adjust to
urban life. Consequently, there was a high rate of unemployment and
underemployment in this migrant population, particularly among the men. Women often found jobs as domestic
servants or cooks, but the continued flood of unskilled labor into the
cities made it increasingly difficult for men to find even the most
menial jobs.
Movement to the city did little to change the relative social status
or way of life of most migrants, who merely exchanged rural unemployment
and poverty for the same conditions in an urban environment. Many became
residents of the shantytowns that surrounded the larger cities. Housing
in a lower-class barrio was frequently no more than a shack without
running water and often without electricity, not too different from what
the migrant had left behind.
Despite the apparent hopelessness of the migrant's condition, there
was the expectation of some future improvement, if not in his own life
at least in that of his children. One survey taken in a lower-class
community in a larger city found that parents believed that the future
would be better for their children. Usually this belief was tied to the
greater availability of education and the other institutions of urban
life. Migrants perceived themselves as closer to the mainstream of
national life with a greater chance of becoming economically, socially,
and politically a part of it than those who remained in the countryside.
In the mid-1980s, the rural lower class was outnumbered by the urban
lower class. Migration had rapidly reversed the traditional balance; the
proportion of the rural population continued to decline steadily as it
had since the 1920s. In the past, the lower class was primarily an
agricultural sector, its position in society dictated by dependence on
the land. Whether minifundista, semipermanent squatter,
sharecropper, tenant farmer, or day laborer, the campesino's small
parcel of land or lack of land kept him at a near-subsistence level of
existence for generations. There were slight distinctions among the
various groups making up the rural lower class: generally, the living
standard of the minifundista, squatter, and tenant farmer was
somewhat higher than that of the sharecropper, who in turn lived a
little better than the landless day laborer.
Colombia - FAMILY LIFE
In the 1980s, there were continued signs of change in the traditional
norms and patterns of family life, resulting from the high rate of
rural-to-urban migration, the growth of urban industrial centers, and
accompanying socioeconomic developments. The decline of the patriarchal
extended-family structure was apparent in urban society, as increased
geographic and social mobility weakened kinship ties and extended
greater independence to young people. Families at the bottom of the
social ladder were adversely affected by geographic dislocation and were
increasingly less cohesive. They continued to be characterized by a
large number of consensual unions and mother-centered households.
Traditional elements of trust and mutual dependence among relatives,
no matter how distant the relationship, were still strong. The already
large circle of kin relationships was extended through the institution
of compadrazgo, a complex form of ritual kinship. Ties with relatives
and compadres (godparents) continued to be important in
political and business activities and provided the low-status person
with a wide circle of mutual assistance.
The nuclear family unit continued to be authoritarian, patriarchal,
and patrilineal. Legal reforms had extended equal civil and property
rights to women, but tradition dominated malefemale relations, and roles
and responsibilities in marriage were still relatively clear-cut. In the
lower class, in which the father was frequently not a permanent member
of the household, the mother often assumed the role of chief authority
and family head, but in all other cases the father unquestionably
occupied this position. Within the household, the wife was considered
the father's deputy and the chief administrator of domestic activities.
Her first duty was to bear and raise children. She was also expected to
keep the household running smoothly and efficiently. In her relations
with her husband, she traditionally was supposed to be deferential,
thinking of his wishes and needs before considering her own.
Men of the upper and middle class had always been paternal and
protective toward their dependents and tried to shelter their wives and
children from undesirable outside influences. The activities of women
were severely circumscribed because of the male concern with protecting
the honor and virtue of the wife and unmarried daughters. Women in the
upper and middle classes traditionally were not permitted to do work
outside the home except for volunteer work. The social life of women in
the upper and middle classes, particularly of unmarried girls, was
limited to the home, the school, the church, and well-chaperoned parties
and dances.
The lower-class or lower-middle-class woman was under far fewer
restrictions than her upper-class counterpart. Formal chaperonage had
always been impossible to maintain because of family instability,
economic need, and the frequent absence of the husband and father and
because moral standards differed somewhat from those of the upper social
levels. The lower-class woman usually had to be employed and contribute
her salary to the family's subsistence or work in the fields beside her
male relatives. Her economic contribution gave her a degree of equality
and, combined with the matrilocality of lower-class life, i.e., the fact
that a husband tended to live with his wife's family, limited the
husband's and father's control over her.
There were increasing exceptions in urban society to the traditional
concept of a woman's role. Many women in the upper social levels were
well educated, and some pursued careers in such fields as the arts,
social welfare, and education. Colombian women were also considered
among the most politically active in Latin America. Many of them held
high elective or appointive offices. At the same time, women who engaged
in these activities were considered exceptional. Most upper-class and
upper-middle-class women did not work after marriage but devoted
themselves to their homes, families, and church groups.
The Roman Catholic Church was the single most important force
affecting marriage and family life. Nearly all formal marriages took
place within the church, and most other turning points in the life of
the individual family member were marked by religious rites. The
Concordat of 1887 with the Holy See was replaced in 1973 by a new
agreement, which opened the way for increased acceptance of civil
marriages. After decades of debate, a divorce law permitting the
dissolution of civil marriages was passed in the mid-1970s. In the late
1980s, however, the debate over divorce for Catholic marriages continued
unresolved.
Moreover, regardless of the increasing acceptability of civil
weddings, most middle-class and upper-class families still tried to
provide their children with the most elaborate church wedding they could
afford. In the lower class, consensual union, in which both the
religious and the civil marriage ceremonies are foregone, was common. In
rural communities with traditional lower-class standards, formal
marriage was regarded as neither important nor essential. Despite the
efforts of the church to encourage legal marriage within the lower
class, people in this group generally regarded Catholic marriage as a
heavy social and economic burden. At the same time, however, Catholic
marriage was recognized as the ideal and the preferred legal, social,
and sexual basis of the family. Although other kinds of union were more
prevalent within the lower class, Catholic marriage often connoted
superior social status and prestige. In contemplating religious
marriage, both men and women might consider carefully the heavy costs
involved against the prestige that would be gained.
Some Colombians, especially those in the middle class, regarded
marriage as one of the best means of facilitating upward social
mobility. At the same time, however, members of the upper class were
generally reluctant to marry persons of lower social position. With the
increasing independence of young people and the declining authority of
the family, marriages between relatives had become less common, but
intermarriage between families of similar aristocratic background was a
custom that few young people chose to disregard.
Colombia - INCOME DISTRIBUTION
Colombia's leading health indicators indicated consistent improvement
over the long term. During the 1950s, life expectancy at birth was under
fifty years for the average citizen. In 1988 this indicator had reached
approximately sixty-eight years for females and sixty-four years for
males. The estimated life expectancy range for the rural population was
10 percent to 30 percent below the national average, varying regionally.
In the eastern plains, the Amazon Basin, the southern rural Caribbean
coastal region, and especially in the southern and northern Pacific
coast, the rate of improvement in life expectancy was substantially
lower than the national average; in some of the poorest areas, no
perceptible change had occurred between the 1950s and the 1980s.
Higher life expectancies were closely correlated with the
"spatial" distribution of the population. The higher the level
of urbanization, the greater the average life expectancy. The five major
cities--with nearly 30 percent of the population--in the early 1980s
reported average life expectancies nearly 10 percent above the national
average. Analysts anticipated that projected increases in urbanization
in the 1990s would have a positive impact on the life expectancy of the
nation as a whole.
In 1984 analysts estimated Colombia's infant mortality rate at 52 per
1,000 live births. The annual rate of decrease fluctuated between 2.4
percent and 2.9 percent during the 1950-84 period, peaking during the
second half of the 1970s. Some observers suggested that this pattern was
closely associated with greater public expenditures for nutrition and
basic care for pregnant women and newborns in rural areas.
Despite these improvements, Colombia's infant mortality indicators
were among the poorest of the major Latin American countries. Colombia's
figure stood substantially above these countries' norm of 42.8 per 1,000
live births and was more than 200 percent greater than the lowest level
recorded for national infant mortality in the region (19.5 per 1,000
live births) during the first half of the 1980s.
Moreover, complementary data suggested that infants and children were
the least protected segment of the population. Although Colombia's death
rate declined 51 percent from 1970 to 1985, infant mortality diminished
only 19.8 percent over the same period. Indeed, despite the gradual
improvement of infant health indicators, the benefits of better medical
care and living conditions were strongly concentrated in the upper
levels of the age pyramid. Infant death rates also were higher in rural
areas. Moreover, maternal mortality was high by Latin American
standards. Between 20 and 30 percent of maternal deaths were related to
complications arising from induced abortion, the vast majority of them
performed outside the formal medical system because of legal, cultural,
and religious sanctions.
Nutrition in Colombian society improved significantly after the
1950s. The average nutrient and caloric intake improved in quality and
quantity, as did the performance of the main indicators of nutritional
status, such as height, weight, and malnutritionrelated mortality and
morbidity. The improvements resulted from increased agricultural
productivity in the early 1970s, modernization of eating habits, higher
levels of nutritional awareness, and explicit public policies supporting
nutritional programs aimed at the poorest segments of society.
In the 1980s, the health and hazard causes for death were, to a
significant degree, considered preventable, treatable, or curable. Most
infant and child deaths were linked to diarrheal diseases, digestive
tract infections, nutritional disorders, and complications related to
immunizable viruses. Many adult deaths resulted from "social
pathologies," including homicide and accidents. In addition, as
their society aged, Colombians were exhibiting a surge in diseases
common to the industrialized world, such as coronary and heart
disorders, hypertension-related illnesses, and cancer.
One-fifth of all infant and child deaths (zero to four years of age)
resulted from diarrheal and infectious digestive disorders accompanied
by the inevitable dehydration complications. These diseases were
associated with poor sanitation and living conditions, malnutrition, and
lack of parental nutritional awareness. Another fifth of infant
mortality originated in complications associated with delivery and
birth. This mortality reflected the low level of basic health care for
rural pregnant women, which was also associated with high levels of
maternal mortality. Respiratory diseases caused another fifth of the
deaths in children under four.
Violent criminal attacks and homicide--referred to in Colombia as
"blood deaths"--accounted for 45 percent of deaths in persons
between fifteen and forty-four years of age. The high rate of homicide
and violent deaths was associated with the structural problems of poor
law enforcement, high levels of social and political violence, and
criminal activities related to narcotics production and distribution. The impact of violence was exacerbated
by a health care system that was designed to handle "normal"
or "formal" health disorders and not well suited for emergency
medical care. Colombians considered the poor quality of emergency
treatment as one of the major flaws of their nation's health care
system.
The major causes of death for those over forty-four years of age were
coronary and heart degenerative disorders, cancer, and cerebrovascular
diseases. Diet--composed of sugars, starches, salted food, and fats high
in cholesterol--along with the prevalence of smoking and alcohol
consumption contributed to the unusually high incidence of these
maladies.
In the early 1980s, the most prevalent illnesses striking Colombians
were respiratory infections, ophthalmological and vision problems,
digestive tract parasitic diseases, acute upper respiratory tract
infections, peripheral vascular problems such as varicose veins, and
malnutrition disorders. Over 14.2 million cases of individual illness
were attributed to these diseases.
In the 1980s, the duality of the Colombian health profile was also
present in the social and regional distribution of morbidity. The
poorest segments and regions suffered the most from preventable and
curable causes, such as gastrointestinal disorders and certain types of
respiratory ailments, whereas the incidence of the degenerative and
chronic diseases--typical of urban dwellers and higher-income
earners--was relatively low in comparison. Tropical diseases continued
to be endemic to certain areas of the country. Because of the
acceleration of migratory flows to the unexplored tropical hinterland,
diseases such as malaria, dengue, and yellow fever were increasing.
Malaria affected approximately 15 percent of the population--equivalent
to roughly one-half of all rural inhabitants.
In the late 1980s, geriatric issues increasingly challenged the
country's health care system. The combination of increasing life
expectancy, reduction of fertility rates, and diminishing mortality
rates produced an older society. Those persons over forty-five increased
from 13.5 percent of the population in the mid-1960s to 17 percent in
the late 1980s. In absolute terms, this trend meant that more than 4.6
million people in 1990 would enter a period of life characterized by
major health concerns related to chronic, catastrophic, and degenerative
diseases. The proportional increase in these types of ailments demanded
a specific framework for health care, medical technology, and
professional specialization that was not widely available in the public
health system.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was another major health
challenge in the late 1980s. Like many other less-developed countries,
Colombia was sluggish in tackling the issue of AIDS within its borders
and recognizing it as a potentially disastrous health threat. The
cultural environment--strongly influenced by traditional values toward
sexuality, virility, and homosexuality-- slowed public debate, distorted
factual information about the incidence and spread of the virus, and
inhibited the formulation of policy and preventive guidelines. In the
first quarter of 1988, the official number of confirmed cases of AIDS
was fifty-nine. By April that figure had to be revised upward to 153
confirmed cases.
Some sources contended, however, that this dramatic increase showed
only a fraction of the total cases. New projections in 1988 suggested
that there were 7,650 AIDS carriers. Of that total, 2 percent suffered
the terminal stages of the disease, 25 percent were experiencing related
opportunistic illnesses, and the remaining 73 percent were in the
asymptomatic stage. A doubling of the total number of positive carriers
was expected to occur within six months to one year because of the high
levels of underreporting, the weakness of preventive measures, and the
high incidence of carriers among female prostitutes.
The high cost of health care for AIDS victims would seriously strain
the already scarce resources available to treat other diseases. Analysts
believed that major funding and resources would not be channeled into
the fight against AIDS. As of 1988, the Colombian government had taken
few steps beyond attempting to protect the national blood supply.
Colombia - The Politics of Health: Priorities, Institutions, and Public Policy
During colonial times and the first century following independence,
health care in Colombia consisted of services provided by traditional
healers and private physicians trained first in Europe and later in
national medical schools. The physicians served the elite and practiced
curative medicine exclusively. Health care of the indigent, orphans, and
the mentally ill was at first the domain of charity institutions,
largely run by the Roman Catholic Church. As the population increased,
orphanages, shelters, and municipal and community hospitals, usually
staffed by religious orders, emerged throughout the country. Political
pressures and local initiative, rather than assessment of regional
needs, determined the size and kind of health facilities built and
operated. Therefore, the distribution of hospital beds and services in
the country was haphazard. With the advent of modern high-cost
technology, this approach led to wasteful duplication of services and a
major escalation in investment and operating costs.
The government initiated official action in the health field in 1913.
The Ministry of Public Health, largely as it exists today, was
established in 1953. Government programs were initially small, geared
exclusively to the control of communicable diseases by reducing
environmental hazards, providing water and sewerage facilities, and
controlling garbage disposal. Vaccination campaigns were attempted, as
was the isolation of patients with contagious diseases. At first, there
was no relationship between these government activities and hospital
care. Rural health care was virtually nonexistent, and reliance on
traditional practitioners was almost universal until the 1950s.
In 1945 the National Provident Fund (Caja Nacional de Provisi�n--Cajanal)
was created to provide prepaid health services and other benefits to
government employees. In 1946 the Institute for Social Insurance
(Instituto para Seguros Sociales--ISS) was organized under the Ministry
of Labor to provide life and disability insurance, a pension plan, and a
health program for employees in the modern private subsector. The ISS
health system grew rapidly and independently of both municipal hospitals
and the Ministry of Public Health. Subsequently, many smaller prepaid
health programs were organized for railroad and telecommunications
workers, the police, the armed forces, and other employees either not
protected by the ISS or Cajanal or dissatisfied with the services. In
the late 1980s, about 200 of these social security and family welfare
funds existed.
The health sector was divided into three main subsectors: the
government--consisting of the Ministry of Public Health, its five
autonomous specialized agencies, and the Department of Health Services
(Servicio Seccional de Salud--SSS); the social security
subsector--comprising the ISS for private employees, Cajanal for public
employees, and the smaller funds for specific population groups; and the
private sector. Lacking coordination, these subsectors evolved along
divergent paths.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the ministry's programs focused on
extending coverage to persons not protected by organized health
services. Priority was given to rural areas, poor marginal urban
populations, and maternal and child health care. Primary health care,
largely provided by paramedical personnel, was the principal instrument
for achieving this objective.
A major review of the health sector by the government in 1974 led to
the development of the National Health System, designed to provide
adequate health care to all Colombians. Health was also viewed as a
major component in integrated development efforts in the 1970s and early
1980s. These efforts, which received substantial support from the World
Bank and other international agencies operating in Colombia, attempted
to enhance productivity, income, and living standards of
"viable" and "stable" peasant communities with
small- and medium-sized farms. Good results and continued multilateral
financing guaranteed its survival for more than a decade.
The 1979-82 National Integration Plan (Plan de Integraci�n
Nacional--PIN), as the national government's development plan was
called, continued to emphasize expanding health coverage to the most
vulnerable groups (mothers and children under five) and areas (rural and
urban squatter settlements), recognizing the disparities in health
status among regions and population subgroups. The National Health
System was viewed as the major instrument to achieve the goal, and
increased coordination among the Ministry of Public Health, the ISS, the
social security funds, and family welfare funds was emphasized. Specific
coverage targets were identified, including immunization of 80 percent
of infants and 100 percent of children under five years; piped water and
sewerage to 78 percent of the urban population and 79 percent of the
nondispersed rural population; and a 15 percent increase in prenatal
care. The ultimate goals were to reduce infant mortality by 15 percent,
child mortality by 25 percent, and various kinds of morbidity by given
percentages.
In 1981 the government established the Plan to Accelerate Health
Development, based on grouping the SSS into six nuclei led by the six
most developed departments. These departments would help their
less-well-favored neighboring departments and national territories with
technical assistance, coordination, data processing and monitoring
services, supervision, and evaluation of programs. The central nucleus
in Bogot� was to oversee and to develop the norms of the system.
In the late 1980s, the Barco administration implemented two other
major social programs with both a direct and an indirect impact on
health care for the poorest groups in society. The programs were the
National Rehabilitation Plan, actually initiated by the Belisario
Betancur Cuartas administration (1982-86) to shift public expenditures
to the most remote and least-developed rural zones of the country, where
guerrilla groups maintained strongholds, and the National Plan for the
Eradication of Extreme Poverty, which focused on reducing urban poverty
by 80 percent among those persons below the level of extreme poverty.
Like the programs of the 1970s and early 1980s, these two new programs
consisted of food subsidies, primary health care, communal education,
locally constructed small public works projects for transportation,
schools, and health care centers. In contrast with the earlier effort,
however, Barco hoped for improved delivery of services through better
coordination of different government agencies.
The private sector also acquired some paragovernmental functions in
relation to health care. The Family Compensation Funds, or Cajas, were
governmentally mandated, private sector institutions that held a
percentage of the total salary paid by a firm to its workers and used it
to provide cash subsidies and different types of services to affiliated
workers. Some of the largest Cajas developed hospitals, pharmacies,
dental units, general medical consultation services, and outpatient
health care centers for children and nonworking spouses. Cajas were
legally barred from duplicating the work of other governmental
institutions, such as the ISS. This unorthodox model could be considered
a private component of the urban social security system, managed jointly
by unions or workers, firm owners, and the government.
Another key paragovernmental private health care provider was the
National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (Federaci�n Nacional de
Cafeteros de Colombia--Fedecafe). Fedecafe collected and managed the taxes
originating from coffee exports, using the money both to stabilize and
protect the coffee industry and to improve living conditions in the
coffee regions of the country. In the central Andean region--the core of
the coffee economy--Fedecafe was a major provider of basic health care,
sanitation, access to clean water, nutritional education, immunization,
and dental services.
Except for extensive support by the international system, the
provision of health care was a relatively low priority for the Colombian
political establishment in the 1970s and 1980s. In political electoral
terms, there was no clear constituency for national health care. Those
sectors lacking health care and risk protection were usually the poorest
groups in society, the least organized, and the weakest in political
influence. In addition, other groups, including public employees,
transportation workers, oil workers, private employees, and middle-class
professionals, struggled independently and autonomously to develop some
form of health care and risk protection.
The health sector was perceived implicitly by politicians as a
legitimate part of the "spoils" of office (bot�n burocr�tico)
because of its relatively high employment capacity for political
appointees. Traditionally, with some significant exceptions, the
Ministry of Public Health and its regional division were
"assigned" to politicians; that is, they were effectively
outside the control of national planning officials and programs. Indeed,
the financial sources that supported departmental health services--the
lottery and state taxes on alcoholic beverages--were periodically shaken
by revelations of political corruption and reckless management.
Compared with other ministries and given the magnitude of its task,
the Ministry of Public Health was woefully underfunded. The ministry's
expenditures as a share of the national product had decreased since the
late 1960s, and by the mid-1980s they were at approximately 0.6 percent
of the gross domestic product (GDP). Since the late 1960s, with the exception of the period of the
Alfonso L�pez Michelsen administration (1974-78), the share of the
health sector in total central government expenditures had declined. In
fact, the fiscal adjustments in late 1984 and 1985-- necessitated by the
global recession and Colombia's ensuing trade and national account
deficits--cut heavily into social expenditures, especially health and
education. Between 10 percent and 20 percent of public health care beds
were not operating in 1985 because of inadequate funding. Another
symptom of the low priority given to health care services was its
relative share of foreign earnings. Total foreign currency commitments
for the health sector in Colombia in the 1973- 82 period amounted only
to US$402 million.
Considerable institutional overlap and bureaucratic inefficiency and
uncertainty characterized the ministry's specialized institutions. Both
the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Municipal
Development supported local investments in water and sewerage systems in
small- and medium- sized towns. In 1988 the latter institute was being
dismantled and its functions transferred to the Central Mortgage Bank,
the Malaria Eradication Service, and the Cancer Institute. In addition,
ministry units were autonomous. Although some coordination at the
operational level occurred, each institution generally developed its own
policies and programs.
Colombia - National Health Care System
The influence of the church varied in different regions of the
country and among different social groups, but it was felt everywhere
and was rarely questioned. The population in general continued to attach
great importance to observance of the formal acts of Catholicism. The
rate of attendance at mass was high, particularly among women, who
generally took the practice of religion more seriously than men. Church
attendance also served traditionally to attest to a woman's general
virtue. In some urban parishes, more than 85 percent of the Catholics
attended mass. Some cities or regions were noted throughout the country
for their religious observance. The people of Antioquia Department, for
example, were reputed to be particularly devout Catholics, and the
Indians of the southern highlands and residents of Popay�n were
recognized for their regular attendance at mass and traditional
observance of holy days, especially during Holy Week.
To the average Colombian, such primary rites of the church as
baptism, first communion, marriage, and extreme unction marked the main
turning points in the life cycle and identified him or her as a social
being. The Catholic faith was felt to be a part of a person's cultural
heritage passed on like language and became an integral part of a
person's being.
Members of the upper class and the upper middle class frequently had
close personal relations with members of the religious hierarchy. Most
of the clergy and nearly all prelates were of upper-class or
middle-class origin and therefore shared the interests and attitudes of
these groups and felt the closest affinity with them. The upper social
levels supported Catholic charities with time and money and provided
most of the membership of lay religious associations.
Religious beliefs and practices in the rural peasant communities
reflected centuries of geographic isolation and a lack of formal
religious training. People in these areas were said to be more devout
than those in the cities, but their Catholicism was often very different
from that of the urban upper and middle classes. Fusion of Catholic
practices and beliefs with indigenous, African, and sixteenth-century
Spanish ones was widespread in the countryside. Traces of the rural folk
religions also were found in urban lower-class communities, particularly
those with many rural migrants.
Most people in rural villages were careful to fulfill what they
considered to be their religious obligations to protect themselves from
supernatural punishment or to secure blessings from one of the saints.
The Virgin Mary and the saints were deeply revered by most people. The
saints, especially one's patron saint, were considered to be more
accessible than God and sometimes willing to intervene in the
individual's temporal affairs.
The mass, the sacraments, religious processions, and objects of
religious veneration were shared by nearly all Colombians. Holy day
celebrations, particularly the fiestas honoring a community's patron
saint, were events of great significance, not only in the religious life
of the people but also as elements of social cohesion that united
members of the community in a common bond.
Critics within the church contended, however, that this emphasis on
the ritual aspects of the faith masked serious deficiencies in the
exercise of that faith. In their view, Catholicism had a limited impact
on the personal lives of the laity. Many couples had chosen alternatives
to a Catholic wedding, such as consensual union or a civil ceremony. In
addition, many Catholics lacked even an elementary grounding in church
doctrine. Critics also argued that Colombia's ratio of priests to
inhabitants--one to 4,000, one of the best in Latin America--was highly
misleading. Like most elites, clerics gravitated toward urban areas. In
contrast, many rural churches lacked priests for extended periods of
time.
Despite these deficiencies, the church continued to exercise
considerable influence in a number of areas, including education, social
welfare, and union organization. Catholic control over education in
Colombia was the strongest in Latin America and even greater than its
official powers suggested. The church had its own Secretariat of
Education, which maintained two research organizations, a literacy
program reaching thousands of rural Colombians, and more than 3,500
schools and universities. With a total enrollment of nearly 300,000
students in the 1970s, the church system was estimated to include over
85 percent of the students in preschool, 20 percent of those in the
primary grades, more than 50 percent of those in secondary school, and
almost 40 percent of those in universities. Church institutions of
higher education were among the most highly respected in the nation, and
religious courses played an important part in a student's curriculum.
In 1944 the Episcopal Conference established Catholic Social Action,
or simply Catholic Action, a loose collection of programs for social and
educational development. Some of the programs for Catholic Action were
begun by the hierarchy, whereas others, such as Popular Cultural Action
(Acci�n Cultural Popular--Acpo), a program involving specialized
education programs for peasants, were initiated by individual priests
and later adopted by the hierarchy. Acpo was best known for its literacy
programs, which were conducted through Radio Sutatenza. Most of Acpo's
budget was financed by the church, but some assistance was received from
the government and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 1988 the government negotiated a
buy-out of Radio Sutatenza, which became part of the state education
system.
The church-operated research institutes were founded in the 1960s to
conduct socioeconomic studies and act as advisers to the hierarchy. The
Center for Research and Social Action (Centro de Investigaci�n y Acci�n
Social--CIAS), subsequently renamed the Center for Research and Popular
Education (Centro de Investigaci�n y Educaci�n Popular--Cinep), was
run by Jesuits, and the Colombian Institute of Social Development
(Instituto Colombiano de Desarrollo Social--Icodes) was staffed by
diocesan priests. Both had done studies on housing and population
problems, church-sponsored development programs, and land reform, and
both were well respected for the quality and reliability of their
studies.
Although education was still the most important area of church
activity in the mid-1980s, mission activity and social welfare were also
major efforts. In the early 1980s, about 1,100 charitable institutions
were run by the church, including orphanages, hospitals, and
leprosariums. Other welfare institutions were staffed by nuns whose
orders were reimbursed by the government. Because of its involvement
with the mission territories, the church was also represented in the
National Indian Institute. Although the government was slowly taking
over the functions of the church in the Indian territories, the church
continued to play an important role there.
Two important social welfare programs were Colombian Charity (Caritas
Colombiana) and Communal Action (Acci�n Comunal). Colombiana Charity
was set up to coordinate the welfare work of various Catholic
institutions. To most Colombians, it was identified with the
distribution of agricultural surpluses, shoes, and clothing to the poor.
Communal Action, a community development program established by the
government in 1958, had significant input from the church at the local
level. Priests served as key organizers in Communal Action groups,
trying to educate rural Colombians in self-help methods.
The church had been involved with labor organizations since the
middle of the nineteenth century, when it was instrumental in the
formation of various economic and political pressure groups and later of
craft unions. As Liberal-backed unions and communism began to be more
influential within the working class during the 1940s, the church moved
to increase its own influence. Moving to counteract the Liberal and
leftist-oriented Confederation of Colombian Workers (Confederaci�n de
Trabajadores Colombianos--CTC), several Jesuits helped to form a labor
union inspired by Catholic social doctrine, the Union of Colombian
Workers (Uni�n de Trabajadores Colombianos--UTC).
Responding to the need to organize and maintain the loyalty of the
campesinos as well as to supply the UTC with badly needed leverage in
its battle with the CTC, the church organized the National Agrarian
Federation (Federaci�n Agraria Nacional--Fanal) in 1946. Although not
as successful as other rural organizations, Fanal was fairly important
in rural land invasions in the 1960s, and it was not unusual to find
invasions led by priests.
Colombia - Trends Within the Church since the 1940s
The church's involvement in such activities as social welfare and
union organization flowed in part from changes in Colombian society
beginning in the 1940s. Of equal importance was the process of renewal
that characterized the worldwide Roman Catholic Church in the early
1960s. Both Pope John XXIII (1958-63) and Pope Paul VI (1963-78) issued
a series of encyclicals that were unequaled in their efforts to
modernize the church as an institution and modify its role in society.
These encyclicals stressed the government's obligation to reduce
socioeconomic inequalities and the church's obligation to take a leading
role in reform.
Although the papal encyclicals pointed the Colombian episcopate in
the direction of change, it was not until the 1968 Latin American
Bishops Conference (Conferencia Episcopal Latinoamericana- -Celam) in
Medell�n that these proposed reforms were brought home in the form of a
declaration specifically involving Latin America. The core concepts
developed during the Medell�n conference were the conflict between the
"haves" and "have-nots," the need for fundamental
institutional reforms, and social action as the key means of Christian
influence in the world. The conclusions of the Medell�n conference gave
the Latin American church the necessary mandate to implement social
justice and church reform.
In accordance with the thrust of the Medell�n conference, the
Colombian bishops endorsed the call for social action. Unlike other
Latin American colleagues, however, the Colombian bishops shied away
from some of the more dramatic aspects of Medell�n. They did not, for
example, accept Medell�n's view that institutionalized violence
characterized Latin American societies. Unable to change the shape of
the Medell�n documents, the Colombians published a dissenting treatise
in the secular press.
The bishops' inability to agree on an approach to social reform and
to implement it through strong and effective leadership increased the
fragmentation within the church in Colombia and the controversy
surrounding the latter's role. Some of the problems developed over
organizational rather than ideological disagreements between groups
fighting for the same resources or powerful positions. The insufficient
economic base and the lack of qualified personnel further limited
developmental efforts. Consequently, only development programs operating
in strongly Catholic areas had substantial success. Competition among
upwardly mobile priests for the attention of the local bishop also
detracted from reform and tended to promote those priests eager to
conform to the status quo.
Frustration over the lack of dynamic leadership caused some priests
to strike out on their own. The first to do so was Camilo Torres, an
upper-class Colombian who left the priesthood to become a guerrilla.
Torres was killed in 1966, less than six months after he joined the
National Liberation Army (Ej�rcito de Liberaci�n Nacional--ELN), thus
becoming the first so-called martyr of the Catholic left in Latin
America. He became a symbol for many leftists with his commitment to
radical change through violence.
In the late 1960s, many Colombian clergymen, encouraged by Torres's
example, were determined to work for social change. Except for Gerardo
Valencia Cano, bishop of Buenaventura, none of the episcopate supported
their work. Spurned by the hierarchy, the group attempted to develop a
power base strong enough to break the religious and secular hold of the
elite. Basing their platforms on Marxist concepts, they began to hold
protest demonstrations to rally support against the hierarchy and to
promote programs of radical social change.
In spite of the rejection of the Medell�n conclusions by the
majority of Colombian bishops, the activists led by Bishop Valencia
became the first group in Latin America to issue a manifesto and a
platform for social reform based on the resolutions of the Medell�n
conference. Meeting in 1968 and taking the name Golconda Group--
"Golconda" after the farmhouse where they first met--the group
led the revolutionary wing of the Colombian church until early 1970. The
Golconda Group elaborated an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist stance and
a platform that included recourse to violence under certain conditions.
By advocating violence, however, the group touched a sensitive nerve
among Colombians and undercut potential support from many progressive
Catholics who were ready to promote change.
The Golconda Group became involved in political as well as social
issues and encouraged the Colombian people to boycott the elections of
1970 and thereby refuse to give a democratic stamp to either of the
official parties. This antagonistic attitude toward the government led
to charges of communist sympathies and to the eventual repression and
imprisonment of members of the movement. Because the group was small and
radical and because government and ecclesiastical opposition was
effectively organized against it, it was short lived. After several
members were imprisoned on the eve of its third annual meeting in early
1970, the Golconda Group ceased to exist as a single organization,
although individuals continued to use its name. Despite the fact that
their efforts to effect sweeping social changes were not successful,
members of the Golconda Group came to be considered forerunners of the
controversial liberation theology movement among the Catholic clergy
elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
After the demise of the Golconda Group, radical activity remained
largely diffuse and ineffective, appearing to have subsided. Bishop
Valencia was killed in an airplane crash in February 1972, and with his
death the radical clerics lost their only supporter among the hierarchy.
Other groups were formed, and support grew for the radical wing of the
church, but no group was as dynamic or controversial as the Golconda
Group had been.
The lack of active commitment on the part of the bishops had several
effects. On the one hand, the weakness of the hierarchy's approval
and/or disapproval of radical clergy led to confusion in the public
interpretation of Catholic social ideology among Colombians. On the
other hand, the lack of protection against government repression
convinced many that the official church was not genuinely interested in
change. Finally, the national effort at socioeconomic development was
hampered because, without consensus, the impact of the church on reform
remained piecemeal.
The explanation for the Colombian church's relatively undynamic
nature rested primarily with the distinctive political context within
which the church operated. The church had become most prominent in those
countries of Latin America where a repressive political context
simplified options and displaced ordinary social pressures and where the
episcopal leadership--more often than not impelled by lower-level
activism within the church--was willing to commit the institution to an
active role in public conflict. Neither of these conditions existed in
Colombia after the Medell�n conference.
The Colombian church functioned within a relatively open, competitive
political system. Despite continuing high levels of violence, Colombia's
political context allowed some play of social and political forces,
keeping open channels that when closed in other societies displaced
pressures onto the church. The political system showed at least some
responsiveness to changing demands and was accompanied by considerable
economic success. The nation's imperfect, oligarchical democracy,
muddling as usual through a series of crises, did not offer a target to
justify violent corrective action. No convincing case had been made by
anyone-- whether militants in the church or the secular left more
generally- -that gathered significant popular support behind armed
overthrow of the regime.
The absence of a repressive political context limited the political
role of the Colombian church. Indeed, after the 1960s the church's
ability to shape the outcome of political issues declined substantially.
Nor did the church use its teaching authority compellingly enough to
affect clearly the broader agenda of social choices. Its negative
pleas--for example, against birth control and political violence--were
notably ineffective.
The one way in which the church may have been important politically
was in upholding the legitimacy of Colombia's oligarchical democracy. It
came to this position in the mid-1950s, after having been long divided
over identification with the Conservative Party. The horrifying
spectacle of la violencia (1948-66) and the affronts of Gustavo
Rojas Pinilla led the church hierarchy to endorse his overthrow and the
subsequent regime of the National Front. It consistently defended the
National Front regime and its less formally consociational successor
against critics in the church itself and in society in general.
Has this church legitimation of the existing political system made a
difference? Colombia's oligarchical democracy survived, against many
predictions and in contrast to the civilian politics of many other
countries. The continuing support of the institutional church was one
potential explanation. A long line of "rebel priests" and
nuns, beginning with Torres in the mid-1960s, believed that the church's
legitimation of established politics was both morally wrong and
politically important. They frequently suggested that the church's
support was crucial to the status quo.
The recent past, however, did not bear out this assertion in any
clear way. The church had demonstrated a potential negative power to
topple a regime (for example, in helping bring down Rojas Pinilla in
1957). From that, however, the weight of its positive support, as
distinguished from its neutrality, could only be indirectly inferred. If
progressive activists had been able to move the institutional church
into a militant, liberationist position against the regime, they would
undoubtedly have threatened the regime's foundations. In addition, if
they had even won enough support for the church to have publicly divided
internally over the legitimacy of the regime, they would have deeply
shaken the regime's stability. However, neither development occurred.
Colombia - EDUCATION
In the 1980s, the national government continued to bear the primary
responsibility for public and private education. The authority was
extended downward from the president to the minister of education and by
delegation to the secretaries of education in the departments, the
national territories, and the large municipalities that maintained their
own school systems. It extended also to several decentralized
institutions concerned with education matters.
There were various kinds of schools. At all levels of schooling, the
central government operated a small system of national schools ranging
from preschool units in major urban centers to the massive UNC in Bogot�.
Only in Caquet� Department, however, were national schools in a
majority. Most of the schools were maintained by the departments and the
national territories, and many were maintained by municipalities with
populations of more than 100,000. Because schools in the national system
were large and well known and their teaching staffs were in a favored
position, analysts often overemphasized their numerical importance.
The private sector of education was made up of schools operated by
the Roman Catholic Church, schools operated by other religious
denominations, private schools, and cooperative schools operated by
communities. Catholic schools predominated.
The Constitution guarantees freedom for private ownership and
operation of schools in the private sector. However, they had to be
licensed, meet public-school standards, and generally use the public
curriculum, and they were subject to supervision by the public
inspection system. Private institutions administered by foreign
organizations could use the language of the home country for
instruction, but they had to employ Colombian teachers to conduct
classes in the Spanish language on the country's history and geography.
Catholic schools used texts prepared by Catholic publishers adapted
under government order to conform to the prescribed official program of
study. The Colombian government relied heavily on the private school
system, and it financially supported institutions that provided
scholarships to children from poorer families.
In the 1980s, the administration of the education system involved an
interplay between forces of central control and forces of regional
decentralization in which political considerations had an important
part. This interplay had existed for many years, and the complexity of
the issues involved was perhaps best exemplified by the issuance in 1968
of a decree establishing the system of Regional Educational Funds
(Fondos Educativos Regionales--FER) as a many-faceted attack on the
country's educational problems. Theoretically, the public education
system had been a unit in which the Ministry of Education set down
patterns and rules and coordinated and supervised the day-to-day
administration provided at the regional levels. In practice, a kind of
anarchy had developed, in which the departmental and municipal systems
had operated with a degree of de facto autonomy that prevented the
central authority from effectively using the material and human
resources theoretically at its command.
The FER program sought to remedy this situation by establishing a
relationship between the Ministry of Education and the regional school
systems in which the amount of money assigned to each regional system
and the manner in which it was to be spent were determined by contract.
To administer the FER program and to provide a direct line of
communication between the national and departmental levels, delegates
were named by the minister of education to oversee the FER programs and
to cooperate with the regional secretaries of education in administering
the local education systems. Because the delegates were to reside in the
departmental capitals and devote their attention exclusively to the
departmental and municipal school systems in a particular area, the
Ministry of Education maintained that the change was one of
decentralization. In fact, it was the exact opposite.
Before the end of 1969, contracts had been signed by each of the
departmental governors. The most significant portion of each contract
was a section requiring that the department establish a special bank
account to receive the monthly national contributions. If the terms of
the contract were violated or if during any month the corresponding
regional contributions to the education fund were not deposited, the
contract would be suspended, and any unexpended funds would be
returnable to the national government. Although this was the only
sanction set forth in the contract, it was a highly potent one.
The FER system achieved mixed results. The varying degrees of
noncompliance resulted from and illustrated the problems that had
plagued the country's education system in the past and continued to
disturb it into the 1980s. The root causes were intense regionalism and
the politicization of the local systems.
The presence of the delegate as the representative of the control
authority was frequently resented. What the central authority wanted did
not always meet regional needs. The regional delegate could work only
through the regional secretary of education, who was not an educator and
who was not concerned primarily with education. In addition, the
regional delegate was responsible not to the minister of education but
to the governor of the department, who was in turn responsible to one of
the two major political parties.
Although the education sector grew continually after the 1930s, the
most rapid changes occurred after the 1960s. Colombia began to move
toward a long-standing educational goal, equal access to primary
education for all sectors of society. In 1987 about 90 percent of the
children between seven (the age established for obligatory primary
school attendance) and eleven years of age attended primary school in
urban areas. In many rural areas, however, the number was often below 70
percent, and in some areas it even dipped below 50 percent in 1988.
The educational levels of the population improved in tandem with the
country's economic growth. Around 30 percent of the twelve-year-old
population went to secondary school in 1985, in contrast to only roughly
8 percent in 1951. Nevertheless, percentages were much lower in the
rural areas because there were few secondary schools. Moreover, 80
percent of all university students attended classes in just five cities.
In quantitative terms, the performance of Colombia's education sector
has been impressive. Although increases in the number of young people
entering the school system have remained constant-- roughly 3 percent
annually throughout the 1970s and 1980s--the system not only has kept
pace with population growth but also has increased its rate of
absorption of students. In absolute figures, one of the most difficult
tasks for the public primary schools was the absorption of 2 million new
students in less than twenty years. This growth was particularly
remarkable, given that the system had less than 1.5 million students in
1960. But this accelerated growth was achieved at the cost of a decline
in the quality of public education because it focused largely on the
increased availability of classrooms and teachers without taking into
account the need for supplying other critical resources.
Colombia - Primary Education
In the 1980s, Colombia achieved international notoriety as a major
narcotics trafficking center. Nonetheless, the country's involvement with drugs
was rooted farther back in history. As in Bolivia and Peru, although on
a smaller scale, Colombia's indigenous populations had grown and chewed
coca for thousands of years. Marijuana cultivation, in contrast, was a
much more recent phenomenon. It arrived in Colombia along the Caribbean
coast via Panama during the first decade of the twentieth century. By
the 1930s, limited cultivation had begun among the Coste�o black
population centered on Barranquilla; urban criminals there routinely
smoked marijuana. During World War II, experiments with hemp cultivation
designed to increase fiber production for the war effort substantially
expanded its cultivation.
The real takeoff of Colombian marijuana production began in the mid-
and late 1960s as a result of the growing demand generated by the United
States market. By the early 1970s, Colombia had emerged as a major
United States supplier, although most of the market remained in the
hands of Mexican traffickers. When in the early 1970s the United States
tightened up drug enforcement along the United States-Mexican border and
the Mexican state launched a major drive against its domestic producers,
the epicenter of marijuana production in the hemisphere rapidly shifted
to Colombia, especially to the Guajira Peninsula and the slopes of the
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. By the end of the decade, Colombia
accounted for about 70 percent of the marijuana reaching the United
States from abroad. Between 30,000 and 50,000 small farmers along
Colombia's Caribbean coast came to depend directly on marijuana
cultivation for their livelihood, while at least another 50,000
Colombians--including seasonal pickers, transporters, guards, and
bankers--made a living from it.
The trade proved to be an important source of new wealth for the
Caribbean coast, providing the population with income, comforts, and a
degree of economic stability that they had never before enjoyed. The
Caribbean port cities of Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and Riohacha, in
particular, experienced unprecedented prosperity. At the same time,
however, the Guajira Peninsula experienced a dramatic upsurge in
drug-related violence and a concomitant disintegration of local police
and judicial institutions as the result of corruption and bribery. Local
food production declined as tens of thousands of hectares were converted
to marijuana cultivation. Farmers engaged in growing traditional crops
such as bananas found labor more expensive and in short supply.
Inflation was stimulated, especially in land markets, as drug barons bid
up prices. Many legitimate businesses, including banks, hotels,
airlines, restaurants, and casinos, were bought up by the mafiosos
and used for laundering illicit profits.
The Colombian cocaine trade followed in the footsteps of the
marijuana traffickers. In the late 1960s, a relatively small cocaine
smuggling network, largely under the control of exile Cuban criminal
organizations based in Miami, sprang up. Coca was cultivated in small
plots by Paez Indians in the San Jorge Valley in the department of Cauca
in southwestern Colombia and in the Cordillera Occidental. Smuggling was
carried out largely by individual carriers, or "mules," who
transported a few kilograms at a time using commercial airlines.
In the early 1970s, as demand for cocaine expanded rapidly in the
United States, the limited raw coca supplies produced in Colombia were
augmented with coca paste imported from Bolivia and Peru, refined in
"kitchen laboratories" in Colombia, and smuggled into the
United States. The 1973 Chilean military coup that deposed President
Salvador Allende Gossens also proved to be a severe blow to the Chilean
criminal gangs involved in the cocaine trade in that country. When the
military government of General Agusto Pinochet Ugarte clamped down, many
Chilean "chemists" fled Chile and ended up swelling the ranks
of the nascent smuggling and refining networks in Colombia and Miami. In
addition, two Colombians--Carlos Lehder Rivas and Jorge Luis Ochoa V�squez--worked
with the Medell�n criminal networks in the mid-1970s to transform the
cocaine transportation system from small-time mule activities into huge
airlift operations.
By late 1977, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
had opened a file under the name "Medell�n Trafficking
Syndicate." Violence was an integral part of the operations of the
Medell�n syndicate from the start. As the organization grew in size,
power, and wealth, it also grew in ruthlessness and violence. After
first establishing their dominance on the South American side of the
market, in 1978 and 1979 the Medell�n drug bosses turned their
attention to control of wholesale distribution in the United States.
Thus began a period of violence in South Florida known as "the
Cocaine Wars." It peaked in 1981 with a reported 101 drug- related
murders in that year.
As the violence subsided in late 1981 and afterward, what emerged was
a loosely organized criminal organization known as the Medell�n Cartel.
In effect, by installing their own middlemen in Miami, the Colombians
"forward integrated" their operations and thus were able to
capture additional profits. By reinvesting their profits in the
business, they were able to expand and streamline production in Colombia
and farther south in the Andes. They also purchased bigger and better airplanes
and boats for transporting drugs, purchased more sophisticated
electronic communications devices and radar to escape detection, and
paid huge sums in bribes for protection to law enforcement officials in
Colombia, the United States, and elsewhere.
By the early 1980s, the marijuana traffic was already being eclipsed
by the cocaine trade in terms of the wealth and power associated with
it. Cocaine also generated criminal organizations that were more
profitable, more vertically integrated, more hierarchical in structure,
and more ruthless in their systematic use of bribery, intimidation, and
assassination than the marijuana traffickers. Although Colombia had long
been accustomed to extraordinarily high levels of violence, the rise of
the drug mafia provoked a qualitative change. Relying on paid assassins,
locally known as sicarios, Colombia's drug lords not only
fought among themselves but also launched a systematic campaign of
murder and intimidation against Colombia's government authorities intent
upon extraditing them to the United States. In the process, they
effectively paralyzed the country's system of justice and drove scores
of prominent Colombians from all walks of life out of the country and
into self-imposed exile. They also contributed significantly to the
"devaluation" of life throughout Colombia and converted murder
and brutality into a regular source of income for some sectors of
society.
Unlike marijuana money, which was concentrated along the Caribbean
coast, cocaine money made its way into the major metropolitan areas,
especially Barranquilla, Medell�n, Cali, and, to a lesser extent, Bogot�.
Along with their enormous economic power, the drug lords reached out for
a larger quota of political power. Several, like Lehder, bought
interests in local radio stations and newspapers. Others, like Pablo
Escobar Gav�ria, sought to create patron-client followings in the
cities by handing out cash to the poor, building low-income housing in
the slums, or purchasing sports teams and constructing sports stadiums.
A number contributed to political campaigns. Lehder went so far as to
create his own Latino Nationalist Party and to publicize his hybrid
political ideology (a combination of Colombian and Latin American
nationalism, leavened with elements of fascism) through his newspaper, Quindio
Libre. In 1982 Escobar was actually elected as an alternate
congressman on a Liberal Party slate in his home department of
Antioquia.
In addition to corrupting the political and economic systems,
narcotics trafficking generated a growing domestic drug problem. In the
early 1980s, there developed among Colombian youths a widespread
addiction to basuco. A highly contaminated, addictive, and
damaging form of cocaine normally smoked with marijuana or tobacco, basuco
was dumped by the cocaine smugglers on the Colombian market because it
was not of "export" quality. Sold cheap, it soon became more
popular in many cities than marijuana, leaving hundreds of thousands of
addicts in its wake, many suffering from permanent nervous disorders.
