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I have been avoiding the little discussion about imperialism in Colombia because it is not very closely related to the real relation of Colombia with imperialism. But ... Colombia is a country which really did develop its own capitalist class, which was not simply a comprador class. The most important sector of that capitalist class was based in the "eje cafetero" - the coffee zone of the country. Profits from exporting coffee, mostly to the USA, were used to build the country's airlines, textile industry and food processing industry. They were also important int he electrification of the country. The big Colombian bourgeoisie did something more or less like Nestor proposes, in the 1950's. They set up a military dictatorship led by General Rojas Pinilla which implemented import substitution economic policies much like those developed earlier in Argentina. Rojas Pinilla's nationalism failed to win over the working class however, because his government, after promising to make peace and end la violencia, ended up joining the massacre of the working class, student and peasant organizations of the day. The bourgeoisie told Pinilla he was no longer needed, and established something called the National Front, which continued Pinillas' economic policies, while instituting a kind of "power-sharing" system between the Conservative Party and Liberal Party (which had been killing each other during la violencia). Pinillas's supporters organized a political party called ANAPO which ran candidates int he elections against the two parties of hte power sharing system - and WON. So the elections were stolen and business continued as usual. Except that a lot of the young militants of ANAPO decided that elections in Colombia obviously did not work, so the only possible way to really change the country was to get some guns. They formed M-19 and joined the ranks of the guerrillas (whom their president had been killing not long before.) After killing a lot more guerrillas, M-19 , ELN, FARC and others, the bourgeoisie moved to Miami, sold their companies to multinationls, and joined the American bourgeoisie as compradors. Anthony ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
