General Satisfaction

One hundred thousand Colombians paraded in Bogota last week to honor their new President, Lieut. General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, who exactly a month before had overthrown the unpopular regime of Laureano Gomez. The five-hour parade was extraordinary: instead of marching, the people rode in 1,500 buses, 2,300 taxis and 3,000 trucks (thus paralyzing normal transportation in the capital and for miles around). Beaming down from the balcony of the presidential palace, Rojas could see that the buses and taxis were arranged by reds, yellows and blues to form enormous Colombian flags. Bands played, and at one point all the drivers in the whole 16-mile-long cavalcade blew their horns in a raucous, mechanical viva.

Partly, Colombians cheer easygoing General Rojas because he is such a welcome contrast to the gloomy and oppressive Gomez. Partly, they like his inspiring promises: "The armed forces will continue being . . . the jealous and disinterested guardians of the democratic survival of our institutions." Partly, they approve his decisive acts. In the last month he has:

P:Ended the civil war between the Government police and Liberal guerrillas by offering amnesty and reconciliation to the guerrillas. Hundreds have surrendered, and more give up daily.

P:Returned to their lands other hundreds of ex-guerrillas and guerrillas' victims who had fled to cities.

P:Undertaken, as "general to general," to solve the stubborn dispute with Peru's President, Manuel Odria, over the asylum granted by Colombia to Victor Haya de la Torre.*

P:Dropped a Gomez scheme to write a totalitarian constitution, and named Liberals as well as Conservatives to a commission which will refurbish the present law.

But martial law has not been lifted, as the editors of Gomez' El Siglo found out last week. Angered by a tactless editorial which seemed to take Peru's side in the Haya controversy, Rojas Pinilla closed El Siglo for a day. Censorship was also strict, though seemingly impartial, at other papers. Rojas has promised to return a measure of press freedom, after working out a set of "newspapermen's commandments." This may be less onerous than Gomez' capricious prior censorship, because it will put the rules down in black & white, but it will still be censorship.

* Left-wing (but antiCommunist) leader of Peru's workers and Indians. A hunted man after Odria's 1948 revolution, he took refuge in Colombia's Lima embassy 4 1/2 years ago. Subsequently, the World Court ruled confusingly that "asylum was not justified," but that Colombia "is not obliged to deliver" Haya to Peru. To this day, Haya has not left the embassy, which is completely encircled by Odria's troops.

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