Violence in Colombia: A Timeline
Walde, Erna von der & Burbano, Carmen
1946: Violence erupts in the countryside between fol- lowers of a Conservative Party oligarchy seeking to reclaim ancestral lands and followers of the reformist Liberal Party, seeking to defend its...
...1951: Liberal peasants organize self-defense groups against the conservative "pajaros," who massacre them to steal land...
...Its leader, Car- los Pizarro, runs for president but is murdered during the campaign...
...Rojas Pinilla rules as a dictator, brutally suppressing all opposition...
...Over 25,000 homicides take place in Colombia during 1995...
...Drug traffickers become a powerful economic force as landowners...
...Pastrana agrees to a withdrawal of army troops from five towns in the guerrilla-controlled territory of San Vicente del Cagud n. 1999: Pastrana's administration proposes an ambitious path to establish a negotiated peace, without a cease fire...
...Over 300,000 people are killed and many more are forcibly displaced...
...1964...
...The Statute affords ample freedom to security forces and unleashes a wave of generalized repression...
...This alliance leads to the creation of the "Independent Republics...
...The package is approved by Congress...
...The guerrillas retreat to the mountains to weather the assault unleashed against them by the Army, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary groups...
...The two parties alternate in power...
...EPL supporters create the Popular Front and run for municipal elections...
...Estudio de on process social (Bogota: Ediciones Tercer Mundo, 1962...
...1998: Conservative Andres Pastrana wins the presiden- tial elections, Prior to his inauguration, Pastrana arranges a meeting with FARC leader Manuel Marulan- da to explore the possibility of peace talks...
...Colombia becomes a major producer and exporter of marijuana...
...Escobar gives himself up in June 1992...
...Javier Giraldo, The Genocidal Democracy (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1996...
...Carmen Burbano is a staff assistant at NACLA, A second guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), emerges following Cuban-style foco theory...
...Paper presented at the XXII Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, March 2000 o<<http:f/www.colombia-thema.org/marsOO/p-sanchez.html...
...The Medellin Cartel's front organization, known as the "extraditables," declares a truce...
...The paramilitaries are believed responsible for 60% of political killings, the guerrillas for 25%, and the mili- tary for 10...
...The Popular Liberation Army (EPL), a third guerrilla group inspired by Maoism, forms and spreads towards the Atlantic Coast...
...The ELN collects taxes from multinational oil companies in oil-field areas, also located in the south...
...Over 10,000 people are detained...
...Feando Viviescas y Fabio Giraldo, eds, Colombia: el despertar de a modernidad (BogotS: Foro Nacional por Colombia, 1991...
...He launches another terrorist campaign as the debates over extradiction continue, pressed by the United States...
...The offensive receives the assistance of the U.S military which seizes the opportunity to try out napalm...
...Alfonso L6pez Michelsen, a Liberal, wins the first free election with the highest turnout in Colombian history...
...Plan Colombia receives $860 million, mostly for military and police activities...
...Within a decade, 3,000 UP activists are killed, decimating the movement...
...an indigenous guerrilla force named after the Indian prophet Quintin Lame, Worker's Self-Defense (ADO), and the Worker's Revolutionary Party (PRT...
...Camilo concludes that the current system can only be reformed through violence...
...1989: Several leading drug traffickers are arrested or killed and their property seized...
...He changes the policy towards drug traffickers, lifts the state of siege and rejects extradition as a means of countering the drug traffic...
...1993: Pablo Escobar escapes from the comfortable "prison" he had demanded from the government...
...1982-1986: President Belisario Betancur Cuartas, a Conservative, initiates a peace process with the guerrilla and a general amnesty plan for all armed groups...
...The authorities rely greatly on Los Pepes in the search for Escobar who is finally killed in Medellin in December by an elite armed unit...
...The plan is launched in August with the training of Colombian battalions by U.S...
...1948: Jorge Eliecer Gaitin, a populist leader of the Lib- eral Party, is assassinated in Bogota...
...Informed presentado al Ministerio de Gobiero (Bogot: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1987...
...1946: Violence erupts in the countryside between fol- lowers of a Conservative Party oligarchy seeking to reclaim ancestral lands and followers of the reformist Liberal Party, seeking to defend its land reforms of the previous two decades...
...The partisan civil war between the Conservatives and Liberals intensifies as a consequence of the assassination of Gaithn...
...M-19 fighters, 11 Supreme Court justices, and 90 civilians are killed...
...Sources Jaime Arocha et...
...wwwigc.org/colhrnet/timeline.htm...
...1948-58: La Violencia lasts for 10 years as Liberal and Conservative armies and guerrillas fight each other...
...The military, in turn, use their legal right to arm civilians and form paracontinued on page 26 Violence in Colombia (continued) military groups as a counterinsurgency strategy...
...The Communists and "common liberals" mobilize to become the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC...
...1978: The government issues the Public Safety Statute, an anti-terrorist piece of legislation, based on the "dirty war" tactics of the Argentine army...
...1955-57: Liberal guerrillas, known as "common liber- als" (as opposed to party-led liberals) ally with Commu- nist guerrillas who had emerged in the 1920s as selfdefense groups...
...Alvaro Camacho, Alvaro Guzmon, Maria Clemencia Ramirez, Fer- nando Gaithn, Nuevas visiones sobre la vini en Colombia (Bogota: FESCOL, IEPRI, 1997...
...Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin Cartel, the most powerful in the country, responds by unleashing a wave of terrorist attacks...
...A new group, "Los Pepes," (Victims of Pablo Escobar), emerges...
...In August of 1998, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees establishes an office in Bogota...
...Center for International Policy, "The Peace Process in Colombia: Timeline of Recent Events"' S <ww.ciponline.org/colombia/timeline htm>> Colombia Human Rights Network...
...1994-1998: Under the presidency of Ernesto Samper Pizano, the country is "decertified" by Washington for the alleged involvement of drug money in the electoral campaign...
...Violence and displacement of civilian populations in the countryside increases sharply...
...2000: The Clinton Administration proposes a $1.3 billion dollar military aid package for the Andean Region...
...1958: The Liberal and Conservative Parties agree to share power as a way to pacify the nation...
...Gonzalo Sanchez y Ricardo Peiaranda, Pasado y presente de la violencia en Colombia (Bogota: Fondo Editorial CEREC, 1991...
...Social upheaval continues...
...1990: The M-19 agrees to a cease-fire and forms the political party Democratic Alliance M-19...
...The Liberal-Conservative violence is contained but there is renewed struggle by the excluded groups...
...1986: The peace process with the guerrillas is over...
...German Guzman Campos, Orlando Fals Borda y Eduardo Umaina Luna, La violencia en Colombia...
...Erna von der Walde teaches Spanish literature at New York University...
...1985: In November, the M-19 seizes the Palace of Justice in downtown Bogota to denounce the government for breaking the terms of a cease-fire...
...Drug traffic becomes an essential part of the national economy and of the livelihood of excluded groups...
...Jorge Orlando Melo, ed., Colombia Hoy (Bogota: Tercer Mundo Editores, 1995...
...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...
...1970s: A second generation of revolutionaries emerges: an urban guerrilla group called the April 19 Movement (M-19...
...1966: President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, a Liberal, orders the destruction of the archives of La Violencia in an attempt to erase the painful past...
...The self-defense groups and the paramilitaries carry out massacres against union members and civilians accused of supporting the guerrillas...
...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 Castafo proposes that the paramilitaries be included in the peace talks...
...One of the leaders is Pedro Antonio Mann, who changes his name to Manuel Marulanda Velez, and is more commonly known as "Tirofijo" (Sure Shot...
...The government bombs the town of Marquetalia, Tolima and the surrounding areas to eliminate an independent republic...
...1995: The paramilitary groups form a federation led by Carlos Castaio and funded by his drug trafficking activ- ities...
...Connected to the Cali Cartel, Los Pepes carry out acts of terrorism against Escobar's organization and collaborate with the security forces...
...1989: Liberal presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galen is gunned down by assassins at the service of the Medellin Cartel...
...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...
...El compromiso social y politico de los intelectuales...
...al, Colombia: violencia y democracia...
...This arrange- ment is called the National Front and lasts for 16 years...
...1974: End of the National Front...
...Subject to extortion and kidnappings by the guerrilla, they form their own self-defense groups with the acquiescence of the military...
...1989: President Virgilio Barco Vargas, a Liberal, declares a war on drugs, advocating severe repression and extra- dition to the United States...
...1990-1994: Liberal Cesar Gaviria rises to the presidency and initiates the process of constitutional reform...
...all other political actors are excluded...
...It is called the Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC...
...Special Forces...
...Peace talks with the FARC begin on January 7. The ELN unsuccessfully requests a withdrawal agreement similar to the one conceded to the FARC...
...1953: With the backing of the two parties, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, head of the armed forces, leads a coup to oust President Laureano G6mez...
...Disappearances, torture, and political assassination become common...
...This unleashes a violent riot known as "El Bogotazo" in which 1,500 people die and 20,000 are injured...
...1996-1998: The paramilitaries and drug traffickers move into the FARC-controlled coca cultivation areas in the south...
...Gonzalo Samnchez, Guerra y politica en la sociedad colombiana (Bogota: El Ancora Editores, 1991), Gonzalo Sanchez, 2000...
...An Overview of Recent Colombian History...
Vol. 35 • July 2001 • No. 1
