Colombia: Anti-'Terrorism' and Who Killed Gaitan? Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Paul Wolf 1- Subcommittee Members marking up Colombia Antiterrorism Act 2- "Who Killed Gaitan?" Colombia Asks, 54 Years Later Subcommittee Members marking up Colombia Antiterrorism Act After quite a bit of confusion over which subcommittee is working on this, here are the US Representatives who are going to be working on the Colombia Antiterrorism Act of 2002 this week. Sorry about the confusion, I've been quite confused myself! -Paul Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Jim Kolbe, Arizona, Chairman Nita M. Lowey, New York Sonny Callahan, Alabama Nancy Pelosi, California1 Joe Knollenberg, Michigan Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Illinois Jack Kingston, Georgia Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, Michigan Jerry Lewis, California Steven R. Rothman, New Jersey Roger F. Wicker, Mississippi Henry Bonilla, Texas John E. Sununu, New Hampshire "Who Killed Gaitan?" Colombia Asks, 54 Years Later [Note: I'm not working with Gloria Gaitan in my project to obtain declassified US documents, and don't consider her to be a reliable source. However, I did find a document at the National Archives dated June 8, 1948 that shows that Dr. Jordan Jimenez, the Colombian magistrate selected by the government to investigate Gaitan's murder, and who wrote a book comparing the Gaitan and JFK assassinations, did make an official request for information to the US government. It doesn't appear that the US ever made an official reply. http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/gaitan/archives/beaulac8june1948.htm I don't think the Colombian government has made any recent requests for information about Gaitan, but it might help if they did. - Paul ] "Who Killed Gaitan?" Colombia Asks, 54 Years Later by Ibon Villelabeitia BOGOTA, Colombia, April 26 (Reuters) - Gloria Gaitan still remembers the smell of ashes and the glowing red sky from the riots that erupted the day her father was gunned down 54 years ago. "It's as if the clock stopped that afternoon. In a way, I haven't buried my father," Gaitan, now 64, said. On April 9, 1948, a lone gunman killed charismatic Colombian opposition leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, unleashing a civil war known as "La Violencia," which claimed as many as 300,000 lives over the next decade. The killing of Gaitan, one of Colombia's most mysterious political assassinations, still echoes in a country awash in violence. Many trace the roots of the current guerrilla war to the slaying of the populist who promised to implement land reform and end Colombia's two-party political system. For more than 40 years, Gloria Gaitan, who is now the director of the Jorge Eliecer Gaitan Foundation, has been searching for clues to learn who was behind the killing, traveling to Cuba and the United States to interview intelligence officers and seeking to declassify documents. Cesar Augusto Ayala, a history professor at Colombia's National University, says Gaitan's assassination killed Colombia's historic opportunity to overcome a political system based on privilege and exclusion that has fractured society. "Gaitan's murder ended a populist movement that sought to integrate Colombia socially and politically as a nation," Ayala said. "Since then, Colombia entered a period of chronic violence." The riots died down, but Colombia is yet to see an end to the smell of ashes and the glowing red skies as a 38-year- old civil war pitting leftist rebels against right-wing paramilitary groups and the armed forces intensifies. Colombians choose a new president on May 26 and the situation in Latin America's third most populous country has rarely looked more dire. Violence has taken on new forms, resembling what historian Alvaro Tirado Mejia described as "archeological layers," in which one layer of violence sits upon another. Few other countries have a field of study called "violentology" -- the study of violence and its origins. Today, "violentologists" say Colombia's violence is shaped by a new factor -- the drug trade. Cocaine is the gasoline that fuels a conflict that claims 3,500 people every year. "A PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT" Gaitan, a mestizo of humble origins, rose to prominence in the 1940s with a populist left-leaning message against Colombia's conservative and European-descended elites. His promises of land reform sparked hope among impoverished peasants, long neglected by Bogota's political establishment. A skilled orator, Gaitan also pledged to install a "people's government" that would end a two-party system that has ruled the country since independence in 1819. After Gaitan was assassinated in a Bogota street, mass rioting erupted in the capital and other cities. Landless peasants armed themselves against the conservative government and took to the mountains, forming guerrilla groups. One of those peasants was Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, today the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Colombia's largest guerrilla army. La Violencia ended in 1958, after a brief military dictatorship, when Liberals and Conservatives formed a power- sharing pact called the National Front. The agreement, which lasted two decades, allowed the two parties to share the spoils of power, closing out all other political groups. Now 71, Marulanda founded the communist-inspired FARC in 1964 with a group of fellow ragged campesinos and has said he would still be a peasant in his native central Quindio province had it not been for April 9, 1948. The cocaine trade has exacerbated Colombia's conflict. Rural neglect and weak state institutions have contributed to a flourishing of drug crops, which finance the war chests of rebels and anti-guerrilla right-wing militias. CONSPIRACY THEORIES DOG KILLING The killing of Gaitan has inspired streams of conspiracy literature and Cold War-era political intrigue. The gunman was lynched by an angry mob and dragged half naked down the streets. But his motive remains a mystery. Throughout the years, CIA agents have been suggested as possible plotters. Another theory points to a communist plan designed to destabilize the country. The presence in Bogota of a young Fidel Castro -- who held an interview with Gaitan two days before his murder -- has added to the intrigue. Some believe personal motives lie at the heart of Gaitan's broad-daylight assassination. One fringe theory, worthy of a Greek tragedy, holds that Gaitan's killing was orchestrated by his envious half-brother. Gloria Gaitan claims her father's killing was masterminded by then Conservative president Mariano Ospina Perez in complicity with the Central Intelligence Agency. She has asked the U.S. government to order a probe into Washington's alleged role but has received no answers, she said. "The killing of my father was one of the first political killings of the Cold War," she said. After Gaitan was killed, his widow took the body to the family home and vowed the corpse would not leave the house until the government was removed from office. The body was embalmed and lay in state in the living room for 19 days. Fearing the vigil would spark more unrest, the government bought the house and buried Gaitan in the living room. Gloria Gaitan, who served in former Chilean President Salvador Allende's administration, believes Colombia needs to understand its past to get out of its current mess. "We are the children of La Violencia. The search for Gaitan is a search through our history." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytsa-04.28.02-21:16:47-10209