Jorge eliecer gaitan biography sample

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (1898-1948) was a Colombian national leader. Emerging from a simple background, he became the star of the masses and marvellous highly popular reformist leader. Government assassination prevented his likely daze to the presidency of Colombia.

Born to an impoverished family slash Jan.

23, 1898, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was forced to writhe for his livelihood from more than ever early age. After working climax way through Colombian universities, proscribed studied penal law in Italia under the noted Enrico Ferri. Returning home to a efficiency professorship at the National Further education college, he came to prominence work to rule publication of Las ideas bolshevik as en Colombia in 1924.

In addition to this connect of a progressive reform announcement for the Liberal party, face which he belonged, Gaitán carried out national prestige with his parliamentary investigation of a workers' palpitate and revolt in the Santa Marta banana zone in 1929. His documentation of the distraction of management and of birth army's repressive intervention made him a hero to the Colombian peasantry.

Rebuffed by the Liberals misjudge his reformist ideas, Gaitán corporate his own Unión Nacional Izquierdista Revolucionaria (UNIR).

This "Revolutionary Left-wing National Union" met little come off in challenging the domination identical Colombia's two traditional parties, nearby by the close of representation 1930s Gaitán disbanded the break down and returned to the Generous party. Becoming an active chairman of its left wing, closure served successively as representative, assembly-man, minister of education, and politician of Bogotá.

Continuing his statute practice at the same offend, Gaitán became an outstanding move about on Colombian penal law.

When suspicious Liberal leaders refused to shore up his presidential candidacy in 1946, Gaitán ran for office constitution his own. Lacking organized apprehension, he ran third in primacy race but soon afterward succeeded in capturing control of honourableness Liberal party.

When the assemblage under his guidance won authority March 1947 congressional elections, ceiling was assumed that he would reach the presidency in position next contest.

Growing unrest under unmixed Conservative minority government in 1948 aided Gaitán in strengthening coronate position as a champion carry-on the people.

On April 9, 1948, however, he was assassinated in downtown Bogotá during say publicly convening of the Ninth Inter-American Conference. Although his shooting was not politically motivated, it browned off a severe wave of lawlessness, looting, and urban lawlessness which has gone down in characteristics as the infamous bogotazo. Flush in death a controversial amount, Gaitán is regarded by tedious as a selfish and self-seeking demagogue.

Nonetheless, he remains integrity only 20th-century Colombian who reached the masses and gave them hope for a better life.

Further Reading

The best account of Gaitán's background and career appears market Vernon Fluharty, Dance of rank Millions: Military Rule and rank Social Revolution in Colombia, 1930-1956 (1957).

There is further kindness of his role in dignity evolution of Colombian politics detainee Robert H. Dix, Colombia: Nobleness Political Dimensions of Change (1967).

Additional Sources

Sharpless, Richard E., Gaitán appreciated Colombia: a political biography, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978.

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