Timespan: 1948 - 1958, though not completely over until roughly 1965

Country of Activities: Colombia

La Violencia is a period in Colombian history of social unrest, civil conflict, and political disarray. The exact starting point is difficult to plot, but most historians say it began with the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a presidential candidate for Colombia at the time. He was assassinated during his run for president, which sparked rioting in the capital of Bogotá. This rioting eventually spread from the capital to the countryside, eventually causing massive civil violence for ten years. Political parties in the country eventually organized guerrilla units to fight amongst each other as well as the groups formed by peasants, even former police officers formed a unit to combat the others.

For ten years, murder, rape, torture, and other gruesome means of mutilation were commonplace in Colombia. After his assassination, Gaitán’s followers incited as much rioting as they could, encouraging people to take to the streets with any weapon they could find, to steal explosives from hardware stores, and even broadcasted the instructions to make the notorious Molotov cocktail. Because of the mass chaos, media was largely fragmented and inaccurate. The idea of legal retribution for an attack was absurd.

La Violencia eventually took a turn towards being anti-Catholic, with many of Gaitán’s followers accusing pastors and bishops of encouraging their Conservative parishioners to kill leaders of the opposing political party. After the events of La Violencia began to simmer down, several Colombian church leaders wrote books condemning that theory.

La Violencia began to come to an end when General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla came to power due to a coup d’état in 1953. He immediately offered amnesty to all those who took part in the rioting and violence in guerrilla units. Many of the larger unit leaders accepted the amnesty, and attempted to return to normal lives. Though the violence did not disappear, and continued for 5 years. The National University of Colombia saw several students riot against the public security officers, leading to 14 dead students while the military mounted large campaigns against guerrilla leaders who refused to surrender to the government. La Violencia did not officially end until 1965, when the last of the guerrilla leaders were killed in combat with the Colombian military.