Violence
in Colombia: A Timeline
by Erna von der Walde and
Carmen Burbano
NACLA
Report on the Americas,
Vol. XXXV, No. 1 July/August 2001
1948
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a populist leader of the Liberal Party, is
assassinated in Bogotá. This unleashes a violent riot known as “El
Bogotazo” in which 1,500 people die and 20,000 are injured. the
partisan civil war between the Conservatives and the Liberals intensifies
as a consequence of the assassination of Gaitán.
1948-58
La Violencia lasts for 10 years as liberal and Conservative
armies and guerrillas fight each other. Over 300,000 people are killed and
many more are focibly displaced.
1951
Liberal peasants organize self-defense groups against the conservative
“pajaros,” who massacre them to steal land. One of the leaders
is Pedro Antonio Marín, who changes his name to manuel Marulanda Velez,
and is more commonly known as “Tirofijo” (Sure Shot).
1953
With the backing of the two parties, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,
head of the armed forces. leads a coup to oust President Laureano Gómez.
Rojas Pinilla rules as a dictator, brutally suppressing all opposition.
1955-57
Liberal guerrillas, known as “common
liberals” (as opposed to party-led liberals) ally with Communist
guerrillas who had emerged in the 1920s as self-defense groups. this
alliance leads to the creation of the “Independent Republics.”
1958
The Liberal and Conservative Parties agree
to share power as a way to pacify the nation. This arrangement is called
the national Front and lasts for 16 years. The two parties alternate in
power; all other political actors are excluded. The Liberal-Conservative
violence is contained but there is renewed struggle by the excluded
groups.
1964
The government bombs the town of
Marquetalia, Tolima and the surrounding areas to eliminate an independent
republic. The offensive receives the assistance of the U.S. military which
seizes the opportunity to try out napalm.
1960s
Camilo Torres, known as the “revolutionary
priest,” creates the People’s United Front which denounces the
exclusionary practices of the National Front after he fails to mediate
between the government and the guerrilla group of “Tirofijo.” Camilo
concludes that the current system can only be reformed through violence.
The Communists and “common
liberals” mobilize to become the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC).
A second guerrilla group, the
National Liberation Army (ELN), emerges following Cuban-style foco
theory.
The Popular Liberation Army (EPL),
a third guerrilla group inspired by Maoism, forms and spreads towards the
Atlantic Coast.
1966
President Carols Lleras Restrepo, a Liberal,
orders the destruction of the archives of La Violencia in an
attempt to erase the painful past.
1970s
A second generation of revolutionaries emerges: an urban guerrilla
group called the April 19 Movement (M-19); an indigenous guerrilla force
named after the Indian prophet Quintín Lame, Worker’s Self-Defense
(ADO), and the Worker’s Revolutionary Party (PRT).
Colombia becomes a major producer
and exporter of marijuana. Drug traffic becomes an essential part of the
national economy and of the livelihood of excluded groups.
1974
End of the National Front. Alfonso López Michelsen, a Liberal, wins
the first free election with the highest turnout in Colombian history.
Social upheaval continues.
1978
The government isses the Public Safety
Statute, an anti-terrorist piece of legislation, based on the “dirty
war” tactics of the Argentine army. The Statute affords ample freedom to
security forces and unleashes a wave of generalized repression.
Disappearances, torture, and political assassination become common.
1982-86
President Belisario Betancur Cuartas, a
Conservative, initiates a peace process with the guerrilla and a gneral
amnesty plan for all armed groups.
1985
The Patriotic Union (UP), the political arm
of the FARC, is founded to seek political power. The UP wins 14 political
posts in 1986 and, within a month, three of its legislators are
assassinated. (Within a decade, 3,000 UP activists are killed, decimating
the movement.) EPL supporters create the Popular Front and run for
municipal elections.
1985
In November, the M-19 seizes the Palace of Justice in downtown Bogotá
to denounce the government for breaking the terms of a cease-fire. M-19
fighters, 11 Supreme Court justices, and 90 civilians are killed.
1986
The peace process with the guerrillas is
over. The guerrillas retreat to the mountains to weather the assault
unleashed against them by the Army, drug traffickers and right-wing
paramilitary groups.
Drug traffickers become a powerful
economic force as landowners. Subject to extortion and kidnappings by the
guerrilla, they form their own self-defense groups with the acquiescence
of the military. The military, in turn, use the legal right to arm
civilians and form paramilitary groups as a counterinsurgency strategy.
They self-defense groups and the paramilitaries carry out massacres
against union members and civilians accused of supporting the guerrillas.
1989
President Virgilio Barco Vargas, a Liberal,
declares a war on drugs, advocating severe repression and extradition to
the United States. Over 10,000 people are detained.
1989
Several leading drug traffickers are arrested or killed and their
propery seized. Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín Cartel, the most
powerful in the country, responds by unleashing a wave of terrorist
attacks.
1989
Liberal presidentail candidate Luis Carlos Galán is gunned down by
assassins at the service of the Medellín Cartel.
1990
The M-19 agrees to a cease-fire and forms
the political party Democratic Alliance M-19. Its leader, Carlos Pizarro,
runs for president but is murdered during the campaign.
1990-94
Liberal César Gaviria rises to the presidency and initiates the
process of constitutional reform. He changes the policy towards drug
traffickers, lifts the state of siege and rejects extradition as a means
of countering the drug traffic. The Medellín Cartel’s front
organization, known as the “extraditables,” declares a truce. Escobar
gives himself up in June 1992.
1993
Pablo Escobar escapes from the comfortable
“prison” he had demanded from the government. He launches another
terrorist campaign as the debates over extradiction continue, pressed by
the United States.
A new group, “Los Pepes,”
(Victims of Pablo Escobar), emerges. Connected to the Cali Cartel, Los
Pepes carry out acts of terrorism against Escobar’s organization and
collaborate with the security forces. The authorities rely greatly on Los
Pepes in the search for Escobar who is finally killed in Medellín in
December by an elite armed unit.
1994-98
Under the presidency of Ernesto Samper
Pizano, the country is “decertified” by Washington for the alleged
involvement of drug money in the electoral campaign.
1995
The paramilitary groups form a federation led by Carlos Castaño and
funded by his drug trafficking activities. It is called the Self-Defense
Units of Colombia (AUC).
Violence and displacement of
civilian populations in the countryside increases sharply. Over 25,000
homicides take place in Colombia in 1995.
1996-98
The paramilitaries and drug traffickers move
into the FARC-controlled coca cultivation areas in the south.
The ELN collects taxes from
multinational oil companies in oil-field areas, also located in the south.
The paramilitaries are believed to
be responsible for 60% of political killings, the guerrillas for 25%, and
the military for 10%. In August of 1998, the United Nations High
commissioner for Refugees establishes an office in Bogotá.
1998
Conservative Andrés Pastrana wins the presidential elections. Prior
to his inauguration, Pastrana arranges a meeting with FARC leader Manuel
Marulanda to explore the possibility of peace talks. Pastrana agrees to a
withdrawal of army troops from five towns in the guerrilla-controlled
territory of San Vicente del Caguán.
1999
Pastrana’s administration proposes an
ambitious path to establish a negotiated peace, without a cease fire.
Peace talks with the FARC begin on January 7.
The ELN unsuccessfully requests a
withdrawal agreement similar to the one conceded to the FARC.
The AUC issue a collective
death-threat by declaring Colombian human rights advocates as military
targets. Later in the year, in a television interview, paramilitary leader
Carlos Castaño proposes that the paramilitaries be included in the peace
talks.
2000
The Clinton Administration proposes a $1.3
billion dollar military aid package for the Andean Region. The package is
approved by Congress. Plan Colombia receives $860 million, mostly for
military and police activities. The plan is launched in August with the
training of Colombian battalions by U.S. Special Forces.
Erna von der Walde teaches
Spanish literature at New York University. Carmen Burbano is a staff
assistant at NACLA.
For more information, please visit
NACLA at www.nacla.org.
NACLA Timeline -- Sources
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Arocha et. al., Colombia: violencia y democracia. Informe presentado al
Ministerio de Gobierno (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia,
1987).
Alvaro
Camacho, Álvaro Guzmán, María Clemencia Ramírez, Fernando Gaitán, Nuevas
visiones sobre la violencia en Colombia (Bogotá: FESCOL, IEPRI,
1997).
Center for
International Policy, “The Peace Process in Colombia:
Timeline of Recent Events" www.ciponline.org/colombia/timeline.htm
Colombia Human
Rights Network. “An Overview of Recent
Colombian
History.” www.igc.org/colhrnet/timeline.htm
Javier Giraldo, The
Genocidal Democracy (Monroe, ME: Common
Courage
Press, 1996)
German
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Jorge
Orlando Melo, ed., Colombia Hoy (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores,
1995)
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(Bogotá: El Áncora Editores, 1991)
Gonzalo
Sánchez,
2000. “El compromiso social y politico de los
intelectuales.” Paper presented at the XXII Congress of
the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, March
2000: http://www.colombia-thema.org/mars00/p-sanchez.html
Gonzalo
Sánchez y Ricardo Peñaranda, Pasado y presente de la violencia en
Colombia (Bogotá: Fondo Editorial CEREC, 1991)
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modernidad (Bogotá: Foro Nacional por Colombia, 1991)