The 19th of April Movement ( es, Movimiento 19 de Abril), or M-19, was a Colombian
guerrilla organisation movement. After its
demobilization it became a political party, the M-19 Democratic Alliance (), or AD/M-19.
The M-19 traced its origins to the allegedly fraudulent
presidential elections of 19 April 1970. In those elections, the
National Popular Alliance
The National Popular Alliance or ANAPO (''Alianza Nacional Popular'') was a political party in Colombia. It was founded in 1961 as a movement by the ex-president Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and was disbanded in 1998. Many ANAPO leaders and militants j ...
(ANAPO) of former military dictator
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (12 March 1900 – 17 January 1975) was a Colombian Army general, civil engineer and dictator who ruled as 19th President of Colombia as from June 1953 to May 1957.
Rojas Pinilla gained prominence as a colonel during La ...
was denied an electoral victory.
The ideology of the M-19 was
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
, but its main aim was to open up democracy in Colombia. It was inspired by other South American urban guerrilla groups, such as the
Tupamaros in Uruguay and the
Montoneros in Argentina.
By mid-1985, when the number of active members was estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000 (including a more noticeable urban presence), the M-19 was the second largest guerrilla group in Colombia after the
FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conf ...
.
Even though the group no longer formally exists after the assassination of its key leaders, its remaining adherents became part of the Colombian political mainstream after the peace process, with most of them joining either in the
Humane Colombia Party formed by ex-member
Gustavo Petro
Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (; born 19 April 1960) is a Colombian economist, politician, and former guerrilla fighter who is the current president of Colombia since 2022. After taking office, Petro was considered by analysts as Colomb ...
, the
Alternative Democratic Pole Party and the
Colombian Green Alliance Party, all of which later joined together in the
Historic Pact for Colombia Colombia's current governing coalition. Other notable members have joined the Colombian
Democratic Center Party.
Armed activity
The M-19's history may be divided into two parts: the first was a failed armed revolutionary struggle during the early to mid-1980s, while the second was a relatively constructive reincorporation into civil society and political life during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Theft of Bolívar's sword
Among the actions performed by the M-19, some significant events stand out. In a highly symbolic action, the M-19 stole
one of the swords of Simon Bolivar from a museum in 1974, an event which was used by the group to symbolize what they called a civilian uprising against a regime perceived as unjust.
Kidnapping and murder of José Raquel Mercado
On 15 February 1976, the M-19 kidnapped the union leader Jose Raquel Mercado, who was the president of Confederation of Workers of Colombia (CTC), charged him with selling out the interests of Colombian workers to U.S. imperialism, and sentenced him to death. The group accused Mercado of taking bribes and collaborating with the
CIA. The M-19 had offered to "commute" the labor leader's death sentence if the government reinstated thousands of fired workers, gave public employees the right to strike and published a communique in 12 Colombian newspapers. Mercado's body was wrapped in plastic, and propped up against a lamppost in a Bogota park.
Theft of arms from the north canton
On New Year's Eve 1979, the group dug a tunnel into a Colombian Army weapons depot, taking over 5000 weapons. It was considered one of the first signs of the group's true potential for armed action.
Dominican Republic embassy siege
The group is also recognized for other high-profile activities, such as the
Dominican embassy siege. The guerrillas stormed the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
's embassy during a cocktail party on 27 February 1980. They took the largest recorded number of diplomats held hostage to date in Colombia, which accounted for 14 ambassadors, including the United States'. Eventually, after tense negotiations with the government of
Julio César Turbay Ayala, the hostages were peacefully released and the hostage takers were allowed to leave the country for exile in Cuba. Some of them later returned and actively rejoined the M-19's activities. Many contemporary rumors and later accounts from the participants in this event have suggested that the Colombian government might have submitted to another of the M-19 demands, by allegedly giving the group 1 to 2.5 million U.S. dollars in exchange for the release of the hostages.
First peace talks
During the government of
Belisario Betancur (1982–1986),
Jaime Bateman Cayón
Jaime Alfonso Bateman Cayón (23 April 1940– 28 April 1983), also known as "El flaco" (the skinny one) or Comandante Pablo (Commander Pablo) by his fellow guerrilleros, was a Colombian guerrilla leader and both founder and commander of the 19 ...
, by then top leader of the M-19, proposed a meeting in Panama with the Colombian government toward solving the conflict. But Bateman died on 28 April 1983 in an airplane accident, apparently while on the way to Panama, and the negotiations were suspended.
The negotiations culminated with the Agreements of
Corinto, Cauca. A ceasefire was agreed, as well as the continuation of dialogue for the future demobilization of the guerrilla detachment. Nevertheless, sectors of the army opposed to the agreements of
La Uribe
La Uribe is a town and municipality in the Meta Department, Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as wel ...
and Corinto were responsible for attacks against the life of main leaders
Iván Marino Ospina
Iván Marino Ospina (called by his colleagues "Ivan the Terrible") (1940 – August 28, 1985) was a Colombian guerrilla and co-founder of the revolutionary group 19th of April Movement (M-19).
Early life
Not much is known of Marino's early life. ...
,
Antonio Navarro Wolff,
Carlos Pizarro, Marcos Chalita, etc.
Palace of Justice siege
The M-19, as a guerrilla group, is also recognized for the
Palace of Justice siege. In this attack, on 6 November 1985, some 300 lawyers, judges, and Supreme Court magistrates were taken hostage by 35 armed rebel commandos at the Palace of Justice, the building that houses the
Supreme Court of Colombia
The Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia ( es, Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia) in Bogotá is the highest judicial body in civil and penal matters and issues of criminal and civil procedure in Colombia. The Supreme Court of Colombia is t ...
. They demanded that president
Belisario Betancur be tried by the magistrates for allegedly betraying the country's desire for peace. When this situation became publicly known, the Colombian Army surrounded the Palace of Justice's perimeter with soldiers and
EE-9 Cascavel armored reconnaissance vehicles. For a short while, unsuccessful negotiations were attempted, but they reached nowhere, despite the desperate pleas that were transmitted telephonically by some of the notable hostages involved.
The Betancur administration and its council found themselves in a difficult position. They were not willing to submit to the rebels' demands, as they allegedly considered that this would set a further precedent for the M-19 and considerably jeopardize the government's position. Eventually, after tense discussions, it was decided during an emergency meeting that the military would be allowed to handle the situation and attempt to recover the Palace by force.
This led to a highly controversial turn of events which, to a lesser or greater degree, continues to be debated in Colombia to this date. In the ensuing heavy crossfire between the incoming soldiers and the entrenched rebels, which included supporting gunfire from the EE-9 Cascavels, the building was set aflame, more than 100 people died (including 11 of the country's 21 Supreme Court Justices), and valuable legal records were destroyed.
The M-19 lost several of its top commanders during the event, and blamed the government for the ensuing bloodshed. The surviving civilian victims and their families held different positions; some blamed the M-19, some blamed the Betancur administration, many blamed both. There is apparently no clear consensus on the matter.
Author Ana Carrigan alleged against the widely accepted version that drug lords, such as
Pablo Escobar
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (; ; 1 December 19492 December 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar is the wealthiest criminal in h ...
, may have masterminded the operation in order to get rid of several criminal investigations recorded in the documents lost during the event. A Special Commission of Inquiry, established by the Betancur government, released a June 1986 report which concluded that Escobar had no relation with this event, so these allegations could not be proven (though it did not rule out the possibility either). Carrigan alleged that the act was a conspiracy of the Colombian government. Others state that the alleged Guerrilla-Cartel relation was unlikely to occur because the two organizations had several standoffs and confrontations, like the kidnapping of Nieves Ochoa, the sister of Medellin cartel founder Juan David Ochoa, by M-19. The kidnapping led to the creation of the MAS/
Muerte a Secuestradores ("Death to Kidnappers") paramilitary group by the
Medellin cartel. However, her theories and skepticism of Escobar and the Medellin Cartel's involvement was greatly discredited by others such as Rex Hudson, who presented allegedly "overwhelming evidence" linking the cartel to the plot.
Former Assistant of the Colombia Attorney General, National Deputy Comptroller, author and Professor Jose Mauricio Gaona along with Former Minister of Justice and Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Carlos Medellín Becerra, the sons of two of the murdered Supreme Court magistrates, have pushed for further investigations into the presumed links between the M-19 and the
Medellín Cartel
The Medellín Cartel ( es, Cartel de Medellín) was a powerful and highly organized Colombian drug cartel and terrorist organization originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia that was founded and led by Pablo Escobar. It is often consider ...
drug lords. Mayor of Bogota
Gustavo Petro
Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (; born 19 April 1960) is a Colombian economist, politician, and former guerrilla fighter who is the current president of Colombia since 2022. After taking office, Petro was considered by analysts as Colomb ...
, a former M-19 guerrilla, has denied these accusations and dismissed them as based upon the inconsistent testimonies of drug lords. Petro says that the surviving members of the M-19 do admit to their share of responsibility for the tragic events of the siege, on behalf of the entire organization, but deny any links to the drug trade.
Notable members
*
Antonio Navarro Wolf
*
Vera Grabe
Vera Grabe Loewenherz is a Colombian anthropologist, politician, and former member of the Colombian guerrilla M-19, of which she was also a co-founder. She successfully rejoined society through a peace accord that permitted rebels to disarm an ...
*
Carlos Toledo Plata
Carlos Francisco Toledo Plata (December 13, 1932 – August 10, 1984) was a Colombian doctor, politician, co-founder and early leader of the guerrilla movement known as M-19, who also laid the basis for the movement's socialist platforms with h ...
*
Gustavo Petro
Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (; born 19 April 1960) is a Colombian economist, politician, and former guerrilla fighter who is the current president of Colombia since 2022. After taking office, Petro was considered by analysts as Colomb ...
*
Luis Otero Cifuentes Luis Otero Cifuentes (Cali September 25, 1943 – Bogotá November 7, 1985) was a Colombian politician and guerrilla fighter. He was killed in the Palace of Justice siege in Bogotá.
Biography
He studied in the Free University of Colombia School a ...
*
Rosemberg Pabón
Rosemberg Pabón Pabón (born January 1, 1947) is a Colombian political scientist who served as the Director of the National Administrative Department of Solidary Economy (''DanSocial''). A former leader of the M-19 guerrilla movement, he com ...
* Gustavo Arias Londoño
* Andrés Almarales
* Marcos Chalita
Demobilization and participation in politics
Internationally isolated, M-19 saw itself unable to continue the armed struggle: As late as 1988, an attempt was made to solicit weapons shipments from Socialist
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, but, following reservations from the
Ministry of National Defense, the Foreign Ministry, and the
Ministry for State Security, the request was denied in the end.
[ General of the Army Heinz Keßler, Minister for National Defense of the GDR, described the M-19 as "a radical leftist movement with a partially bizarre orientation", citing additional reservations that the movement might be irredeemably subverted by western intelligence agencies. See Klaus Storkmann: Geheime Solidarität: Militärbeziehungen und Militärhilfen der DDR in die "Dritte Welt", Berlin 2012, p. 119.] The M-19 eventually gave up its weapons, received pardons and became a political party in the late 1980s, the M-19 Democratic Alliance ("Alianza Democrática M-19", or (AD/M-19)), which renounced the armed struggle. Eventually the M-19 returned Bolívar's sword as a symbol of its demobilization and desire to change society through its participation in legal politics.
In 1990, one of its more prominent figures, presidential candidate and former guerrilla commander
Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, while aboard an airline flight, was murdered by assassins, supposedly on the orders of
drug cartel
A drug cartel is any criminal organization with the intention of supplying drug trafficking operations. They range from loosely managed agreements among various drug traffickers to formalized commercial enterprises. The term was applied when th ...
and paramilitary leaders (disappeared
AUC commander
Carlos Castaño publicly admitted his own responsibility for the murder in a 2002 book and interviews). Some of its other members were also subject to multiple threats or likewise murdered.
Antonio Navarro Wolff replaced the deceased Pizarro as candidate and leader of the party, finishing third in that year's presidential race.
Despite the continuation of smaller scale violence against it, the AD/M-19 survived through the 1990s, achieved favorable electoral results on a local level and actively participated as a high-profile political force in the forging of Colombia's modern 1991 constitution, which replaced a conservative document ostensibly dating from 1886. Antonio Navarro was one of the three co-presidents of the
Constituent Assembly of Colombia, together with representatives from the
Colombian Liberal Party
The Colombian Liberal Party ( es, Partido Liberal Colombiano; PLC) is a centre to centre-left political party in Colombia. It was founded as a classical liberal party but later developed a more social-democratic tradition, joining the Socia ...
and the
Colombian Conservative Party
The Colombian Conservative Party ( es, Partido Conservador Colombiano) is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was formally established in 1849 by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and José Eusebio Caro.
The Conservative party al ...
.
Several analysts consider that the AD/M-19 reached its peak at this point in time and, while never disappearing completely from the political background, it began to gradually decline as a party on its own, although many of its ex-members have gained influence in the
Independent Democratic Pole
The Independent Democratic Pole (''Polo Democrático Independiente'') or (PDI), was a left-wing social democratic political party in Colombia.
Origins
Originally formed as a left-wing congressional coalition, the party itself was officially found ...
coalition.
Election results
See also
*
History of Colombia
*
Politics of Colombia
References
Sources
* Carrigan, Ana. ''The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy'',
Four Walls Eight Windows
Four Walls Eight Windows was an American independent book publisher in New York City. Known as 4W8W or Four Walls, the company was notable for its dual commitment to progressive politics and adventurous, edgy literary fiction.
History
Four W ...
, 1993.
* Vásquez Perdomo, María Eugenia. ''My Life as a Colombian Revolutionary: Reflections of a Former Guerrillera'', Trans. Lorena Terando, Philadelphia:
Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
, 2005.
External links
Chapter on M-19 in ''COLOMBIA – A Country Study''
{{DEFAULTSORT:19th Of April Movement
Colombian nationalism
Left-wing nationalism