Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Colombian politician and lawyer (Bogotá, 1903-1948).He obtained a law degree from the National School of Law, with a thesis entitled Socialist ideas in Colombia .In 1926 he traveled to Rome to specialize in criminal law, a degree he achieved with the academic mention magna cum laude .After touring Europe, he returned to his country in 1928 and was elected representative of the Chamber, from where he denounced the massacre of the banana workers (recounted years later by García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude ).which earned him the title of "tribune of the people" with which the popular sectors would honor him.
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
In 1931, elected president of the House of Representatives, he also served as professor of the chair of Criminal Law at the National Universities and Free, being appointed rector of the latter.His stance against the land monopoly won him wide support from the peasantry.In 1933 he founded the Unión Izquierdista Revolucionaria (UNIR) and its journalistic organ El Unirismo, from where he raised the need for an agrarian reform.
Elected mayor of Bogotá in 1936, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán carried out important social reforms; he promoted the municipalization of public services and tried to establish school restaurants.In 1940 he was appointed Minister of Education, undertaking an ambitious literacy campaign; it implemented the free school shoe, school restaurants, mobile educational cinema, and massive cultural outreach.In the following years, Gaitán continued his intense public life as a jurist, politician, and caudillo.His political action was directed against the oligarchies and for the moral restoration of the republic .
In 1945 he was proclaimed candidate for the presidency, but the internal divisions of the Liberal Party between the supporters of Gaitán and those of Gabriel Turbay favored the triumph of the conservative candidate Mariano Ospina Pérez.After this defeat, Gaitán resurfaced with new impetus, being proclaimed sole head of the Liberal Party.In 1948 he received the title of doctor honoris causa in Political and Social Sciences from the Free University.
During the same year he obtained a resounding triumph in his career as a lawyer, when he obtained the acquittal of a military man accused in the death of a journalist.His assassination on April 9, 1948 provoked a huge popular reaction: the people of Bogota took to the streets in protest, and anarchy and violence took over the capital.The revolt spread to other cities in the country, in what was known as el bogotazo.
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