Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (January 23, 1898 - April 9, 1948) was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister (1940) and Labor Minister (1943-1944), mayor of Bogotá (1936) and chief of the Colombian Liberal Party (1947-1948).

An Unclear Assassination

It is widely speculated that Gaitan would likely have been elected President had he not been assassinated on April 9 1948. Gaitán's murderer, Juan Roa Sierra, was killed by an enraged mob and his motivations were never known. Many different entities and individuals have been held responsible as the alleged plotters, including his different critics, but so far no definite information has come forward and a number of theories persist.

Related Topics:
April 9 - 1948 - Juan Roa Sierra

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Gaitán was murdered on the same date that the 9th Pan-American Conference was being led by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, a meeting which led to a pledge by members to fight communism in the Americas, as well as the creation of the Organization of American States.

Related Topics:
Pan-American Conference - U.S. Secretary of State - George Marshall - Communism - Americas - Organization of American States

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Another major event in the country's capital Bogotá was taking place: a Latin American Youth Congress, one of whose attendees was a young Fidel Castro. Castro actually had an appointment to meet Gaitán, whom he very much admired, later in the afternoon on the day of his murder. The assassination provoked a violent riot known as the Bogotazo (loose translation: the sack of Bogotá, or shaking of Bogotá), and a further ten years of violence during which at least 200,000 people died (a period known as la violencia). Some writers say that this event influenced Castro's views about the viability of an electoral route for political change.

Related Topics:
Bogotá - Latin American Youth Congress - Fidel Castro

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Also in the city that day was another young man who would become a giant of 20th century Latin-American history: the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. A young law student and short story writer at the time, Márquez was eating lunch near the scene of the assassination. He arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting and witnessed the murder of Gaitán's presumed assassin at the hands of enraged bystanders. Márquez discusses this day at vivid length in the first volume of his memoirs, Living to Tell the Tale. In his book, he describes a well-dressed man who eggs on the mob before fleeing in a luxurious car that arrived just as the presumed assassin was being dragged away. (However, given Marquez's penchant for fabulism, it's quite possible that this is an invented episode, true in spirit if not in fact, much in the way that Bob Dylan attempted to deflect the rage directed at Medgar Evers' murderer in his song "Only a Pawn in their Game.")

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Years later, Márquez and Castro became close friends and they returned to Gaitán's murder repeatedly to compare notes on what was, for each of them, a life-altering experience.

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A popular story, perhaps apocryphal, relates that during a debate with the Conservative candidate for president, Gaitán asked him how he made his living.

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"From the land," the other candidate replied.

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"Ah, and how did you get this land?" asked Gaitán.

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"I inherited it from my father!"

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"And where did he get it from?"

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"He inherited it from his father!"

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The question is repeated once or twice more, and then the Conservative candidate concedes, "We took it from the Indians".

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Gaitán's reply was, "Well, we want to do the opposite: we want to give the land back to the Indians". (Gaitán advocated land reform).

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