1. As a result of the March 1984 peace treaties between the Revolutionary Armed Forces ofColombia (FARC) and the government of President Belisario Betancur, the Patriotic Union (UP) was founded, independently from the Colombian Communist Party. In spite of the failure of these treaties and the numerous assassinations of a significant number of UP militants and two of its presidential candidates, the party continues to participate in electoral politics. After the members of the M- 19 guerrilla movement put down their arms and returned to civilian life, they formed the M-19 Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democratica M-19), which now constitutes a significant political force.
2. Anthropologist Nina S. de Friedemann and I questioned representatives from various black groups about why they had not supported a local man, Carlos Rosero, who sought to represent them in the Constituent Assembly. They answered that since the indigenous and left-wing candidates had more money and better connections to the media, they decided to support Emberi Indian leader Francisco Rojas Barri. They added that others had chosen to support the candidates from the Patriotic Union or the M-19 Democratic Alliance, also under the assumption that these parties would support black issues, particularly territorial disputes on the Pacific coast.
3. These were analogical and probabilistic systems, as opposed to fixed digital ones. Gregory Bateson wrote, “Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between one integer and the next. Betweentwo andthree there is ajump. In the case ofquantity there is no such jump; and because the jump is missing.it is impossible for any quantity to be exact. [N]umber is the world of pattern, gestalt, and digital computation; quantity is the world of analogic and probabilistic computation.” Gregory Bateson, Mindand Nature (New York: Bantam, 1979), p. 51.