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Colombia The 19th of April Movement
The 19th of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de
Abril--M-19)
traces its origins to the allegedly fraudulent
presidential
elections of April 19, 1970, in which the populist party
of former
military dictator Rojas Pinilla, the National Popular
Alliance
(Alianza Nacional Popular--Anapo), was denied an electoral
victory
(see Opposition to the National Front
, ch. 1). Although
Anapo--which was subsequently led by Rojas Pinilla's
daughter,
María Eugenia Rojas de Moreno Díaz, following the
dictator's death
in 1975--denied all links with the M-19, the organization
proclaimed itself to be the armed branch of the party.
During the
early 1970s, Carlos Toledo Plata and Jaime Bateman Cayón
distinguished themselves as the M-19's principal leaders
and
ideologues. Toledo, a physician, was an Anapo
representative in
Congress. Bateman served as the M-19's principal commander
for
military operations. Both these men died during the
1980s--Toledo
in a shooting by two men believed linked to the MAS and
Bateman in
an airplane crash. By mid-1988 Carlos Pizarro León-Gómez
had
emerged as one of the group's principal decision makers.
The M-19's ideological orientation was a mixture of
populism
and nationalistic revolutionary socialism. This
orientation often
led the group to seek political support from Nicaragua and
Cuba,
but the M-19's leadership also claimed that it resisted
forming
permanent foreign ties.
By mid-1985, when the number of active members was
estimated at
between 1,500 and 2,000, the M-19 had become the second
largest
guerrilla group in Colombia. According to the IISS, the
size of the
M-19 in 1987 was estimated at 1,500 militants. A member of
the
Barco administration who was in charge of the government's
peace
efforts, however, calculated that the organization had
only 500
armed militants nationwide. By the mid-1980s, the M-19 had
eclipsed
all other guerrilla organizations in urban operations. The
M-19
reportedly established columns (units) in each of
Colombia's major
cities. These columns were in turn organized into
independent
cells.
Although the M-19's early operations, begun in 1972,
were
limited to bank robberies, it quickly gained national
attention
through the 1974 theft of Simón Bolívar's sword and spurs
from the
exhibit in the liberator's villa. Two years later, the
group
kidnapped and subsequently murdered a Colombian trade
union
official the M-19 accused of having ties to the United
States
Central Intelligence Agency. In 1977 the M-19 began a
campaign of
economic sabotage. The following year, government offices
and
police stations became the targets of numerous attacks. In
addition, the offices and representatives of United
States-based
multinational corporations were repeatedly targeted in an
effort to
drive the foreign interests from the country. Kidnappings
of
prominent individuals continued, some of which resulted in
the
deaths of the abductees. In 1980 the seizure and
occupation, for
sixty-one days, of the Dominican Republic's Bogotá embassy
gained
the group international attention.
The M-19's increasingly bold activities, coupled with
evidence
of Cuban training and logistical support, prompted a
hardening in
the policies of the Turbay administration during its final
year in
office. In 1982, however, the newly installed Betancur
administration offered political amnesty in exchange for
the M-19's
agreement to a cease-fire. In July 1984, government
officials and
guerrilla leaders signed a cease-fire agreement at Corinto
in Cauca
Department.
By late 1985, however, the accord unraveled. Charging
the
government with, among other things, a systematic
violation of the
truce provisions and failure to implement key political
reforms
that were part of the cease-fire agreement, the M-19
returned to
armed struggle. In October 1985, guerrillas wounded
then-Commanding
General of the Army Samudio. By far the most spectacular
operation
of the M-19 came the following month, when commandos
seized the
Palace of Justice in Bogotá. The ensuing battle between
the M-19
and the military left over 100 dead, including 11 Supreme
Court
judges
(see Interest Groups
, ch. 4).
After the Palace of Justice operation, the M-19 reduced
its
activities, leading some analysts to surmise that its
membership
base had declined. In early 1986, the M-19 reportedly
attempted to
establish a common guerrilla front with members of Peru's
Shining
Path (Sendero Luminoso) and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement
(Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru) and with Ecuador's
Alfaro
Lives, Damn It! (¡Alfaro Vive, Carajo!) group. The March
1987
killing of Alvaro Fayad, the M-19's top political and
military
strategist, was believed to have dealt the organization a
severe
setback, however.
In May 1988, the M-19 again burst into public
prominence by
kidnapping Alvaro Gómez Hurtado, a two-time presidential
candidate
and Conservative Party leader. Gómez Hurtado's release was
obtained
two months later in exchange for the government's
agreement to meet
with M-19 leaders at the papal nunciature in Bogotá. The
meeting
was to have paved the way for a national summit to include
representatives of the country's principal guerrilla
groups. Barco
subsequently announced, however, that he would not send an
official
representative to the preliminary peace talks.
Data as of December 1988
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