Rojas pinilla

jccg says on Feb 6, 2006, 10:49:

Search in history books You will find many things, the only one that you will not find in there is that:
When he return to the country and became a presidential candidate, Misael Pastrana commited an electoral fraud, and stole the presidence from Pinilla. As hystory is written for those who rule, history books denny this, but any one that live that time can confirm this.

This is just the true!!

juancegomez says on Feb 6, 2006, 11:15:

,,,,,.. Actually, jccg, that is not too accurate.

In many history books, and I've got several in both English and Spanish right here (which I could quote if necessary), the extremely likely fraud that was committed against former General Rojas Pinilla is at least mentioned as a possibility.

So it is not so easy to generalize about that point.

juancegomez says on Feb 6, 2006, 11:33:

Rojas Pinilla has been a very controversial figure but, in retrospective, he has been considered to have been a "positive" ruler, to the point which his government has sometimes been excessively romanticized.

Shortly after coming to power, he was successful in convincing many of the Liberals up in arms to demobilize in return for an amnesty (which later was also extended to some Conservatives already in jail, in a controversial move), but a small minority of Liberal and Communist guerrilla groups did not accept this.

A few of the demobilized former guerrillas were assassinated by existing Conservative elements and Rojas Pinilla employed force against the remaining armed groups without too much success (famously circa 1955), so they continued to exist even if initially weakened. Overall, he did pacify much of the countryside but never completely.

One could say that, as time went by, he had the intention of imitating Argentina's Perón, and as such made several populist moves that earned him a lot of popularity among the lower and middle classes. He also increased military spending and promoted several infrastructure works, which are sometimes remembered fondly to this day.

Unfortunately, since he was a dictator after all, he also imposed press censorship (at one point he closed the two leading newspapers, though he allowed them to create interim replacements) and sometimes he used force against the people that protested against his government. Unlike Perón, he didn't manage to create a viable "Third Party" structure/movement that was strong enough to support him (though he did attempt to do so a couple of times).

In the end, he was brought down when the Catholic Church, some student organizations and the leaders of the Liberal and the Conservative parties united against him and he decided that it was best if he resigned and transmitted his powers to a short-lived military junta (Rojas initially thought that he would be able to return shortly, but by then the military junta was already transferring power to the National Front).