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The Day Colombia's Path Took A Terrible Turn

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Nov

The Day Colombia's Path Took A Terrible Turn

Written by Satish Sekar

Bad Rep
Some struggles have gone on so long that fighting becomes a way of life where few can remember how and why it started, or even what it was originally designed to achieve. Is it still a valid form of struggle today? In a fortnight Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos arrives in Britain for a brief visit. In this series of articles the Fitted-In Journal reviews the recent history of that country and the efforts of Santos to ensure that Colombia takes its rightful place on the world stage.

Few countries have suffered from such a bad international reputation as Colombia. It is remembered for all the wrong reasons. Armed insurgencies that have lasted over half a century. Paramilitary violence began long before its supposed creation in the 1980s. Kidnappings and disappearances were rife and the pervasive power of drug cartels cast its long shadow over many aspects of life in the land that Simón Bolívar struggled to create. Disappearances were widespread too. Journalists and writers bold enough to try to expose and inform about these atrocities received death threats or worse. The exodus cost the country much-needed talent, and some who refused to leave were murdered, but now Colombia has an unlikely champion – Santos.
He faces a daunting task to undo many wrongs, but where did it start?

Long before Pablo Escobar and other drug lords came to prominence, Colombia was still a dangerous place. Social iniquities in its largely agrarian economy came at a high price. Power was concentrated in the hands of a rich minority that defended its privilege through violent means, including political assassinations – one of which would send this beautiful country on a path that threatened destruction.

The Rise of the People's Champion
The FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has been fighting the governments of Colombia for 45 years. It was established in 1964 purportedly as a response to a dark period in Colombian history known as La Violencia, but the conditions that gave birth to the FARC can be traced back to pivotal event in Colombia's history that is widely believed to have bee the trigger of La Violencia – the assassination of Liberal Party leader and radical politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala on April 9th 1948.

It was a crime that spawned an industry of conspiracy theories – many outlandish, but the legacy of this assassination was nourmous. It set Colombia on a dangerous track that it is only now beginning to emerge from. Gaitán was just 45 when he died. He was widely tipped to be the Liberal Party's candidate for a bid for the Presidency of Colombia – it would have been his second attempt, as he lost in 1946 to the Conservatives, which resulted in land seizure from peasants and armed resistance. Some argue that was the real start of La Violencia.

Gaitán had previously served as Minister of Education in 1940, Minister of Labour in 1943 and 44 and Mayor of Bogotá in 1936. His early activism earned him powerful enemies of all political persuasions, including a split from the Liberals, which he rejoined in 1935. Internal divisions saw the Liberal Party defeated in the elections of 1946 and policies that set Colombia on a violent path that continues to this day.

Gaitán became the undisputed leader of the Liberal Party the following year and was a shoe-in for the nomination of his party for 1950, or would have been had fate not intervened. The thought of a Gaitán was too much for some to even contemplate.

The Assassination
Nevertheless, Gaitán was a walking contradiction. His speeches were full of defending the rights of peasants – his rhetoric often inspiring and fiery – but despite being their champion Gaitán didn't trust them to govern in their own right.

Contradictions notwithstanding Gaitán remained popular and a threat, especially to the powers that be. Whether he was silenced through them or that was a convenient circumstance, Gaitán's voice was silenced permanently on April 9th 1948.

He had spent the morning preparing the defence of a client – a military man – and that afternoon he had an appointment to meet a Cuban delegation that included a young Fidel Castro. Gaitán never made that appointment. Just after 1.00 in the afternoon he left his office to walk to his appointment. An assassin shot him three times, twice in the head and once in the chest. It was an efficient assassination, suggesting that the murderer had expereience of firearms. That would prove controversial later, but the immediate aftermath of the assassination would not be a time for reason. Anger and fury would reign and give rise to events that affected the course of Colombian history to such an extent that its impact is still being felt over 60 years later.

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