Mainstream Again
Conservative hegemony over Colombia had waned at gunpoint thanks to the Santa Marta Massacre, which left up to 2000 dead in December 1928. Worn out by trying to defend this atrocity President Miguel Abadía Méndez presided over the end of twenty years of conservative rule. Liberal Party candidate Enrique Olaya Herrera won the election in 1930, but Olaya controversially included conservatives in his his administration. They were eventually pushed out by liberals. After all, they hadn't waited twenty years to share ministerial positions with defeated conservatives.

The rising star of radical liberalism Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was in an even bigger hurry and chose to leave the Liberal Party to establish his own opposition party, the National Leftist Revolutionary Union (Unión Nacional Izquierdista Revolucionaria {UNIR}). He had not opposed the conservative and libral élites since his teens only to share power with them. He left in 1933, but the Liberal Party changed when Alfonso López Pumarejo replaced Olaya as President in 1934, so Gaitán rejoined the Liberal Party the following year.

The Assassination
The Liberal Party's candidate for the Presidency of Colombia in 1950, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala, was popular with the poor in particular. An orator of great ability, he looked set to win the election in 1949, but was denied the chance to stand due to an assassin or more likely a conspiracy. Gaitán carried the hopes of most of the country on his shoulders, but Colombia was to be robbed of its future on April 9th 1948 and earn a succession of unwanted tags.

Gaitán had spent the previous night preparing the defence of Lieutenant Jesús María Cortés Poveda until 4.00 a.m. Cortés was subsequently acquitted – Gaitán had won his last case from beyond the grave. Despite having worked hard the night before, Gaitán arrived at his office four hours later on April 9th. A young man had been observed waiting outside Gaitán's office in downtown Bogotá. He had arrived around 9.30, waiting to see the lawyer and Presidential candidate. Gaitán left his office for the last time shortly after 1.00 p.m.

He didn't get far. An assassin had been lying in wait and shot him three times, twice in the head and once in the chest, with a .32 calilbre gun around 1.15 in the afternoon. He was carried to hospital, but it was too late; Gaitán died soon afterwards. His assassination quickly enraged the people of Bogotá and beyond. His supporters called people onto the streets to protest. For the next ten hours Bogotá was ablaze. The alleged assassin Juan Roa Sierra was rapidly subjected to mob justice, but his violent death did nothing to quell the angry mood of the crowd, or solve the issues surrounding his death.

The Patsy?
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala, the People's Champion, was dead – struck down by an assassin. But who did it? The assassination was quickly pinned on 26 year-old Juan Roa Sierra, who was suffering from delusions, which included believing that he was the 19th century Colombian national hero Francisco de Paula Santander y Omaña or the Spanish adventurer Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada who seized control of Bogotá in the 1530s, claiming it for the Spanish Emperor Carlos V.

Roa clearly had serious mental problems, but he was also a very convenient suspect, as his delusions meant that the lone (lunatic) assassin hypothesis would seem plausible, but did he do it, and if he was involved in the assassination, did he do it alone? These questions divide Colombia even now. Even though Roa was not seen by anyone at the scene of the crime at the relevant time – he was first seen between two policemen – he still had the opportunity and he was discovered carrying a gun that the official report concluded he had been told to hold nearby while the 'real killer' made his getaaway.

He had tried to get close to Gaitán previously, seeking employment, but never got an appointment. At the very least, he had an interest in Gaitán if not an obsession with him. While forensic sciences were rudimentary then, they could have resolved some issues, especially regarding the gun Roa had. Colombian General Secretary and later conservative Minister of Education, Rafael Azula Barrera, claimed that it was incapable of being fired accurately. There is no evidence that Roa was proficient, or even competent, with firearms, while the assassin of Gaitán was clinically efficient – two shots to the head and one to the chest.

In the light of all this, was it really likely that Roa could have committed this terrible crime, especially on his own? The Colombian government's report concluded that Roa had been paid to stand nearby with a gun. In short, they believed that Roa was one in a long line of patsys, but if Roa was a patsy, who really did it? There were a large number of conspiracy theories to answer that, but few solid facts.

The Cast of Incredible Suspects
There was no shortage of people who hated the Colombian lawyer and Liberal Party's Presidential candidate for the pending elections in 1950, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala. He had enemies on both left and right of the political spectrum and therefore a wide range of suspects in conspiracies to kill him. He was assassinated on April 9th 1948 and chaos followed along with a very unfortunate legacy. Violence (Bogotazo) erupted over the next ten hours and the assassination contributed to a culture of violence that sadly continues to this day.

Unsurprisingly, Gaitán's political opponents were suspected and blamed as conspiracy theories took root. After all, the conservative President Mariano Ospina Pérez was not only an implacable opponent, but his policies, especially the land-seizures, were vigorously opposed by Gaitán. Ospina and his party certainly had much to gain from Gaitán's death, as they were as unpopular as Gaitán was the opposite. He looked a shoe-in to win the Presidency in 1950, which meant not oly r4eversal of conservative policies, but radical liberalism.

Ospina, meanwhile, had previously placed the country on a collision course with his harsh and controversial land seizure policies. Gaitán was an outspoken critic of this policy. There was no love lost between the men who would have contested the next election, but for the assassination. Instead the country was engulfed in violence and the Liberal Party refused to contest the next election, resulting in a deeply unpopular government clinging to power until the army decided to act.