Bogotazo

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The massive riots that followed the assassination in Bogotá of Colombian Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948 were known as the Bogotazo (from "Bogotá" and the -azo suffix of violent augmentation).

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[edit] General settings

On April 9, 1948 the 9th International Conference of American Countries was being held in Bogotá and President Mariano Ospina Pérez was attending a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State General George Marshall

At the time, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was the main leader of the Liberal Party, and the most prominent politician in the country after President Ospina. His office was located in downtown Bogotá, on the corner of 7th avenue and 14th street. Gaitán had been working the previous night until 4 a.m. as defense attorney in the trial that declared the innocence of Lt. Jesús María Cortés. Gaitán was running in the presidential election, as the candidate most likely to win.

[edit] Murder of Gaitán

The doorman of the Agustín Nieto building, where Gaitán's office was located, said he saw an unknown young man waiting outside the office about 1:00p.m. Gaitán was scheduled to meet that afternoon with the Cubans Fidel Castro and Rafael del Pino to talk about the Latin American Youth Congress, where they expected Gaitán to do the final Speech, as Castro declared years later in an interview with Arturo Alape (1983).

Gaitán left his office, and just outside the building he was shot twice in the head and one in the chest, with a .32 caliber handgun, at 1:15 p.m. However, he didn't die immediately; he was carried to a local hospital where he died a few minutes later.

[edit] The Killer

The man who killed Gaitán ran away heading south. Soon, an angry mob ran after him. Nearby, policeman Carlos Alberto Jiménez Díaz tried to control the situation. The man surrendered to him and said to Jiménez:

- "No me mate, mi cabo" (Don't kill me, officer)

In an attempt to avoid the angry mob, Jiménez and the man ran into the Granada drugstore and closed it. Some witnesses argue that the man who was taken into the drugstore wasn't the same one who was captured, and that Officer Jiménez was mistaken because of the angry mob and because the other man was also wearing a gray hat.[citation needed] According to the drugstore owner, when he asked the man why he had killed Gaitán, he just said:

- "Ay ¡Señor, cosas poderosas! Ay!, Virgen del Carmen, sálvame!" (Powerful things, Lord! Our Lady of Carmen, save me!)

After that, the doors were charged and the man was taken by the mob. His naked corpse was found later, in the Bolívar Square, outside the Presidential Palace. His face was crushed with a brick, and his body was torn. A bystander, Gabriel Restrepo, collected the remains of his clothes where he found some personal documents, which allowed to identify him as 21-year-old Juan Roa Sierra.

[edit] The riots

Radio Station Últimas noticias, managed by followers of Gaitán, made the following broadcast some minutes later:

"Últimas Noticias con ustedes. Los conservadores y el gobierno de Ospina Pérez acaban de asesinar al doctor Gaitán, quien cayó frente a la puerta de su oficina abaleado por un policía. Pueblo ¡a las armas! ¡A la carga!, a la calle con palos, piedras, escopetas, cuanto haya a la mano. Asaltad las ferreterías y tomaos la dinamita, la pólvora, las herramientas, los machetes..."

Translation:

"Últimas Noticias with you. Conservatives and the Ospina Pérez government have just killed Dr. Gaitán, who fell by the door of his office, shot by a police officer. People: To arms! Charge! Everyone come out to the streets armed with sticks, stones, shotguns, or whatever you can get. Break into the hardware stores to get dynamite, gunpowder, and grab all the tools and the machetes...".

After that, instructions to make Molotov cocktails were broadcast.

People from everywhere in the city rushed downtown. Many homeless people who came from different places of the country to Bogotá running away from violent political conflicts were added to the mobs. A large crowd formed outside Clinica Central, the hospital where Gaitan died.

At 1:20 p.m. President Ospina was notified of the murder and called for a council with his cabinet. After dumping the body of Roa outside the Casa de Nariño, the crowd attacked the palace with stones and bricks. Many cars, buses and such were burned. A few hours later violence exploded in other cities, including Medellín, Ibagué and Barranquilla.

The leaders of the Liberal Party decided to nominate Darío Echandía as head of the party, in replacement of Gaitán. From a balcony, he demanded the crowd stop the violence, but it was useless. The mobs tried to force the entry of Casa de Nariño. They were confronted by the Army, and many people died right there, over the 7th avenue. The people set fire on the offices of government ministry and El Siglo newspaper.

Most of the hardware stores, specially in San Victorino district, were raided. People armed themselves with pipes, hooks, steel rods, hatches, saws, machetes and such. Some policemen joined the mobs. Others were confused and waited for orders that never came.

About 3:00 p.m, the mobs broke in the police headquarters, commanded for major Benicio Arce Vera. He came out to the crowd, unarmed, and gave orders of not to shoot. He tried to talk to the mob but they ran over him. Then, the people took all the weapons and ammunitions. Among those who took the weapons was Fidel Castro, according to Arce, in an interview years later to Bohemia magazine (La Habana, April 21, 1983, issue 16).

The leaders of the Liberal party were at the hospital, next to Gaitán's body, very confused and unable to find solutions to the chaos. Then, they received a phone call from the presidential palace, inviting them to a meeting to try to solve their differences and find answers. The Liberal leaders, however, never arrived because of the conflict in the streets, and some of them were hurt by bullets. Finally, they asked for a military escort, which eventually got them into the palace. However, President Ospina was surprised to see the Liberal leaders arrive, since the call was made by some of his ministers without his knowledge. Anyway, they discussed overnight - but failed to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, Molotov bombs were devastating downtown Bogotá. The fire destroyed Cundinamarca Government building, the historic San Carlos palace (containing the oldest portrait of Simón Bolívar, painted by Gill in London (1810); the Justice Palace, Feminine University, Dominican Convent, St. Inés Convent, Regina Hotel, Veracruz church, La Salle highschool, the Vatican Nunciature, and many other important landmarks of the city.

People broke into most stores, the rage raised by the minute. By 6:00 p.m, over 3000 people were dead in the streets, 136 buidings were on fire and many people were injured. The jails were opened and the prisoners were released. People fought to death for stolen goods. All sort of merchandise was carried to the poor neighbourhoods in the outskirts. As reported some days later, by Semana magazine (issue #78, April 24/1948), people started to sell the stolen objects at extremely low prices, or just exchanged the merchandise for alcohol. In the afterdays, a kind of marketplace of stolen goods was set in Bogotá, which was then known as "Feria Panamericana" (Pan-American Fair).

The people quickly got drunk from the alcoholic beverages stolen from the stores. Ironically, this worked in favor of the government forces, because the drunken mobs wouldn't offer resistance to the attack of the Army.

In an attempt to get some control of the situation, the staff of radio station "Últimas Noticias" — Gerardo Molina, Diego Montaña Cuellar, Carlos Restrepo Piedrahita, Jorge Zalamea, Jorge Uribe Márquez, José Mar and others — planned to start a Revolutionary Council. They broadcast information about the constitution of this council and announced severe punishment to those who took advantage of the riots to commit crimes.

The Central Government, after defeating the mobs that were attacking the palace, was comparatively uninterested about the situation in the rest of the city and didn't do much about it. However, the statements broadcasted by Últimas Noticias claiming political power were perceived as a threat. The electricity on that district was shut down, and the Army was sent to stop the broadcasting.

By the dawn, much of the city was devastated. Waves of unrest and crime continued spreading throughout different areas of the country for almost a decade, in a civil conflict of bipartisan mass murdering and torture which received the generic name of La Violencia, ("The Violence"), during which approximately 200,000 people died.

[edit] Foreign involvement theories

There are some theories indicating that Gaitán assassination was planned and developed for more people than just Juan Roa Sierra or that he was not even the real killer. He was born in a poor family with a history of mental illneses among his brothers,and maybe himself. He was seen often in Gaitán's office asking for job, since he was unemployed, but Gaitán never received him. Some people who know him told that he never learned to shoot a gun, in contrast with the accuracy of the shots that Gaitán received. It has been known that the gun used to kill Gaitán was sold two days before the crime, with not enough time to teach Roa to use a gun. So, it has been theorized that the crime was planned for political reasons and to promote different interest of foreign countries, but it has never been corroborated. Different publications have mencionated among others: (Angel Aparicio Lourencio, 1975) [1],[2]m, [3]. Antonio García, Gerardo Molina, Salvador Ocampo the Communist leader of Chile, Gustavo Machado the Communist leader of Venezuela, Spanish Republican guerrilla General Luis Fernández Juan, Millorad Pesik of the Yugoslav military, Alexandre Okilokoff and Ramón Anzokoff "Engineers" from the USSR, Fidel Castro, Rafael del Pino Sierro (a US citizen), Eugene Kerbaúl, Mackimon Damon, and Miso Rujitch

The mysterious US diplomat and old Cuban "hand" William Wieland [4], said member of the Center of Foreign Relations and protégé of Sumner Welles [5]; Weiland would be later accused of strong left leaning activity [6],[7], and CIA operative Richard Salvatierra [8] [9] [10] are also said involved.

Some writers say that this event influenced Fidel Castro at the age of 21, who had the opportunity to witness the initial violence and take views about the viability of an electoral route for political change. Others view it more darkly since Castro at that age had already been involved in violence in Cuba where he is reputed to have killed, or tried to kill, a number of university rivals (including Rolando Masferrer) by that time (Ros, 2003).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Guitiérrez, 1962,"La rebeldia colombiana", Editiones Tercer Mundo, Bogotá.
  • Laurencio, Angel Aparicio 1973, “Antecedentes desconocidos del nueve de abril”, Ediciones Universal, Madrid ISBN 84-399-1336-2
  • Nieto Rojas, José María 1956, "La batalla contra el comunismo en Colombia", Empresa National de Publicaciones, Bogotá.
  • Ros, Enrique 2003, "Fidel Castro y El Gatillo Alegre: Sus Años Universitarios", (Coleccion Cuba y Sus Jueces) Ediciones Universal Miami ISBN 1-59388-006-5

[edit] External links

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