Juan Roa Sierra
Encyclopedia
Juan Roa Sierra was a Colombia
n known for assassinating Colombian Liberal leader
and presidential candidate
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
on April 9, 1948. After he shot Gaitán three times, mortally wounding him, a mob chased him down and killed him. The assassination of Gaitan triggered El Bogotazo
, riots that partially destroyed Bogota and led to the La Violencia
, a period of violence that lasted until approximately 1958.
, his mother was a Gaitán follower, and was home preparing her grieving dress, when she heard on the radio that her son was the assassin. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book, Vivir para contarla, expressed doubts about Roa's guilt.
, who was also observed in the immediate vicinity of the assassination. These two Cubans immediately fled to the Cuban Legation just in time to avoid arrest..
According to the assistant of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Cecilia de González, Roa went several times to the office two months before the assassination, but she never gave him the opportunity to see him.
The day of the assassination Roa visited the office at 9:30 AM. Gaitan had arrived a little before 8 AM even though he had been awake until late because he attended the trial of Lieutenant Jesús María Córtez Poveda, his client. The building security guard saw him with another person (later identified as César Bernal Ordóñez http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/wieland31aug1948.htm) but Roa solicited the interview alone.
The angry mob grew in front of the drug store where the police had taken him for refuge, finally the situation was so menacing that the iron shutters of the drugstore were opened. Roa's was then kicked and stabbed by a massive mob until he was "an almost shapeless corpse"; then his body was left in front of the Presidential Palace
.
embassy of an article published on April 16, 1948 by Colombian newspaper El Tiempohttp://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gerberich28april1948.htm, Roa was 25 years old at the time of his death. He was baptized in the church of the Egipto Neighborhood in Bogotá and was the youngest of 6 brothers. He lived for some time in the Ricaurte Neighborhood also in Bogota more exactly in the address Calle 17-S No.16-52 and was working as a painter. Roa then began to suffer from Schizophrenia
http://www.colombialink.com/01_INDEX/index_historia/07_otros_hechos_historicos/0250_asesinado_gaitan.html and was interned in a clinic in Sibaté.
According to a Scotland Yard
report dated July 20, 1948 http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/scotlandyard.htm Roa said he was one of 14 children of the same mother, and that his father had died. He said he had not married, but had had an affair with a married woman named María de Jesús Forero with whom he had had a child. Apparently the woman denied Roa's affirmations, and after a psychological chiromancy test
in front of a mirror, Roa began to act as if he were the 19th century Colombian military and political figure, Francisco de Paula Santander
. Apparently, Roa ended the relationship with the woman a years before the assassination. Four months later his mother noticed he had become more quite and weird. Scotland Yard affirmed he was the 13th of the 14 siblings. Scotland Yard also mentioned that Roa admired Gaitan but this admiration may had changed after a commentary made by the candidate.
In the book "Vivir para contarla" (2002) Gabriel García Márquez
has some issues with the Scotland Yard report with the number of siblings and mentions that in the documents found in Roa's pocket, his address was located on Calle 8 No. 30-73 differing from that of El Tiempo newspaper.
Scotland yard report also said that Roa had illusions of being mighty, egocentric and was usually spaced out. His behavior might have changed after getting involved with the Rosicrucianism, which was introduced to him by a German named Umland Gerat 18 months before the assassination of Gaitan. Apparently Roa's mother noticed this and went to speak to Gerat about his son's issues and told him her son believed he himself was Jiménez de Quesada
, the founder of Bogotá. She also mentioned that Roa was at Gaitan's office applying for a job.http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/elespectador4may1950.htm
that Gaitán was assassinated as part of a Cold War
conspiracy led by the USSR to increase Soviet influence in the Caribbean. The violent disruption of the 1948 Inter-American Conference and the violent deaths of a thousand people was alleged to also have been part of a Cold War conspiracy by agents of the USSR that allegedly included the then low-level Soviet agent Fidel Castro
. According to police records Fidel Castro
was suspected of personally of assassinating Gaitán, as his Cuban travelling companion, Rafael del Pino was seen with the fascist former mental patient, Juan Roa, an hour and a half before the assassination. Castro had attempted to recruit Gaitán earlier to his cause, but Gaitán had repeatedly declined and was assassinated because he was too politically influential and would have countered the Cold War objectives of the USSR in the Caribbean.
Weyl documents the claim by the Colombian President Mariano Ospina Pérez
and others, that Roa was influenced by others and perhaps did not commit any crime at all. He discusses the questions of Milton Bracker of the New York Times and U.S. Ambassador Willard L. Beaulac if Roa had acted on his own. Ambassador Beaulac then speculated that Roa was simply used to cover the identity of the real assassins. The President of Colombia Mariano Ospina Pérez
and the Colombian General Secretary Rafael Azula Barrera considered the evidence that the revolver Roa had carried was incapable of accurate fire, that Roa was not thought to have any firearms training, the assassination had been committed at some distance, and that no eyewitness saw Roa anywhere near the assassination, that he was first seen between two policemen. From this evidence the government of Colombia concluded that the impoverished Roa with his diminished mental capacities had been paid to stand near the event with a recently fired revolver.
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n known for assassinating Colombian Liberal leader
Colombian Liberal Party
The Colombian Liberal Party is a center-left party in Colombia that adheres to social democracy and social liberalism.The Party was founded in 1848 and, together with the Colombian Conservative Party, subsequently became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century.After...
and presidential candidate
President of Colombia
The President of Colombia is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of Colombia. The office of president was established upon the ratification of the Constitution of 1819, by the Congress of Angostura, convened in December 1819, when Colombia was part of "la Gran Colombia"...
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...
on April 9, 1948. After he shot Gaitán three times, mortally wounding him, a mob chased him down and killed him. The assassination of Gaitan triggered El Bogotazo
Bogotazo
El Bogotazo refers to the massive riots that followed the assassination in Bogotá, Colombia of Liberal leader and presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948 during the government of President Mariano Ospina Pérez...
, riots that partially destroyed Bogota and led to the La Violencia
La Violencia
La Violencia is a period of civil conflict in the Colombian countryside between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Conservative Party, a conflict which took place roughly from 1948 to 1958 ....
, a period of violence that lasted until approximately 1958.
Origins
Roa was 26 years old at the time of the Gaitán assassination and his own subsequent death. He was the son of Encarnación Sierra and Rafael Roa. According to a memoir by Gabriel Garcia MarquezGabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, his mother was a Gaitán follower, and was home preparing her grieving dress, when she heard on the radio that her son was the assassin. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book, Vivir para contarla, expressed doubts about Roa's guilt.
Days before the assassination
The last visit to Gerat occurred on April 7, two days before the assassination. Gerat declared that Roa had had a dream about a treasure in two indigenous towns not too far from Bogota and that he felt destiny was going to give him something important. Gerat suggested that he not go alone, but Roa rejected this. On this same date Roa purchased the weapon and the next day he bought the ammunition. Two witnesses said they had heard Roa say he was going to serve as bodyguard for two foreigners who were going on a trip to a desolated land. One foreigner, Rafael del Pino was known to have been in contact with Roa ninety minutes before the assassination, according to police reports. Del Pino was traveling with another Cuban that the police felt also deserved a "well-grounded suspicion" for this assassination, Fidel CastroFidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, who was also observed in the immediate vicinity of the assassination. These two Cubans immediately fled to the Cuban Legation just in time to avoid arrest..
According to the assistant of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Cecilia de González, Roa went several times to the office two months before the assassination, but she never gave him the opportunity to see him.
The day of the assassination Roa visited the office at 9:30 AM. Gaitan had arrived a little before 8 AM even though he had been awake until late because he attended the trial of Lieutenant Jesús María Córtez Poveda, his client. The building security guard saw him with another person (later identified as César Bernal Ordóñez http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/wieland31aug1948.htm) but Roa solicited the interview alone.
The angry mob grew in front of the drug store where the police had taken him for refuge, finally the situation was so menacing that the iron shutters of the drugstore were opened. Roa's was then kicked and stabbed by a massive mob until he was "an almost shapeless corpse"; then his body was left in front of the Presidential Palace
Casa de Nariño
The Casa de Nariño or Palacio de Nariño is the official home and principal workplace of the President of Colombia. It houses the main office of the executive branch and is located in the capital city of Bogotá...
.
Other versions of the story
According to a translation made by the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
embassy of an article published on April 16, 1948 by Colombian newspaper El Tiempohttp://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gerberich28april1948.htm, Roa was 25 years old at the time of his death. He was baptized in the church of the Egipto Neighborhood in Bogotá and was the youngest of 6 brothers. He lived for some time in the Ricaurte Neighborhood also in Bogota more exactly in the address Calle 17-S No.16-52 and was working as a painter. Roa then began to suffer from Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
http://www.colombialink.com/01_INDEX/index_historia/07_otros_hechos_historicos/0250_asesinado_gaitan.html and was interned in a clinic in Sibaté.
According to a Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
report dated July 20, 1948 http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/scotlandyard.htm Roa said he was one of 14 children of the same mother, and that his father had died. He said he had not married, but had had an affair with a married woman named María de Jesús Forero with whom he had had a child. Apparently the woman denied Roa's affirmations, and after a psychological chiromancy test
Chiromancy
Palmistry or chiromancy , is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palm reading, or chirology. The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations...
in front of a mirror, Roa began to act as if he were the 19th century Colombian military and political figure, Francisco de Paula Santander
Francisco de Paula Santander
Francisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña , was a Colombian military and political leader during the 1810–1819 independence war of the United Provinces of New Granada...
. Apparently, Roa ended the relationship with the woman a years before the assassination. Four months later his mother noticed he had become more quite and weird. Scotland Yard affirmed he was the 13th of the 14 siblings. Scotland Yard also mentioned that Roa admired Gaitan but this admiration may had changed after a commentary made by the candidate.
In the book "Vivir para contarla" (2002) Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
has some issues with the Scotland Yard report with the number of siblings and mentions that in the documents found in Roa's pocket, his address was located on Calle 8 No. 30-73 differing from that of El Tiempo newspaper.
Scotland yard report also said that Roa had illusions of being mighty, egocentric and was usually spaced out. His behavior might have changed after getting involved with the Rosicrucianism, which was introduced to him by a German named Umland Gerat 18 months before the assassination of Gaitan. Apparently Roa's mother noticed this and went to speak to Gerat about his son's issues and told him her son believed he himself was Jiménez de Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in Colombia. He explored the northern part of South America. While successful in many of his exploits, acquiring massive amounts of gold and emeralds, he ended his career disastrously; and has been suggested as a possible model...
, the founder of Bogotá. She also mentioned that Roa was at Gaitan's office applying for a job.http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/elespectador4may1950.htm
The theory that Roa did not assassinate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Nathaniel Weyl documents the assassination claims then made by Rafael Azula Barrera and the President of Colombia Mariano Ospina PérezMariano Ospina Pérez
Luis Mariano Ospina Pérez was a Colombian engineer and political figure, member of the Colombian Conservative Party. He served as President of Colombia between 1946 and 1950.- Biographic data :...
that Gaitán was assassinated as part of a Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
conspiracy led by the USSR to increase Soviet influence in the Caribbean. The violent disruption of the 1948 Inter-American Conference and the violent deaths of a thousand people was alleged to also have been part of a Cold War conspiracy by agents of the USSR that allegedly included the then low-level Soviet agent Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. According to police records Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
was suspected of personally of assassinating Gaitán, as his Cuban travelling companion, Rafael del Pino was seen with the fascist former mental patient, Juan Roa, an hour and a half before the assassination. Castro had attempted to recruit Gaitán earlier to his cause, but Gaitán had repeatedly declined and was assassinated because he was too politically influential and would have countered the Cold War objectives of the USSR in the Caribbean.
Weyl documents the claim by the Colombian President Mariano Ospina Pérez
Mariano Ospina Pérez
Luis Mariano Ospina Pérez was a Colombian engineer and political figure, member of the Colombian Conservative Party. He served as President of Colombia between 1946 and 1950.- Biographic data :...
and others, that Roa was influenced by others and perhaps did not commit any crime at all. He discusses the questions of Milton Bracker of the New York Times and U.S. Ambassador Willard L. Beaulac if Roa had acted on his own. Ambassador Beaulac then speculated that Roa was simply used to cover the identity of the real assassins. The President of Colombia Mariano Ospina Pérez
Mariano Ospina Pérez
Luis Mariano Ospina Pérez was a Colombian engineer and political figure, member of the Colombian Conservative Party. He served as President of Colombia between 1946 and 1950.- Biographic data :...
and the Colombian General Secretary Rafael Azula Barrera considered the evidence that the revolver Roa had carried was incapable of accurate fire, that Roa was not thought to have any firearms training, the assassination had been committed at some distance, and that no eyewitness saw Roa anywhere near the assassination, that he was first seen between two policemen. From this evidence the government of Colombia concluded that the impoverished Roa with his diminished mental capacities had been paid to stand near the event with a recently fired revolver.