Laureano Gómez

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La Violencia


Prelude
Murder of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
El Bogotazo
Political Parties
Liberal Party
Conservative Party
Colombian Communist Party
Presidents of Colombia
Mariano Ospina Pérez
Laureano Gómez
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla
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Laureano Eleuterio Gómez Castro (1889 – 1965) was President of Colombia from 1950 to 1953, and long time leader of the Colombian Conservative Party.

Gómez was born into an aristocratic family in Bogotá on February 20, 1889. He studied engineering at the National University, graduating in 1909. He was the founder and editor of the periodical La Unidad from 1909 to 1916. he was first elected to parliament in 1911, serving until 1918. He was elected again in 1921 serving in various cabinet roles through the next twenty years. In 1932 Gómez took over as head of the Conservative party, a role which he relished. Under his leadership the party was highly disciplined, and provided strong opposition to the ruling Liberal Government - he was widely viewed as a brilliant parliamentarian and political tactician. In 1936 he founded the Colombian daily El Siglo.

He assumed the presidency in 1950 in an election in which the Liberals refused to participate. Gómez instituted authoritarian right-wing policies and suppressed the opposition and the courts. After suffering a heart attack in 1951, fearing for his life, he continued to control the government through a puppet successor. With public order collapsing in the face of the establishment of a dictatorship, the military seized power in 1953, leading Gómez to flee to Spain.

As leader of the Conservatives in exile he was instrumental in a 1956 agreement - the Pact of Benidorm - between the two main parties negotiated with Liberal leader Alberto Lleras to counter the military regime.

The following year after the collapse of the military regime he and Lleras signed the Declaration of Sitges, which defined the next 15 years of Colombian politics - dividing authority between the parties until 1974. This period is known as the National Front.

Gómez returned to Colombia where he continued to dominate the Conservative party until his death on July 13, 1965, in Bogotá.

Gómez was also a writer and a well known art critic; he had cadid disputes with artists he criticized like, Eladio Velez and artists he aclauimed like Santiago Martinez Delgado, he was a patron of the arts a did much for the Colombian artistic culture.