Colombia Public Workers Protest Cuts

Public employees marched on the capital and four other cities Thursday in the third day of a nationwide strike to protest the government’s economic austerity program.

As the workers demonstrated, Colombians expressed envy and some embarrassment that neighboring Ecuador ousted its president in less than a week, while Colombia’s leader has remained in office despite more than a year of protests and sporadic congressional investigations.

“It’s a matter of national pride,” one man said ruefully.

Colombians are disillusioned with President Ernesto Samper because his campaign treasurer and his manager have said he knew that millions of dollars in drug money financed his 1994 presidential campaign.

Congress has twice exonerated Samper of those charges.

But government critics claimed that the price of clearing Samper has been the fiscal crisis that has led to the current workers’ strike.

Samper “bought the goodwill of Congress by spreading money all over the country,” asserted Hernan Echavarria, a former Cabinet minister and a leading critic of the president.

Those pork-barrel policies, critics say, caused the burgeoning national deficit that ultimately led to this week’s job actions.

Striking public workers oppose the government-offered pay raises--which fall far short of the inflation rate--and the Samper regime’s plans to sell state-owned companies to raise money to reduce the federal budget deficit.

The deficit is also growing because of an economic slowdown that has reduced the amount of taxes collected, government officials say. But protesters disagreed.

“They have enough money,” said Maria Cristina Mayorga, 40, an elementary school teacher. “What has happened is that they are spending the education budget on other things.”

Echavarria observed: “The government spent too much money in questionable areas, and when it came time to recognize the work of government employees, there was no money left.”

Samper “is crazy, another [Abdala] Bucaram,” he said, referring to the Ecuadoran president who was ousted recently by his nation’s Congress for mental incompetence.

Unlike Bucaram, however, Samper still has the support of his nation’s armed forces, as well as advisors who have defused a series of crises.

For example, even as protesting government employees poured into Bogota from outlying areas to fill the historic Plaza Bolivar, Samper’s ministers resumed talks with union leaders who represent about one-third of the nearly 1 million government employees. The talks broke off Sunday because the government refused to increase its pay offer or back down on privatization.

Interior Minister Horacio Serpa, a skilled negotiator who is heading the government team, said before the talks began Thursday that “we will examine the workers’ demand in the broadest and most generous way, but they must understand that we have problems.”

Meanwhile, authorities said Thursday that they were investigating an explosion near the airport in Colombia’s Caribbean port of Barranquilla minutes before Samper was due to land there Wednesday. No one claimed responsibility for the incident, and authorities had not named any suspects.

Samper said in an interview with reporters that the possible assassination attempt involved a 44-pound bomb that exploded near the airport’s runway.

Samper, who was back in Bogota on Thursday, flew to Barranquilla to watch a World Cup soccer qualifying match between Colombia and Argentina. Colombia lost 1-0.