Violence in Colombia

The era of La Violencia is what is called the historical period of Colombia of the twentieth century,
where there were clashes between supporters of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party that,
without having declared a civil war, was characterized by being extremely violent, including murders,
assaults , persecution, destruction of private property and terrorism due to political
alignment.During this period several characters and groups of both sides faced, like "The Chulavitas"
original of the department of Boyacá and the denominated "Pájaros" of the department of the
Valley of the Cauca, became famous by their atrocious actions.The conflict caused between 200,000
and 300,000 deaths and the forced migration of more than two million people, equivalent to almost
a fifth of the total population of Colombia, which by then reached 11 million inhabitants. At the end
of the conflict, through amnesties, more than ten thousand Liberal guerrillas laid down their arms.

History
During the government of Alberto Lleras Camargo, who replaced Alfonso López Pumarejo after his
resignation, the Liberal Party was affected by the absence of its natural leader, and entered into an
internal struggle. Meanwhile the conservative awnings, that did not arrive at the Palace of San
Carlos from 1930, were concentrated around the president of the conservative national directory,
Mariano Ospina Pérez.

The bogotazo
On April 9, 1948, the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated in Bogotá when the Ninth
Pan American Conference was held in the city that gave birth to the Organization of American States
(OAS). The crime of Gaitán, Sole Chief of the Liberal Party, occurred at 1:05 p.m., when the caudillo,
after working in his office, went out to lunch: in the street a man approached him, took out a gun
and shot him. The general commotion turned into a mob, which mutilated and walked through the
streets the body of the magician, Juan Roa Sierra.

Unreclaimed civil war

Although at first, Ospina Pérez agreed to establish a coalition government, and a new National Unity
cabinet was formed, the hectic pre-electoral period of 1949, forced its rupture. In the parliamentary
elections of June of that year, the Liberals rose with victory, so that the Conservatives feeling
threatened in the face of the presidential elections of 1950, unleashed an intense wave of
accusations in which they accused the governments of the liberal hegemony of having issued
1,800,000 false certificates to win the jousts. Verbal violence soon degenerated into an army, when
bands of conservatives called "birds", equipped with government complacency, along with some
units of the departmental and municipal police in the hands of conservative caciques, unleashed a
bloody campaign of massacres and murders in numerous parts of the country, especially in the
Cauca Valley, where more than 2,000 people died within 3 months.
Dictadura de Rojas Pinilla

El sábado 13 de junio de 1953, el General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla tomó el poder derrocando al
presidente Laureano Gómez y estableció un gobierno militar avalado por el Ejército y otros
miembros de la sociedad colombiana en lo que fue conocido como el "golpe de opinión". Se puso
término a la primera etapa de "La Violencia", al llegarse a una tregua con las guerrillas liberales, pero
la violencia partidista dio paso a la represión dictatorial que incluyó la censura de prensa y el
bloqueo a toda forma como la persecución al protestantismo

Transition to a new Violence

One of the consequences of the inter-party conflict in Colombia was the resurgence of crime and
banditry especially in rural areas. Some characters and leaders of the liberal guerrillas or
conservative armed groups, such as Efraín González Téllez aka "Siete colores", Jacinto Cruz Usma aka
"Sangrenegra" or Teófilo Rojas Varón aka "Chispas", did not respect or accepted the truces and
amnesties becoming famous bandits who staged bloody episodes in the history of Colombia until
being killed by the police or the army. Manuel Marulanda Vélez, alias "Tirofijo", overcame that stage
and under communist ideology he founded, together with Ciro Trujillo Castaño, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)

Anna sofia hernandez 10A