1. The novel Melo refers to is Gabriel García Márquez, El general en su laberinto (Bogotá: Editorial Oveja Negra, 1989).

2. See Gary Hoskin's reviews of The Politics of Coalition Rule in Colombia by Jonathan Hartlyn and Democracy in Colombia: Clientelist Politics and Guerrilla Warfare by Jorge Osterling. In American Political Science Review, no. 84 (June 1990):688–90.

3. Several works are of related interest: Mario J. Arango and Jorge Child V., Narcotráfico: imperio de la cocaína (Bogotá and Mexico City: Editorial Diana and Edivisión Compañía Editorial, 1987); Alvaro Camacho Guizado, Droga y sociedad en Colombia: el poder y el estigma (Bogotá: Fondo Editorial CEREC, 1988); and Fabio Castillo, Los jinetes de la cocaína (Bogotá: Editorial Documentos Periodísticos, 1987).

4. Many of these scholars expose the methodological and epistemological foundations of their training in a rather unself-conscious manner. Thus it is possible to discern that much of their training occurred in the United States, with an emphasis on social processes. This trait is particularly, but not exclusively, noticeable in the research undertaken at the Centro de Estudios Internacionales at the Universidad de los Andes. The other major source of influence on Colombian social sciences is French thinking, with the accent on structuralism and poststructuralism being recognizable in the work of many of the members of the Instituto de Estudios Políticos at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá. Fortunately, sterile methodological debates among communities have been limited, allowing for creative collaborations combining varying epistemological and methodological approaches, as is apparent in all the edited volumes reviewed here (especially Narcotráfico en Colombia). These increasingly sophisticated approaches exhibit all the necessary accoutrements of modern social science in their careful use of quantifiable methodologies and statistics. But their most appealing characteristic is their explicit interpretive nature, even in cases where an evident positivistic influence can be traced to the behavioral revolution in the United States. It appears to be easier for these authors to be constructively critical than it is for the international observers who comment on the Colombian scene. Finally and most rewarding, increasing numbers of scholars are receiving much of their postgraduate training in Colombia, a trend that is producing innovative and incisive work.

5. Accordingly, it is possible to claim in the section entitled “The Foreign Policy of Colombia toward the United States, 1978–1990: The Subject of Drugs and Its Place in the Relations between Bogotá and Washington” that “The poor and even faulty information on the subject of drugs is notorious in Bogotá and Washington. In every one of the debates that arise over legislation, crop eradication methods (such as using chemical herbicides), extradition, militarization, and negotiation, no serious work exists that can evaluate the advantages and disadvantages, the convenience, viability, need and utility, legality, and the political and socioeconomic effects, internal and external, of the actions that are undertaken or the options that are offered or the alternatives that are rejected. All of this constitutes an additional reason-not to be disregarded—for insisting on the urgency of elaborating and executing a Colombian policy, internal as well as external, autonomous and realistic, regarding drugs” (Narcotráfico en Colombia, p. 367).

6. An excellent review of Colombia's foreign policy, old and new, is found in Martha Ardila, with Julieta Lizarazo, ¿Cambio de norte? Momentos críticos de la política exterior colombiana (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, 1991).

7. A peculiar and somewhat self-serving history of the Colombian Armed Forces from colonial times to the Frente Nacional can be found in Mayor Gonzalo Bermúdez Rossi, El poder militar en Colombia, de la colonia al frente nacional (Bogotá: Ediciones Expresión, 1982). The book is dedicated to “The comrades of the armed forces fallen in the fields of the fatherland, in defense of belittled principles.” A much older and even more idiosyncratic book is a collection of meditations on the Colombian military and its role written by a “shadow” minister of war. See Tomás Rueda Varas, El ejército nacional (Bogotá: Imprenta y Litografía de las Fuerzas Armadas, 1969, originally published in 1944). In general terms, the Colombian Armed Forces have been understudied, while the more accessible and formal factors of political life (like political parties) or the more “interesting” areas of study (like economic development) have been favored. I know of no serious military sociologists as such or political scientists in Colombia or abroad who are focusing on Colombian civilian-military relations. Perhaps Eduardo Pizarro Leongómez could be considered a military sociologist (he provided one of the stronger contributions to Violence in Colombia). He has also published a three-part series on military professionalism in Análisis Político, nos. 1–3 (May–Aug. 1987, Sept.–Dec 1987, Jan.–Apr. 1988), in addition to a comprehensive bibliography on the subject. The brevity of the bibliography reflects the inadequate attention devoted to the topic in Colombia (as elsewhere). See “Las fuerzas militares en Colombia (Siglo XX),” Análisis Político, no. 5 (Sept.–Dec. 1988):108–10. This excellent quarterly journal published by the Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales of the Universidad Nacional first appeared in the fall of 1987. Its insightful articles and thematic biographies have not been cited in much of the contemporary work available in English on Colombia. Finally, Armando Borrero M.'s contribution to Al filo del caos, entitled “Militares, política y sociedad,” is a valuable interpretive account that offers an understanding of Colombian military power somewhere between the possibility of unrestrained violence and the potential for diminishing this violence.

8. See Presidencia Nacional de la República, Estrategia Nacional contra La Violencia, special edition, El Tiempo, 30 May 1991. The strategy received almost no attention outside Colombia, despite its efforts to reduce the space for illegitimate violence through a comprehensive response to the multiple social, economic, and political factors underlying the explosion of violence surrounding drug trafficking. The strategy includes a national rehabilitation plan, the strengthening of the administration of justice, and a bolstering of police forces to deal with criminal violence. The strategy thus distances the Colombian Armed Forces from roles inimical to their inherent role of territorial defense (despite their forty years of fighting insurgencies) and includes nongovernmental organizations in a dialogue of peace premised on negotiated solution of challenges to the Colombian state and society.

9. Chapters 3, 4, 6, and 8 appear in Pasado y presente de La Violencia en Colombia (Bogotá: Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Colombiana, 1986).

10. See Chapters 7, 9, and 12, the last being the chapter taken from Colombia: violencia y democracia. Chapter 7 by Medófilo Medina and Chapter 9 by Alfredo Molano (the author of Aguas arriba) are described as having previously appeared in Spanish, but no reference is given. Chapters 1, 2, 5, 10, 11, 13, and 14 were prepared expressly for Violence in Colombia. An annoying detail is its incomplete and dated political map of Colombia (as of 1977) that does not show San Andrés and Providencia nor indicate the creation of Casanare and Guaviare.

11. This need to go beyond archival research is evident in Carlos Miguel Ortiz Sarmiento's interpretive account of violence in the heart of the coffee-producing area of Colombia, entitled “The ‘Business of the Violence’: The Quindío in the 1950s and 1960s” (Chapter 6 in Violence in Colombia). An expanded version of this history appears in his Estado y subversión en Colombia: La Violencia en el Quindío Años 50 (Bogotá: Fondo Editorial CEREC, 1985). Complementary research on the department of Valle del Cauca from 1930 to 1960 focuses on the pájaros, who were a kind of precursors of the sicarios of the 1980s, a subculture of extraordinary violence that incorporated extremes of callousness as well as compassion and love. See Darío Betancourt and Martha L. García, Matones y cuadrilleros: origen y evolución de La Violencia en el occidente colombiano (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, 1991). An important documentary source on the sicarios of Medellín is found in the dramatic oral history compiled by J. Alonso Salazar, No nacimos pa' semilla (Bogotá: Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular, 1990).

12. Hartlyn nevertheless indicates the potentially changeable nature of the parties themselves: “We should not underestimate their capacity to adapt to the exigencies of the contemporary political crisis, if this constitutes a prerequisite for their survival” (p. 174). This description certainly fits the case of the Liberal party, while the historical differences within the Conservative party led to a final schism that after the 1990 elections denied it any possible unified majoritarian role in the near future.

13. At a formal level, President Gaviria appointed a civilian as defense minister for the first time in more than forty years, and he also named a civilian to replace the popular General Miguel Maza Márquez as head of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), which spearheaded the drive against narcotrafficking. The first appointment received no international attention, but the second was widely viewed in the U.S. press as a concession to Pablo Escobar and the “Medellín cartel.” Unfortunately, no commentator perceived the importance of civilian controls over the armed forces or security apparatus (the chief of police is still a police general), despite the calls for these moves in countries experiencing transitions from authoritarian rule or continued instability because of the dominant role played by the armed forces in defining military missions and responses to perceived or actual threats. Even more important was the fact that the Colombian Armed Forces readily acquiesced to this move, particularly because the new defense minister, Rafael Pardo Rueda, is an experienced national-security practitioner who participated in the peace process that brought the M-19 Alianza Democrática out of its clandestine life to participate in the Constitutional Assembly as a viable third partner of the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties. This experience could be viewed as an example for other countries not yet having civilians qualified or even empowered to serve as defense ministers in contexts where it is universally agreed that the armed forces must be subordinated to civilian rule. Finally, naming civilian Fernando Brito to head the DAS resolved the rivalry between the police forces and that organization, the latter being defined under Colombian law as an administrative department of a civilian and technical nature similar to that of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Having a police general serve as its head was tactically expedient at the height of the fighting against the drug traffickers, but it lost much significance with President Gaviria's strategic effort to civilianize the struggle against uncontrolled violence, whether criminal, social, or political, to “strengthen our intelligence services [and] create genuine instances of leadership in this field, … [efforts] that cannot be delayed and will be undertaken under my personal command.” See “¡Civiles, a la carga!” Semana, no. 488, 10–17 Sept. 1991, p. 35.

14. Germán Castro Caicedo's pioneering work was Colombia amarga (Bogotá: Carlos Valencia, 1976). This work was followed by other notable volumes such as Mi alma se la dejo al diablo (Bogotá: Plaza and Janés, 1982) and the less well-received contemporary rendition of the history of the discovery and brutal conquest of the Americas by Europeans, El Hurakán: historias de piratas, brujas, santos, conquistadores, indios, tempestades y naufragios (Bogotá: Planeta Colombiana, 1991).

15. Molano's contribution to Violence in Colombia, “Violence and Colonization,” presents similar material in a more conventional format. Some of the richness and texture of his narrative is lost in this formal version, however, due to either the format or the translation, which is good but cannot replicate the language of the protagonists of the Colombian frontier.

16. A well-balanced approach, nevertheless, can be found in Jaime Eduardo Jaramillo, Leonidas Mora, and Fernando Cubides, Colonización, coca y guerrilla (Bogotá: Alianza Editorial Colombiana, 1989).

17. In Violence in Colombia, Eduardo Pizarro succinctly describes this experience: “The guerrilla movement … [the FARC] was constituted in the form of a regional structure of social welfare, of individual and collective survival, which explains why it has been so deeply rooted in the areas where it operates” (p. 182).