“Betancur saw the opportunity for Colombia to play a positive, independent
role in the Caribbean basin, and he seized it.”
Belisario Betancur moved quickly to chart a
new international course for Colombia. At his
inauguration in August 1982, the new president
announced his intention to bring Colombia into
the Non-Aligned Movement and improve rela-
tions with the country’s Latin American neigh-
bors.’ Soon thereafter, Betancur supported
Nicaragua’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Security
Council, despite concerted U.S. opposition. He
also put forth a Colombian candidate to preside
over the annual general assembly of the Orga-
nization of American States, a direct, if un-
successful, challenge to the U.S.-supported
Honduran candidate. 2 In December, Betancur
continued his offensive by the openly critical
reception he provided for President Reagan in
Bogota.
With the new year, the Colombian leader
became a vital new force in the search for
political solutions to Central America’s crisis.
In October 1982, the Reagan Administration
had attempted to undercut Mexican and Vene-
zuelan peace moves in the region by forming a
group of seven Caribbean basin “democracies”
that were faithful to U.S. policies. While partici-
pating in these discussions, Colombia, in
January 1983, began meeting with Mexico,
Venezuela and Panama-the so-called Con-
tadora group-to search for a method of de-
escalating tensions in the region that would
have a greater chance of being acceptable to all
parties involved. In April, Betancur snatched
the baton from a domestically preoccupied
Mexico and became the prime mover among
the Contadora nations. He set off on a series of
lightning trips to the other three countries in an
attempt to re-establish the group’s initiative in
the region.
These moves were a breath of fresh air from a
country whose previous administration
slavishly supported Reagan’s every move in
Central America. Betancur saw the opportunity
for Colombia to play a positive, independent
role in the Caribbean basin, and he seized it.
Betancur: The Conservative’s Liberal
These initial moves were not at all out of
character for Betancur, who has made a name
for himself as a maverick in the Conservative
Party. Unlike the vast majority of Colombia’s
political leaders who are drawn from the
nation’s traditional oligarchy, Betancur grew up
in an impoverished rural Colombian village.
His parents lost 17 of their 22 children; they
died from a disease “known as underdevelop-
ment,” as Betancur explains it.
Betancur’s political beliefs have remained
remarkably constant, if ambiguous, over the
past 30 years, during which time he ran for the
presidency five times. He claims a strict adher-
ence to the traditional principles of the Conser-
vative Party: Christianity, Western culture,
representative democracy and the importance
of family life. Nevertheless, his ideas are closer
to the Christian Democrats of the 1960s than
those of the current Colombian Conservatives.
In brief, he opposes both “excessive capitalism”
and socialism, both the United States and the
Soviet Union. He believes in a “non-interven-
tionist” state, yet has been sharply critical of
30″Most of the people of the Third World have little experience or apparent
desire for self-government or participatory democracy.” Lewis A. Tambs
both Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher of
England. He lauds the “sanctity of private
property,” yet favors the nationalization of
some sectors of the economy. 4
His perspective on foreign policy has been
much more consistent. From the early 1960s, he
has condemned the role of the U.S. govern-
ment, U.S. businesses and U.S.-dominated
agencies in Latin America. As early as 1965 he
spoke against the “imperialist behavior” of the
International Monetary Fund. He has criticized
those who maintain Colombia’s commercial
links predominantly with the United States and
who resist extending them to the Soviet Union.
While he believes that Cuba has fallen into the
grips of “another imperialist power,” he also
has criticized counterrevolutionary forces who
have tried to invade the country. He was par-
ticularly vociferous in his opposition to the U.S.
invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965,
arguing that such action “tramples on the prin-
ciple of self-determination and only seeks to
chain our soul-which [the United States] be-
lieves to be underdeveloped–to the desires of
Wall Street.””
This international line has been repeatedly
articulated in campaign after campaign regard-
Children of Mocoa.
less of the official position of his own Conser-
vative Party. In the 1982 campaign, for exam-
ple, he attacked the party’s policy for Central
America which he characterized, simply, as
“pro-American.” 6
Even if they knew it was coming, Reagan and
his foreign policy team were seriously disturbed
by the Colombian turnabout under Betancur.
As an apparent democracy, Colombia’s support
for U.S. policy lent the latter a degree of legiti-
macy that could not be provided by Argentina
or Honduras, for example. The Administration
has made some public noises indicating support
for the Contadora initiatives, but in private the
Administration was fuming.
The World According to Tombs
It was within this context that Reagan
nominated Lewis A. Tambs to be U.S. ambas-
sador to Colombia. Contrary to many diplo-
matic appointees, Tambs at least was familiar
with the area of his assignment. A history pro-
fessor specializing in Latin America at Arizona
State University, Tambs had worked for seven
years in Venezuela as an engineer. So much for
the good news.
The bad news is that Tambs makes Jeane
Kirkpatrick look like a dewy-eyed liberal. Lewis
Tambs built his reputation not in academic
circles, but as an active participant in right-
wing organizations including the Council for
National Policy and the United States Global
Strategy Council. He has been most active in
the Council for Inter-American Security (CIS).
CIS is a rabidly anti-communist think tank led
by retired General Gordon Sumner, currently
special adviser to Assistant Secretary of State for
Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders.
For Tambs and CIS, the world is a simplistic
chess board where everything can be under-
stood in terms of maneuvers by the Soviet
Union’s military forces. Historical particulari-
ties, social structures, economic differences all
fade into insignificance. For a president who
proclaimed that “The Soviet Union underlies
all the unrest that is going on [in the world],”
Tambs was the horse for the course.
Unfortunately for Tambs, the same qualities
that endeared him to such far-right congres-
sional supporters as Senator Jesse Helms
(R-NC), made him distinctly unpalatable to the
foreign service. It is not surprising that anyone
Mav/June1983 31″The defense ministry asserted that the planes detained in Brazil were
actually going to supply M-19’s guerrillas.”
who could say, “Most of the people of the Third
World have little experience or apparent desire
for self-government or participatory democ-
racy,” would be rejected for three different
Latin American assignments for which he had
been proposed. 7
Thus, to get past the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee this time, Tambs essentially
had to retract most of his published statements
of the last decade. For example, his stress on
military solutions to Central America’s pro-
blems was evident in an article he had written in
October 1981:
“The Cuban-Sandinista cancer in the Carib-
bean and Central America can be removed
through surgery, killed by chemotherapy, or
isolated through quarantine. Armed occupa-
tion, incitement of rebellion or air and naval
blockade of Cuba and Nicaragua are the three
major options.”‘
Now, Tambs assured the senators that he was
prone to “overstatements,” which weren’t
necessarily valid today. Although there was
much hesitation on the part of many senators–
one called it a “mistake to send as our repre-
sentative a man with preference for military
rather than diplomatic solutions in Central
America”-in early March 1983, Tambs
received the Senate’s consent, and packed his
bags for BogotA.
Will the Real Betancur Please Stand Up?
The Tambs appointment was one indication
that Betancur would have as many problems
elaborating his foreign policy as he had in for-
mulating a domestic policy. The posting of a
hawk to Colombia at a moment when the Col-
ombian president was trying to hammer out a
peace strategy for the region was provocative, if
not insulting.
Surprisingly, the Colombian government ac-
cepted the appointment without public recrim-
inations. The Colombian foreign minister
declined to veto the nomination on ideological
grounds. Looking for a silver lining, he said that
the nomination was actually welcome since it
would guarantee Betancur direct access to
someone who shared Reagan’s views on the
region.”
Whatever the reasons for accepting Tambs,
Betancur was obviously being pulled in two
directions as he elaborated his foreign policy.
For example, at the same time that he seemed to
be wrestling Colombia back from active partici-
pation in Reagan’s Central American plans,
Betancur named General Gonzalo Forero Del-
gadillo as ambassador to Honduras.” 1 Forero
is one of Colombia’s top experts in counter-
insurgency warfare. Given that Honduras has
become one of the keys to Reagan’s plans for
Central America (both in terms of weakening
Nicaragua and strengthening El Salvador),
Betancur’s move was highly significant.
Even more indicative of the forces tugging
Betancur along a conservative path is the issue
of Colombia’s arms build-up. While Betancur
was calling for an end to “the importation of
heavy offensive weapons” in the Caribbean
basin, he placed an order in Washington for 240
Seasparrow ship-to-ship and ship-to-air mis-
siles. ” He permitted the air force to purchase 12
A-37 fighter-bombers and one Boeing 707-C
from the United States. And he has not chal-
lenged Turbay’s order for four West German
frigates to be armed with 32 Exocet missiles of
Malvinas/Falklands fame. 1
To pay for these new weapons systems, the
construction of a new air base in eastern Colom-
bia and new naval and air force facilities on the
Caribbean island of San Andrds, the military
budget for 1983 has been increased to $2.6
billion, an enormous rise from the 1970s annual
average military budget for some $200 million.”
And this is happening at a moment of increas-
ingly severe budget deficits in Colombia.
Once Again, the Generals
Once again the military establishment ap-
pears to be setting the course for Colombia, and
the civilian president seems unable to funda-
mentally change or challenge it. Under Turbay,
the military shifted its concentration on tradi-
tional disputes with Venezuela over oil-pro-
ducing territories to a strong projection into the
Caribbean. The most important aspect of this
was the construction of new airfields and naval
facilities on the island of San Andrds, hard off
Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. 1 4
By April 1983, the military’s determination
to have its voice heard in foreign affairs had left
the realm of subtle interjection. The Libyan jets
made this very clear. In late April 1983, four
Libyan jets bound for Nicaragua were detained
32 NACLA ReportMav/June 1983
“The posting of a hawk to Colombia at a moment when the Colombian presi-
dent was trying to hammer out a peace strategy for the region was
provocative, if not insulting.”
when they stopped for refueling in Brazil. Local
authorities found that they carried military, not
medical, supplies. While the diplomatic conse-
quences of this were being played out among
Brazil, Libya, Nicaragua and the United
States, Colombia’s top brass stepped in.
At first, the defense ministry claimed that
Colombia had captured one of the Libyan
planes which had landed in their country. Lack-
ing any means of proving this, the ministry then
asserted that the planes detained in Brazil were
actually going to supply M-19’s guerrillas in
Colombia; they even carried 172 guerrillas on
board.” While no shred of evidence existed to
prove this, the military had made its point: Col-
ombia’s domestic unrest was nurtured by Cuba-
Nicaragua-Libya. They had to be fought at
home and stopped abroad.
And the Future?
Where Betancur will go from here is the
question on everyone’s mind. In terms of
domestic policy, Betancur has already backed
down significantly before military and civilian
hardliners. Not only has the amnesty fallen
through-as of this writing the Colombian mili-
tary has again launched a major offensive
against the guerrillas-but the president has
been unable to generate any economic program
to alleviate the hardships caused by the pro-
Campesino shack, outside of Bogota.
3334 NACLA Report
longed recession. bassador in Washington, and a representative
In the foreign policy arena, Betancur must of the most conservative and militarist faction of
juggle his desire to play an active, peaceful part the Conservative Party.
in the region’s affairs with the military’s seem- Up to now, however, it appears that Betancur
ing desire to play an active, bellicose role. has agilely kept all the balls in the air: seizing
Should the right-wing forces find that Betan- what diplomatic initiatives he can while allow-
cur has become more of an obstacle than they ing the military to re-arm and build for future
bargained for, they have already settled on his wars. But given the strength of the forces ar-
successor: Alvaro G6mez Hurtado, the vice rayed against him, one wonders when his hands
president selected by congress, Colombia’s am- will tire and the balls will come tumbling down.
POSTSCRIPT
1. Miami Herald, August 8, 1982.
2. Miami Herald, November 26, 1982.
3. Francisco De Roux, Candidatos, programasy compromisos
(BogotA: Cinep, 1982), p. 25.
4. Ibid, pp. 24-40.
5. Belisario Betancur, “Colombia busca un cambio,” in
Alberto Lleras, et al, Los Caminos del Cambio (BogotA: Edi-
ciones Tercer Mundo, 1966), p. 13.
6. De Roux, Candidatos, p. 39.
7. Lewis A. Tambs, “Introduction,” in United States
Policy Toward Latin America: Antecedents and Alternatives
(Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies,
Arizona State University, 1976), p. 8.
8. Lewis A. Tambs and Frank Aker, “Shattering the
Viet Nam Syndrome: A Scenario for Success in El Salva-
dor” (mimeo, 1981), p. 7.
9. CARACOL radio network, as cited in FBIS,
February 7, 1983.
10. FBIS, December 28, 1982.
11. Congressional Record, Senate, December 1, 1982, p.
S13693.
12. El Espectador (Bogota), November 28, 1982, and
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI
Yearbook 1982 (London: Taylor and Francis, Ltd., 1982),
pp. 210-211.
13. El Espectador September 17, 1982.
14. This issue was discussed in Jimeno, “Colombia-
Another Threat in the Caribbean.”
15. Associated Press wires received in New York, April
21, 1983, 1812 GMT and April 22, 1983, 0049 GMT and
see Latin America Weekly Report, May 6, 1982.
