La Violencia
Encyclopedia
La Violencia is a period of civil conflict in the Colombia
n countryside between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party
and the Colombian Conservative Party
, a conflict which took place roughly from 1948 to 1958 (sources vary on the exact dates).
Some historians disagree about the dates: some argue it started in 1946 when the Conservatives came back into government, because at a local level the leadership of the police forces and town councils changed hands, encouraging Conservative peasants to seize land from Liberal peasants and setting off a new wave of bi-partisan violence in the countryside. But traditionally, most historians argue that La Violencia began with the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
.
and of the Colombian Communist Party
organized self-defense groups and guerrilla units, which fought both against those of the Colombian Conservative Party
and amongst each other throughout the countryside.
The reigning chaos during the years of La Violencia, and especially the lack of security in rural areas, caused an undetermined number of people, estimated in millions, to abandon their homes and properties. Media and news services failed to cover events accurately for fear of revenge attacks. The lack of public order and civil authority prevented victims from laying charges against perpetrators. Documented evidence from these years is rare and fragmented.
The Colombian population at the time was vast majority Catholic
. Much press released during the conflict reported support of the Church authorities for the Conservative Party and included unproved accusations against several priests, among others Miguel Ángel Builes, the Santa Rosa de Cabal
Bishop
, about openly encouraging the people during Mass
to murder the political opposition, accusing them of being Mason
s and Jews and write Pastoral Letters with the same ideas (see Anticlerical conspiracy theory below). However there were no formal charges presented, and there were no official statements, either of Vatican
or the Board of Bishops. These events were recounted in the book written by Fr. Fidel Blandon (at the time private secretary of bishop Builes) "Lo que el cielo no perdona" ("What heaven can't forgive"), 1950; and the Eduardo Caballero Calderón
book "El Cristo de Espaldas" (Backwards Christ
), 1952. After the releasing of the book, Fidel Blandon resigned to his ecclesiastic job and assumed a fake identity as Antonio Gutiérrez. Nevertheless, his true identity was discovered and he was legally charged and prosecuted.
Due to the circumstances, there were no liberal candidates for the presidency, congress, or any public corporations in the 1950 elections. The press accused the government of pogrom
s against the opposition. Censorship
and reprisals were common against journalists, writers, and directors of news services who left the country progressively. Among others, the director of Crítica magazine, Jorge Zalamea fled to Buenos Aires
, Luis Vidales fled to Chile
, Antonio Garcia to La Paz
, and Gerardo Molina to Paris
.
after he took power in 1953. The most prominent bandolero leaders, Guadalupe Salcedo and Juan de la Cruz Varela signed the 1953 agreement (Salcedo was killed in Bogotá years later, in 1957).
In 1954 the students of National University of Colombia
confronted the public forces in several riots on July 8 and 9, ending with 14 students dead.
Some of the bandoleros did not surrender to the government, which caused intense military operations against them in 1954. One of them, the bandolero leader Tirofijo, had changed his political and ideological inclinations from being a Liberal to supporting the Communist Party
(PCC) during this period.
When Rojas was removed from power on May 10, 1957, civilian rule was restored after moderate Conservatives and Liberals, with the support of dissident sectors of the military, agreed to unite under a bipartisan coalition known as the National Front
, and the government of Alberto Lleras Camargo
which included a system of presidential alternation and power-sharing both in cabinets and public offices.
In 1958, Lleras Camargo ordered the creation of the Commission for the Investigation of the Causes of Violence. The commission was directed by the Bishop Germán Guzmán Campos.
The last bandolero leaders were killed in combat against the Army. Jacinto Cruz Usma, A.K.A. Sangrenegra (Blackblood), died in April 1964 and Efraín Gonzáles in June 1965.
Yet, La Violencia, did not come to be known as La Violencia simply because of the number of people it affected; it was the manner in which most of the killings, maimings, and dismemberings were done. Certain death and torture techniques became so commonplace that they were given names. For example, “picar para tomal,” which involved slowly cutting up a living person’s body, or “bocachiquiar,” where hundreds of small punctures were made until the victim slowly bled to death. Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for the United States National Security Council and current President of the Institute for Global Economic Growth Norman A. Bailey explains the atrocities succinctly. “Ingenious forms of quartering and beheading were invented and given such names as the "corte de mica", "corte de corbata
”, and so on. Crucifixions and hangings were commonplace, political "prisoners" were thrown from airplanes in flight, infants were bayoneted, schoolchildren, some as young as eight years old, were raped en masse, unborn infants were removed by crude Caesarian section and replaced by roosters, ears were cut off, scalps removed, and so on”. While scholars, historians, and analysts have all debated the source of this era of unrest, they have yet to formulate a widely accepted explanation for why it escalated to the notable level it did.
, started its operations in 1959. Later other organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and the National Liberation Army
(ELN) emerged, marking the beginning of a guerrilla insurgency.
From the point of view of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and the Colombian Communist Party
, the Liberal and Conservative elites, though they had instigated the original violence they soon grew to fear the consequences of it, and thus formed a loose alliance to preserve their shared desire for political hegemony from possible revolutionary challenges.
attacks and killings, particularly in the early years of La Violencia. Some propaganda leaflets circulated in Medellín blamed a favorite of anti-Catholic
conspiracy theorists, the Society of Jesus
(Jesuits), for the murder of Gaitán.
Across the country, militants attacked churches, convents, and monasteries, killing priests and looking for arms, since the conspiracy theory maintained that the religious had guns, and this despite the fact that not a single serviceable weapon was located in the raids. One priest, Pedro María Ramírez, was slaughtered with machetes and hauled through the street behind a truck, despite the fact that the militants had previously searched the church grounds and found no weapons.
Despite the conspiracy theories and propaganda after Gaitán’s killing, most on the left learned from their errors in the rioting on April 9, and typically quit believing that priests had harbored weapons.
Conservatives likewise had been motivated to fight against a supposed international Judeo-Masonic conspiracy by eliminating the Liberals in their midst. In the two decades prior to La Violencia, Conservative politicians and churchmen adopted from Europe the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory
to portray the Liberal Party as involved in an international anti-Christian plot, many prominent Liberal politicians actually being freemasons
.
Although the rhetoric of conspiracy was in large part introduced and circulated by some of the clergy, as well as by Conservative politicians, by 1942 many clerics were critical of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory (by this time Jesuits outside of Colombia had already questioned and published disputes of the authenticity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and the concept of global Judeo-Masonic conspiracy; Colombian clergy were also increasingly influenced in this matter by U.S. clergy; and Pius XI had asked U.S. Jesuit John LaFarge
to draft an encyclical against anti-Semitism
and racism). Allegations of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy played most prominently in the politics of Laureano Gómez
, who directed the Colombian Conservative Party from 1932 to 1953. More provincial politicians followed suit, and the fact that prominent national and local politicians were voicing this conspiracy theory, rather than just a portion of the clergy, gave the idea greater credibility while it gathered momentum among the party members.
News of atrocities at the outset of the Spanish Civil War
in 1936, causing both sides in Colombia to fear it could happen in their country, also spurred the credibility of the conspiracies and the rationale for violence. Catholics everywhere were shocked by the wave of anticlerical violence in the Republican zones in Spain
in the first months of that war where anarchists
, socialists and communists burned churches and murdered nearly 7,000 priests, monks, and nuns.
Since both camps claimed the existence of some sort of conspiracy, they managed to make the political environment toxic, increasing the animosity and suspicion of the other party.
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 countryside between supporters of the Colombian Liberal Party
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 the Colombian Conservative Party
Colombian Conservative Party
The Colombian Conservative Party , is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was unofficially founded by a group of Revolutionary Commoners during the Revolutionary War for Independence from the Spanish Monarchy and later formally established during the Greater Colombia...
, a conflict which took place roughly from 1948 to 1958 (sources vary on the exact dates).
Some historians disagree about the dates: some argue it started in 1946 when the Conservatives came back into government, because at a local level the leadership of the police forces and town councils changed hands, encouraging Conservative peasants to seize land from Liberal peasants and setting off a new wave of bi-partisan violence in the countryside. But traditionally, most historians argue that La Violencia began with the death of 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...
.
Development
During La Violencia, several members of the Colombian Liberal PartyColombian 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 of the Colombian Communist Party
Colombian Communist Party
The Colombian Communist Party or PCC is the legal communist party of Colombia. It was founded in 1930, as the Colombian section of the Comintern...
organized self-defense groups and guerrilla units, which fought both against those of the Colombian Conservative Party
Colombian Conservative Party
The Colombian Conservative Party , is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was unofficially founded by a group of Revolutionary Commoners during the Revolutionary War for Independence from the Spanish Monarchy and later formally established during the Greater Colombia...
and amongst each other throughout the countryside.
The Colombian population at the time was vast majority Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
. Much press released during the conflict reported support of the Church authorities for the Conservative Party and included unproved accusations against several priests, among others Miguel Ángel Builes, the Santa Rosa de Cabal
Santa Rosa de Cabal
Santa Rosa de Cabal is a town and municipality in the Risaralda Department, west central Colombia, on the western slopes of the Andean Cordillera Central. It is a commercial and manufacturing centre for the fertile agricultural and pastoral hinterland...
Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
, about openly encouraging the people during Mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
to murder the political opposition, accusing them of being Mason
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
s and Jews and write Pastoral Letters with the same ideas (see Anticlerical conspiracy theory below). However there were no formal charges presented, and there were no official statements, either of Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
or the Board of Bishops. These events were recounted in the book written by Fr. Fidel Blandon (at the time private secretary of bishop Builes) "Lo que el cielo no perdona" ("What heaven can't forgive"), 1950; and the Eduardo Caballero Calderón
Eduardo Caballero Calderón
Eduardo Caballero Calderón was a Colombian journalist and writer. As journalist, he worked to the main Colombian newspapers, such as El Tiempo and El Espectador. Also he was a diplomat from Colombia in Peru, Argentina, Spain and France...
book "El Cristo de Espaldas" (Backwards Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
), 1952. After the releasing of the book, Fidel Blandon resigned to his ecclesiastic job and assumed a fake identity as Antonio Gutiérrez. Nevertheless, his true identity was discovered and he was legally charged and prosecuted.
Due to the circumstances, there were no liberal candidates for the presidency, congress, or any public corporations in the 1950 elections. The press accused the government of pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s against the opposition. Censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
and reprisals were common against journalists, writers, and directors of news services who left the country progressively. Among others, the director of Crítica magazine, Jorge Zalamea fled to Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Luis Vidales fled to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Antonio Garcia to La Paz
La Paz
Nuestra Señora de La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia, as well as the departmental capital of the La Paz Department, and the second largest city in the country after Santa Cruz de la Sierra...
, and Gerardo Molina to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Conclusion
Most of the armed groups (called bandoleros, a pejorative term) were demobilized during the amnesty declared by General Gustavo Rojas PinillaGustavo Rojas Pinilla
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was a Colombian politician, military officer, General of the Army and President of Colombia between 1953 and 1957.- Biographic data :...
after he took power in 1953. The most prominent bandolero leaders, Guadalupe Salcedo and Juan de la Cruz Varela signed the 1953 agreement (Salcedo was killed in Bogotá years later, in 1957).
In 1954 the students of National University of Colombia
National University of Colombia
The Universidad Nacional de Colombia , also called UNAL or just UN, is a public, national, coeducational, research university, located primarily in Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales and Palmira, Colombia...
confronted the public forces in several riots on July 8 and 9, ending with 14 students dead.
Some of the bandoleros did not surrender to the government, which caused intense military operations against them in 1954. One of them, the bandolero leader Tirofijo, had changed his political and ideological inclinations from being a Liberal to supporting the Communist Party
Colombian Communist Party
The Colombian Communist Party or PCC is the legal communist party of Colombia. It was founded in 1930, as the Colombian section of the Comintern...
(PCC) during this period.
When Rojas was removed from power on May 10, 1957, civilian rule was restored after moderate Conservatives and Liberals, with the support of dissident sectors of the military, agreed to unite under a bipartisan coalition known as the National Front
National Front (Colombia)
National Front was a period in the history of Colombia in which the two main political parties; Liberal Party and Conservative Party agreed to let the opposite party govern, intercalating for a period of four presidential terms....
, and the government of Alberto Lleras Camargo
Alberto Lleras Camargo
Alberto Lleras Camargo was an important Colombian diplomat and political figure.He was a member of the Liberal Party of Colombia; he served as congressman , Minister of Education, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs, during the governments of Alfonso López Pumarejo and Eduardo...
which included a system of presidential alternation and power-sharing both in cabinets and public offices.
In 1958, Lleras Camargo ordered the creation of the Commission for the Investigation of the Causes of Violence. The commission was directed by the Bishop Germán Guzmán Campos.
The last bandolero leaders were killed in combat against the Army. Jacinto Cruz Usma, A.K.A. Sangrenegra (Blackblood), died in April 1964 and Efraín Gonzáles in June 1965.
Humanitarian consequences
Because of incomplete or non-existing statistical records, exact measurement of La Violencia’s humanitarian consequences is impossible. Scholars, however, estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 lives were lost, 600,000 and 800,000 injured, and almost one million displaced. La Violencia affected 20% of the population, directly or indirectly.Yet, La Violencia, did not come to be known as La Violencia simply because of the number of people it affected; it was the manner in which most of the killings, maimings, and dismemberings were done. Certain death and torture techniques became so commonplace that they were given names. For example, “picar para tomal,” which involved slowly cutting up a living person’s body, or “bocachiquiar,” where hundreds of small punctures were made until the victim slowly bled to death. Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for the United States National Security Council and current President of the Institute for Global Economic Growth Norman A. Bailey explains the atrocities succinctly. “Ingenious forms of quartering and beheading were invented and given such names as the "corte de mica", "corte de corbata
Colombian necktie
A Colombian necktie is a method of execution wherein the victim's throat is slashed and his or her tongue is pulled out through the open wound. Its origin coincides with the outbreak of La Violencia, the Colombian civil war which began in 1948 with the murder of leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan...
”, and so on. Crucifixions and hangings were commonplace, political "prisoners" were thrown from airplanes in flight, infants were bayoneted, schoolchildren, some as young as eight years old, were raped en masse, unborn infants were removed by crude Caesarian section and replaced by roosters, ears were cut off, scalps removed, and so on”. While scholars, historians, and analysts have all debated the source of this era of unrest, they have yet to formulate a widely accepted explanation for why it escalated to the notable level it did.
Historical interpretations
The death of the bandoleros and the end of the mobs was not the end of all the violence in Colombia. One communist guerrilla movement, the MOECPeasant Student Workers Movement
The Peasant Student Workers Movement was a leftist group in Colombia. MOEC was led by Fabio Vásquez Castano. MOEC took part in the formation of the ELN. Its power faded after its leader, student Antonio Larrota, was killed in May 1961....
, started its operations in 1959. Later other organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...
(FARC) and the National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army is the name of several groups:* Albanian National Liberation Army, an Albanian resistance movement during World War II* Armée de Libération Nationale, a liberation movement in the Algerian War of Independence...
(ELN) emerged, marking the beginning of a guerrilla insurgency.
From the point of view of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...
(FARC) and the Colombian Communist Party
Colombian Communist Party
The Colombian Communist Party or PCC is the legal communist party of Colombia. It was founded in 1930, as the Colombian section of the Comintern...
, the Liberal and Conservative elites, though they had instigated the original violence they soon grew to fear the consequences of it, and thus formed a loose alliance to preserve their shared desire for political hegemony from possible revolutionary challenges.
Credence in conspiracy theories as causes of violence
As is common of twentieth century eliminationist political violence, the rationales for action immediately before La Violencia were founded on conspiracy theories that blamed scapegoats as traitors beholden to international cabals. The left were painted as participants in a global Judeo-Masonic conspiracy against Christianity and the right were painted as agents of a Nazi-Falangist plot against democracy and progress.Anticlerical conspiracy theory
After the death of Gaitán, a conspiracy theory circulating among the left that leading conservatives and militant priests were involved in a plot with Nazis and Falangists to take control of the country and undo the country’s moves toward progress spurred the violence. This conspiracy theory supplied the rationale for Liberal Party radicals to engage in violence, notably the anticlericalAnti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
attacks and killings, particularly in the early years of La Violencia. Some propaganda leaflets circulated in Medellín blamed a favorite of anti-Catholic
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...
conspiracy theorists, the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
(Jesuits), for the murder of Gaitán.
Across the country, militants attacked churches, convents, and monasteries, killing priests and looking for arms, since the conspiracy theory maintained that the religious had guns, and this despite the fact that not a single serviceable weapon was located in the raids. One priest, Pedro María Ramírez, was slaughtered with machetes and hauled through the street behind a truck, despite the fact that the militants had previously searched the church grounds and found no weapons.
Despite the conspiracy theories and propaganda after Gaitán’s killing, most on the left learned from their errors in the rioting on April 9, and typically quit believing that priests had harbored weapons.
Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory
- (See also Catholicism and Freemasonry)
Conservatives likewise had been motivated to fight against a supposed international Judeo-Masonic conspiracy by eliminating the Liberals in their midst. In the two decades prior to La Violencia, Conservative politicians and churchmen adopted from Europe the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
to portray the Liberal Party as involved in an international anti-Christian plot, many prominent Liberal politicians actually being freemasons
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
.
Although the rhetoric of conspiracy was in large part introduced and circulated by some of the clergy, as well as by Conservative politicians, by 1942 many clerics were critical of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory (by this time Jesuits outside of Colombia had already questioned and published disputes of the authenticity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
and the concept of global Judeo-Masonic conspiracy; Colombian clergy were also increasingly influenced in this matter by U.S. clergy; and Pius XI had asked U.S. Jesuit John LaFarge
John LaFarge
John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.-Biography:...
to draft an encyclical against anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and racism). Allegations of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy played most prominently in the politics of Laureano Gómez
Laureano Gómez
Laureano Eleuterio Gómez Castro was President of Colombia from 1950 to 1953, and long time leader of the Colombian Conservative Party.-Pre-election:...
, who directed the Colombian Conservative Party from 1932 to 1953. More provincial politicians followed suit, and the fact that prominent national and local politicians were voicing this conspiracy theory, rather than just a portion of the clergy, gave the idea greater credibility while it gathered momentum among the party members.
News of atrocities at the outset of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in 1936, causing both sides in Colombia to fear it could happen in their country, also spurred the credibility of the conspiracies and the rationale for violence. Catholics everywhere were shocked by the wave of anticlerical violence in the Republican zones in Spain
Red Terror (Spain)
The Red Terror in Spain is the name given by historians to various acts committed "by sections of nearly all the leftist groups" such as the killing of tens of thousands of people , as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and politicians, and the...
in the first months of that war where anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, socialists and communists burned churches and murdered nearly 7,000 priests, monks, and nuns.
Since both camps claimed the existence of some sort of conspiracy, they managed to make the political environment toxic, increasing the animosity and suspicion of the other party.
See also
- BogotazoBogotazoEl 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...
- Colombian necktieColombian necktieA Colombian necktie is a method of execution wherein the victim's throat is slashed and his or her tongue is pulled out through the open wound. Its origin coincides with the outbreak of La Violencia, the Colombian civil war which began in 1948 with the murder of leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan...
- History of the FARC-EP
- Marquetalia RepublicMarquetalia Republic"Marquetalia Republic" was a term used to unofficially refer to one of the enclaves in rural Colombia which communist peasant guerrillas held during the aftermath of "La Violencia"...
Further reading
- Wirpsa, Leslie, Economics fuels return of La Violencia