Jaime Bateman Cayón
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| Jaime Bateman Cayon | |
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| Born | April 23, 1940 Santa Marta, Colombia |
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| Died | April 23, 1940 (aged -44) San Blas, Panama |
Jaime Bateman Cayón aka el flaco "The skinny one" or Pablo by their guerrilla partners (born April 23, 1940 in Santa Marta, Magdalena - died April 28, 1983) was a Colombian guerrilla leader founder and commander of the 19th of April guerrilla movement.
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[edit] Early years
Bateman grew up in an environment of social movements, his mother Clementina Cayón was an advocate of political prisoner and militant in the Liberal Revolutionary Movement (MRL) a dissident group from the Colombian Liberal Party. Bateman was raised mostly by his stepfather Jorge Olarte. Bateman was born in Santa Marta] in the Caribbean region northern Colombia among colonial Spanish houses. At the age of eight Bateman suffered ran over by an automobile while crossing a street in the neighboring city of Barranquilla fracturing his tibia and fibula. He almost lost his leg in this incident and left him with a defect in his leg. As a therapy he practiced swimming.
[edit] Communist youth
Years later he met Carlos Romero who was arriving from Argentina and where he had been an active militant in the Communist Party of Argentina during the presidency of Juan Domingo Perón. Romero influenced Bateman and convinced him to join the Communist Youth (Juventudes Comunistas, JUCO) and forming the first group of communist in the Magdalena Department.
In 1957 while a student at the Liceo Celedón civic strikes broke out through out Colombia to protest the dictatorship of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla organized by the two main political parties, the Liberal and Conservative parties. Bateman participated in the marches and became a student activist.
Carlos Romero then married his sister Matilde and Bateman traveled with them to the capital city Bogotá. In Bogotá he studied high school at the Colegio Panamericano while still participating in the JUCO. In 1963 Bateman was arrested for a month for distributing subversive propaganda and was later arrested again for participating in a protest related to the cost of living. He became a member of National Secretariat of the Youth Communists as political secretary and participated in 1963 as a delegate for the organization in the 16th Komsomol Congress in Moscow where he received a course in social sciences and criticized the dogmatic study that characterized the school of squares.
[edit] Guerrilla militant
- See also: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
After the Cuban Revolution and influenced by Maoism communist in Colombia developed the armed struggle as only way to seize power. In 1966 the Communist party followers split after following different communist tendencies. Some of these joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia which the communist party supported. Bateman as member of the communist started being persecuted by Colombian government forces. He became a personal secretary of Manuel Marulanda Velez, Jacobo Arenas and Ciro Trujillo performing political duties for the organization until he left in 1970. The FARC wanted to achieve power through political struggle empowering the peasants while Bateman and his followers wanted to take the cities and that the armed and political struggle should have been focused and based on nationalism, bolivarian and American-centrist.
[edit] 19th of April Movement
- See also: 19th of April Movement
After these thoughts Bateman developed an urban political and military movement in 1970 along with fellow Carlos Toledo Plata, main chief of the Socialist ANAPO. After the dubious elections of Apil 19, 1970 in which conservative candidate Misael Pastrana Borrero won over the ANAPO candidate and former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, Bateman launched the 19th of April Movement with the banner: "With the arms, with the people, with María Eugenia Rojas to the power", however the Directorate of the ANAPO denied such support for armed groups.
The group recruited numerous guerrilla fighters and began targeting government and military objectives. In 1974 the M-19 stole from the Quinta de Bolivar the sword of Simon Bolivar, threatening not to return it until the peace in Colombia was achieved. Bateman also ordered the robbery of some five thousand weapons from a military garrison in Bogotá known as the Canton Norte on January 6, 1981. He also ordered the Dominican embassy siege during which he proposed an amnesty for political prisoners held in La Picota prison and dialogues to start formal peace talks. Then Senator Germán Bula Hoyos and who proposed the law to give amnesty to political prisoners was the first government official to meet him in person.
[edit] Death
Bateman died on April 28, 1983 in a flight crash while going to Panama, his body spent 9 months disappeared.
