Gustavo Rojas Pinilla
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (Tunja, March 12, 1900-Melgar, January 17, 1975), was a Colombian soldier, civil engineer and politician. During his political career he was nicknamed Gurropín due to the first syllables of his name.
He was president of Colombia after the coup that would give the incumbent Laureano Gómez, occupying de facto the presidency of Colombia from June 13, 1953 to May 10, 1957 through a military dictatorship His tenure was characterized by carrying out relevant infrastructure works, thanks to works such as the El Dorado International Airport, the Central Military Hospital, 26th Street, the National Administrative Center (CAN) and the National Secretariat of Social Assistance (Sendas), and some oil concessions returned to government control.
During his government, the process of depoliticizing the National Police began and the arrival of the television service in the country also brought to an end the second stage of the era known as La Violencia. In 1954, during his tenure, the recognized the right to women's suffrage. It also prohibited the legal carrying of weapons through a safe-conduct system.
In 1957, he was forced to resign due to a social and governance crisis caused by popular protests supported by the leaders of the traditional parties, and he formed a military junta to complete his term. Once democracy was restored, his enemies started a judicial persecution against him; he was convicted of acts of his government and his political rights were taken away in an irregular process.
In the late 1960s he returned to politics, founding his own political partyː the Alianza Nacional Popular (Anapo), which opposed the system of alternation of the traditional parties known as the National Front. In 1970, in the Colombian presidential elections, he was about to return to the presidency but was defeated by Misael Pastrana in elections considered fraudulent. As a result of this event, the guerrilla Movement April 19 (M-19) was born.
He died in 1975, and his daughter and grandchildren carried on his political legacy, though his grandchildren were involved in corruption scandals in the 21st century< /span>.
Biography
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Rojas was born on March 12, 1900 in Tunja, into a wealthy family of conservative soldiers. He spent his early years between his native Tunja and Villa de Leyva, and on a rural property in Arcabuco, Boyacá.
He began his military career at the Bogotá Cadet School in 1920. Around 1923 he was promoted to lieutenant in the Army while he was assigned in Manizales. In 1924 he requested the retirement of the active service to be able to carry out his Civil Engineering studies at Trine University, in Indiana, United States; where he obtained the degree of civil engineer in 1927. From there he began to participate in the construction of roads and other engineering works within his military career.
Political-military career
After the Colombian-Peruvian War began, Rojas was reinstated into active service for the government of Enrique Olaya Herrera. In 1936 he was an engineer in the technical department of the National Army's munitions factory, and as such he was sent on a mission special to Germany, in order to obtain the necessary machinery to manufacture the ammunition in Bogotá. Upon his return to Colombia, he was appointed head of the technical department of the munitions factory.
In 1943 he was sent to the United States to acquire weapons and other elements for the Military Forces from that government. In 1944 he was deputy director of the Escuela Superior de Guerra, and in 1945 he was appointed director of Civil Aeronautics. It was there that he presented his airport project under the name "Airstrips in Colombia", which served as his thesis for his promotion to colonel in the National Army. While a colonel, he was appointed commander of the First Brigade in Tunja and in 1948 appointed commander of the Third Brigade in Cali.
In Cali he gained greater visibility by managing to pacify the rebellion that occurred in that area as a result of the assassination of the popular leader of the liberal party Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, on April 9, 1948, gaining the recognition of the conservative president Mariano Ospina Pérez and in turn of the main leaders of his party.
On October 11 of the following year, he was promoted to the rank of general and on October 18 he was assigned to command the Brigade of Military Institutes. On December 3, 1949, he was appointed Minister of Posts and Telegraphs by Ospina.
Violence
The consequences of Gaitán's assassination were still being felt, Congress had been closed since November 9, 1949, and the Liberal Party, which had not run in the last presidential elections, was unaware of Laureano Gómez's status as president. In the new year of 1950 Ospina named him commander of the military forces of Colombia, being confirmed by the new president Laureano Gómez until June 1, 1951. That same year, when Gómez again called elections for Congress, the Party Liberal, again, did not appear, as he did not in 1953, to the elections to the House of Representatives. In this second electoral appointment, the crisis worsened, since the conservative supporters of Gilberto Álzate Avendaño did not attend either.
Violence also showed its most bloody figures in those years. In 1950 the deaths managed to reach 50253; 447 per 100,000 inhabitants. To all this was added the absence of power that meant the appointment of the conservative Roberto Urdaneta as president, in November 1951, given the delicate state of health of Gómez. Although Urdaneta began talks with the armed groups of the Eastern Plains, they broke down around 1952. On September 6 of that same year, a mob set fire to the headquarters of the newspapers El Tiempo and El Espectador. and the National Liberal Directorate, as well as the houses of its important leadersː former president Alfonso López Pumarejo, and Carlos Lleras Restrepo. All this with the complacency of the police, who did not bother to intervene.
The violent death of the liberal guerrilla Saúl Fajardo on December 2, 1952, added to the fires of September 6, demonstrated that the excesses of the state forces until then only accused in distant regions subject to military control, could also happen in the streets of Bogotá. The repercussion of these crimes appears as one of the causes that months later contributed to the collapse of the Urdaneta government.
Seizure of Power (1953)
Laureano Gómez continued to have a leading influence in the government, which resulted in the proposal for a constitutional reform and the convening of a National Constituent Assembly that was to begin discussing on June 15, 1953 the Project of Reforms presented to the Ministry of Government by the Constitutional Studies Commission. The assembly could not be installed... On June 13, General Rojas Pinilla, who was the Commander of the Armed Forces, assumed power after a peaceful coup that day.
According to historians, Rojas took office with the support of former president Mariano Ospina, who led the progressive faction of the party against Gómez, and of several relevant conservatism leaders such as Avendaño and Urdaneta himself. The initial plan was for Rojas to hand over command to Urdaneta, but he rejected it; then they offered it to Ospina, who also rejected it; Finally, since there was no one to assume the presidency, Rojas took power in his own name.It is therefore not by chance that the coup carried out by Rojas took place two days before said Assembly. Rojas's status as president was legitimized five days later, on June 18, by the National Constituent Assembly, which, far from ceasing to meet due to the coup, promptly became the legislative body of the Rojas government.
It was a blow of opinion. —Darío Echandía |
The reading of the coup cannot anachronistically refer to the bloody military actions typical of the XX century. In this case there was neither bloodshed nor military actions. With the exception of the conservative faction led by Gómez, the coup was promoted and celebrated by the country's political elite, so Rojas began his term with high popularity, and in fact, installed in the presidency, he paraded through the streets of Bogotá in the company of his family and amid applause and cheers.
Presidency (1953-1957)
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To achieve pacification, he proposed granting amnesty to the guerrilla combatants and the economic reconstruction of the areas affected by the violence. In fact, some liberal guerrillas laid down their arms. But he did not succeed with the communist guerrillas, since he declared the Colombian Communist Party illegal.
Since the government of Laureano Gómez, a state of emergency had been used, managed with the National Constituent Assembly and in the absence of the legislature, decrees were used, a method that Rojas also used to impose his plan. According to his ideas, in the face of political failure- of the traditional parties, "the People-Military Forces binomial" would be the way to make changes in the country. He considered that nationalism and patriotism should be the forces of cohesion of the Colombian people, drowning in violence and national crisis.
According to his ideas, without social justice, peace would be very difficult, let alone freedom. "You cannot talk about peace without social justice and fair distribution and enjoyment of wealth." Thus, to stimulate the economy and facilitate the handling of import licenses, he created two public banks, measures that private banks considered "unfair competition". He stimulated the work and the development of the country's infrastructure, for which he established a tax on income and wealth.
First reelection
The following year, at the end of the "period in progress", on August 3, 1954, Rojas managed to get the National Constituent Assembly, at that time mainly composed of conservatives, to reaffirm his possession and to re-elected for the following period, that is, until 1958. On October 25, the Assembly approved the constitutional change to extend suffrage to women, a right that was effectively exercised in the plebiscite of 1957.
Meanwhile, breaking away from the bipartisan support that had brought him to power, Rojas created what he called the "Third Force." workers, middle classes and the military, based on Catholic principles taken from the social doctrine of the Church and on Bolivarian ideals.
As soon as the Minister of Government, Lucio Pabón, publicly announced, on January 9, 1955, the formation of the new party "Movimiento de Acción Popular" To support Rojas's administration, the traditional parties decided to actively oppose him using the newspapers under his control.
Command
The harmony between the government and civil leaders was broken when on June 8, 1954, an act at the National University of Colombia, in which several students commemorated the death of student Gonzalo Bravo Pérez, which occurred 25 years earlier, culminated with the death of the student Uriel Gutiérrez. The following day, June 9, the university students marched towards the center of Bogotá, and the Massacre of students shot by the Colombia Battalion was perpetuated, with a balance of 13 deaths. The government attributed the act to communism and the Laurean opposition, which was denied by said parties.
Censorship and repression
The military dictatorship of Rojas Pinilla was characterized by a continuous confrontation with the press, with the issuance of legal norms that sought to protect officials from possible insults and slander. Likewise, the regime encouraged the creation of a state and parastatal press subsidized by the government and the legal, tax and commercial harassment of opposition newspapers. On March 6, 1954, it was ordered by decree "that all newspapers in the country should stick to the account of the facts and avoid interpretation. On March 15, the government shut down La Unidad, a weekly published in Bogotá and directed by Belisario Betancur, for publishing an anti-government manifesto. The following month a decree was issued establishing a prison sentence of two to five years for anyone who defamed the military government.
On September 30, 1955, Rojas Pinilla established censorship and the subsequent closure of the opposition newspapers El Tiempo, El Espectador, Diario Gráfico and El Siglo through decree 2535 naming it "a free but responsible press", although the first two were subsequently left to function respectively under the names of Intermediate and El Independiente which functioned ephemerally in 1955. Several newspapers were also fined and prior censorship was applied.
Likewise, the Rojas Pinilla regime instituted religious persecution against Protestantism, including the imprisonment of an 82-year-old American missionary accused of communist proselytizing, which led to concern and protests from the government of that country. The government establishes a radio station called Radio Sutatenza. The station's content is mostly Catholic propaganda, mixed with literacy classes. The government distributes thousands of radios in rural areas, but these radios only receive a single station.
Until 1955, the possession of firearms was legal in Colombia. Rojas Pinilla implements the safe-conduct system, and the possession of weapons becomes illegal.
A report prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the US State Department describes dramatic increases in taxes during 1954, including Estate and Income taxes, hitting the upper classes of the society. Taxes increase from 5% to 14%. This causes protests in Valle del Cauca, where more than 400 people are arrested. Pinilla, concerned about the possibility of civil rebellion, buys a fleet of Bell 47 helicopters, keeping one on hand at his presidential palace in case a sudden escape is necessary. Rojas Pinilla's presidential helicopter is now in the Military Museum of Colombia in Bogotá.
The aspect that has perhaps stood out the most was the closure of external credit by international financial organizations in the last year of the Rojas Pinilla government, an issue that undoubtedly deepened the difficulties faced by this government and accelerated, for therefore, his downfall.
In 1955, the Pinilla administration signs a pact with the US that allows foreign companies in Colombia to take 100% of their income out of the country. Shortly after, so many flights loaded with gold and platinum began to leave the country that one crashed in the Andes, and was recovered by an American company. In June 1957, the reporter Héctor Echeverry Cárdenas was assassinated a day later. for writing an article accusing Rojas Pinilla of taking $2 million worth of gold and platinum out of Colombia for his personal use.
Focused on large-scale engineering projects and platinum mining, the Pinilla administration began importing hundreds of tons of dynamite through the port of Buenaventura. In December 1954, 25 people were killed in a landslide caused by dynamite used in platinum mining in Quibdó. In March 1955, 11 soldiers were killed while transporting 9 tons of dynamite in Santander. On August 7, 1956, more than 4,000 people were killed in the Cali Explosion, when the Army Nacional decides to park 7 trucks loaded with more than 42,000 kilos of dynamite in the center of one of the largest cities in the country.
Incidents in the bullring
On January 29, 1956, the daughter of Rojas Pinilla, María Eugenia de Moreno, and her husband were the object of loud shouting during a bullfight in the Santamaría bullring in Bogotá in contrast to the ovation offered minutes before Alberto Lleras Camargo, leader of the liberal opposition to the regime; Eyewitnesses recall that when the bullfighter offered the bull to María Eugenia in front of the presidential box, the audience shouted at her: "Don't offer it to him because you are taking it to Melgar."
The following Sunday, February 5, the retaliation took place. Investigators affirm that the government established a plan that included the purchase of thousands of tickets for its detectives and agents, in order to avenge the mocked honor of María Eugenia and her husband. Those who sang "Lleras yes, another no", and those who refused to cheer María Eugenia, the agents of the Colombian Intelligence Service (SIC) beat them to death, threw them down the stands of the circus, they were beaten with yatagans or kicked. The exact number of dead and wounded could never be specified. The dead of that day were buried nameless.
Today it is impossible to give a concrete number of victims. The news was not reported in any Colombian media due to existing censorship, but the United Press International (UPI) agency did broadcast the news to its subscribers around the world, which cost its correspondent director Carlos J. Villar Borda exile. El Diario de Colombia, the official newspaper of the dictatorship, described the events as "trivial and trivial, of daily occurrence." The newspaper El Catolicismo, meanwhile, wondered: «In what civilized head could the idea of instructing with blows of a mitten and club come from?» and for Cardinal Crisanto Luque Sánchez, the Santamaría became that day "the scene of a show far more bloody than the fate of bullfighting".
Bipartisan Compact
The dialogues between the conservatives, initially led by Laureano Gómez and later followed by Mariano Ospina Pérez, and the liberals, led by Alberto Lleras Camargo, to calm the hatred and differences, paved the way for what would be called the National Front. First it was the Benidorm Pact of July 24, 1956 where they recognized the shared responsibility in the decline of democracy and began to look for the egalitarian formula; then the pact of March 20, 1959, where they firmly opposed the re-election of Rojas for the following period and support free elections; then the declaration of Sitges, where they confirm that the two parties would share power equally for 16 years and the presidency would alternate every four years between the two parties.
Second reelection
In November 1956, Mariano Ospina Pérez resigned from the leadership of the National Constituent Assembly (ANAC) in protest of Rojas's attempt to put 25 more members in the Assembly to ensure re-election. Chaired by Lucio Pabón Núñez, the ANAC was convened on March 22, but members of the opposition, led by Guillermo León Valencia, elected as a bipartisan presidential candidate, as agreed in Benidorm, to resist Rojas Pinilla's desire for re-election, They abandoned the deliberations because they were not allowed to read the bipartisan manifesto in which six former presidents pointed out that Valencia was the head of the movement against the government. ANAC members loyal to the government dissolved the Constituent Assembly, which was reconvened for April 11, but with new and complex election systems that ensured total fidelity to the government and absolute exclusion of the opposition. Once the new Constituent Assembly was assembled, in its first session on April 30, 1957, the motion was presented to re-elect the supreme chief for four more years, after his term expired on August 7, 1958.
This unleashed an even more aggressive opposition against the government, especially when Guillermo León Valencia was placed under house arrest on May 1 at the house where he was staying in Cali, and is taken to Bogotá on May 3. Valencia and the liberal leader of the opposition, Alberto Lleras Camargo, then agreed to anticipate plans to overthrow Rojas and his government through student demonstrations, a general closure of industry, commerce, banking, etc., and strikes, actions that they were planned for June or maybe a little later.
However, events were unleashed with the arrest of Valencia. In turn, Rojas Pinilla used the explosion of dynamite trucks in Cali at dawn on August 7, 1956 to attack the bipartisan pacts of conspirators and responsible for said incident, although on the other hand his daughter María Eugenia headed the aid to the victims on behalf of the National Secretariat of Social Assistance (Sendas). On the other hand, the guerrillas and bands of both sides that had not accepted the amnesty or had returned to arms they served as bandits.
Fall and exile
The re-election of Rojas was not carried out since the parties, the Church, the students, the banks, the industry and the unions declared a national strike since May 6 against his re-election, a strike known as the days in May. In the early hours of May 10, 1957, Rojas agreed to retire and, in his place, named a transitional military government. At 9:30 a.m. m. He announced his resignation to the entire country through the National Radio Station, agreed with the members of the Military Junta and went into exile that same day to Spain, the same nation that was home to Laureano Gómez, overthrown by Rojas Pinilla four years ago, although another This version suggests that Rojas went into exile in the Dominican Republic under the political asylum of Héctor Bienvenido Trujillo, brother and puppet of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.
The military junta took office the following month and dissolved the National Constituent Assembly.
Post-government
Impeachment
After 15 months of government by the military Junta, on August 7, 1958, the National Front came into force, created to put an end to the bipartisan conflict. In 1958 the first government of the National Front, chaired by Alberto Lleras Camargo, impeached Rojas Pinilla for which the general returned to the country on October 11, 1958 and on October 16 he was forced to appear before the Senate to defend himself against the accusations against him, since he had requested that his trial be done by the Supreme Court of Justice, a special court or a court-martial and he refused to answer the interrogation.
Faced with rumors of a plot, the government ordered the arrest of Rojas Pinilla on December 3, 1957, declared public order disturbed and the entire national territory under a state of siege, arguing that there was "a subversive plan to overthrow the legitimate authority", under the personal direction of General Rojas Pinilla, "in connection with elements retired from the Armed Forces, groups of former officials of the dictatorship and anti-social elements".
The trial continued, on December 15 the Senate issued a preventive detention order against the General, and the seizure of his assets. The president lifted the state of siege on January 13, 1959, and on January 20, Rojas Pinilla was secretly brought from Galerazamba to Bogotá. The general's defenders were Daniel Valois Arce and Jesús Estrada Monsalve. The verdict of the National Congress, of March 18, 1959, condemned General Rojas; However, seven years later, the Superior Court of Cundinamarca restored his political rights on December 20, 1966 and a year later, the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed this judicial act, on October 18, 1967.
Last years
First presidential candidacy
The National Popular Alliance (Anapo) that had Rojas as its candidate (and that had been developing since the previous year was formed in Duitama on January 6, 1962) and presented itself to the elections for public corporations on March 18 of 1962 and for the presidential elections of that same year.
The events of his forced resignation and impeachment trial almost ten years after he came to power in 1953 were still recent, so his candidacy did not take off (as was projected), and he was in fourth place, being defeated by the conservative Guillermo León Valencia (brother of his previous minister Josefina Valencia) who brought together the political machine of the National Front; and falling below the liberal dissident Alfonso López Michelsen (son of the late former president Alfonso López Pumarejo) of the Liberal Revolutionary Movement, and former minister Jorge Leyva Urdaneta, a dissident of the Conservative Party.However, his vote was annulled because he was sentenced to lose his political rights.
Despite his defeat in the presidential elections, Anapo won numerous seats in the National Congress in the 1968 elections and slowly began to take shape the new candidacy of Rojas for the presidency, after the defeat of former congressman José Jaramillo Giraldo, who occupied an honorable second place, after the bipartisan steamroller that supported the liberal Carlos Lleras Restrepo, president between 1966 and 1970. His chances grew even more when the Supreme Court of Justice annulled the ruling with which Rojas lost his political rights. His legal qualification was the last brick to cement his presidential campaign for 1970.
Second presidential candidacy
Rojas began to emerge as a candidate with serious chances to win the presidential elections, and the political elite of the time began to become uncomfortable with his aspiration. Against him were the press, the traditional political parties and ultimately the national government, since on one occasion President Lleras gave a speech about the need to defeat Rojas in the elections, a fact that was considered a violation of the impartiality of the president at election time.
Rojas faced off against the Nationalist Front machine that desperately supported the candidacy of Misael Pastran Borrero, former Lleras minister, and against conservative dissidents Evaristo Sourdis, Belisario Betancur, and Rafael Corredor. The elections were very close and the official result was 1,625,025 votes for Pastrana and 1,561,468 votes for Rojas. In this way, the Electoral Court proclaimed Pastrana as president for the period 1970-1974. However, Rojas and his supporters described the events as electoral fraud and several analysts have pointed out the doubtful veracity of those results.
Within the dissatisfied group of Anapo, there were groups of the left and of students with ideas shared by Rojas, from which the guerrilla movement Movimiento 19 de abril (M-19) later emerged when it considered the electoral channels exhausted and opted for the armed route, declaring itself "the armed wing of the Anapista people".
Death
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Rojas died on January 17, 1975 in the municipality of Melgar, near Bogotá, on his farm on the banks of the Sumapaz River, as a result of a cardiorenal complication that caused a heart attack. His body was transferred to Bogotá the same day in a Colombian Air Force plane. After arriving at El Dorado airport, the coffin was transferred to the residence of the Rojas family at Carrera 15 with Calle 39 in Teusaquillo.
After being embalmed, he was in the burning chamber in the National Capitol. The religious funeral ceremonies were officiated by the Archbishop of Bogotá, Aníbal Muñoz Duque, in the Metropolitan Basilica Cathedral of Bogotá and Primate of Colombia. The then president of Colombia, Alfonso López Michelsen, recognized "his efforts in favor of peace, through the amnesty he granted to those who took up arms, as a result of June 13, and the way in which personal considerations were subordinated to public convenience, to in the wake of the 1970 presidential election."
His remains currently rest in the Central Cemetery of Bogotá.
Private life
Family
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was the youngest of five brothers in a conservative family formed by Colonel Julio Rojas Jiménez, who had served as an officer during the Thousand Days War, and his wife Hervencia Pinilla Suárez. One of his brothers was Carlos Rojas, a renowned doctor, who was the father of the Spanish writer Carlos Rojas Vila.
Marriage and offspring
With Carolina Correa, Gustavo had his children Gustavo, María Eugenia and Carlos Rojas Correa. María Eugenia was a candidate for the presidency of the republic in 1974 and leader of the Popular National Alliance (Anapo), married to Samuel Moreno Díaz. His grandsons Samuel Moreno Rojas and Iván Moreno Rojas were elected mayors of Bogotá and Bucaramanga respectively and in 2011 they were charged and arrested for corruption in the administration of public works in Bogotá in what was called the hiring carousel.
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