Biography

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, (born Jan. 26, 1902, Bogotá—died April 9, 1948, Bogotá), political leader who was considered a champion of the Colombian people and was revered as a martyr after his assassination.

Gaitán studied law at the National University of Colombia, Bogotá, and continued his studies in Rome. There he was greatly influenced by Benito Mussolini, paying careful attention to his techniques for arousing and organizing the populace. Returning to Colombia, he organized a short-lived party called Union Nacional Izquierdista Revolucionaria (Left Revolutionary National Union). His maiden speech as a congressman was a polemic attack on the plantations owned by the United Fruit Company (q.v.). He served as mayor of Bogotá (1936) and minister of education (1940).

In 1946, as the leader of the more radical factions of Liberals, he ran for the office of president in opposition to the official Liberal Party candidate Gabriel Turbay. That split among the Liberals gave the victory to the Conservative Party candidate Mariano Ospina Pérez. It was expected that Gaitán would be elected president in the next election, but he was killed by an assassin in 1948 during the International Conference of American States meeting in Bogotá. This murder led to a major popular uprising known as the bogotazo and exacerbated a period of civil unrest called the violencia.