Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán | |
---|---|
Senator of Colombia | |
In office 20 July 1978 – 20 July 1989 | |
Colombian Ambassador to Italy | |
In office 1972–1975 | |
President | Misael Pastrana Borrero |
Preceded by | Antonio Álvarez Restrepo |
Succeeded by | Jaime Castro Castro |
Minister of National Education | |
In office 7 August 1970 – 4 May 1972 | |
President | Misael Pastrana Borrero |
Preceded by | Octavio Arizmendi Posada |
Succeeded by | Juan Jacobo Muñoz |
Personal details | |
Born | Pontifical Xavierian University | 29 September 1943
Profession | Journalist |
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento (29 September 1943 – 18 August 1989) was a Colombian liberal politician and journalist who ran for the Presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time for the political movement New Liberalism that he founded in 1979. The movement was an offspring of the mainstream Colombian Liberal Party, and with mediation of former Liberal president Julio César Turbay Ayala, Galán returned to the Liberal party in 1989 and sought the nomination for the 1990 presidential election, but was assassinated before the vote took place.
Galán declared himself an enemy of the drug cartels and the influence of the mafia in Colombian politics, in this case the main drug cartel being the
After receiving several death threats, on 18 August 1989, Galán was shot to death by hitmen hired by the drug cartels during a campaign rally in the town of Soacha, Cundinamarca. At the time, Galán was comfortably leading the polls with 60 percent favourable ratings for the forthcoming 1990 presidential election. The investigation into his assassination remains unsolved.
Biography
Early life
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was born on 29 September 1943 in the city of
In Bogotá, Galán attended middle school in the Colegio Americano in 1950. While a student there and only 8 years old, he joined a rally against
Journalism
While working with El Tiempo, Galán turned himself into a well known journalist and columnist, an effort that earned him the director's assistant position and later the membership of the Executive Directorate in the newspaper with the support of Eduardo Santos and then director Roberto García Peña. He was also active with the Nueva Frontera weekly magazine founded by former president Carlos Lleras, which he directed in 1976 after arriving from Italy. As a journalist Galán wrote no less than 150 editorial articles, followed by another 150 during his time with the El Tiempo newspaper.[2]
In 1977 Galán wrote an article in one of Nueva Frontera's editorials denouncing the existence of
It was during an interview with the then recently elected president Misael Pastrana that he was surprised by the president in the middle of the interview who told Galán that he was going to be his Minister of Education.[2]
In 1986 as an anecdote, Galán wrote his autobiography under the pseudonym "Cleo Tilde", but it was only until 1994 that the identity was revealed. He described detailed facts, events and encounters with prominent figures as well as an approach to his personal point of view and thoughts.[6]
Political career
In 1970 Galán was appointed
On 30 November 1979 Galán founded a party with the name Nuevo Liberalismo and within the Liberal Party.[7]
During the 1980s Colombia went under critical siege by violent drug cartels, especially the Medellín Cartel that had gained a great amount of influence by bribing or killing officials. Galán saw this as disastrous for Colombia and its society.
In 1980 Galán was elected as councilman for the capital,
In 1982 Medellin Cartel boss Pablo Escobar tried to infiltrate Galán's Nuevo Liberalismo Party. Galán publicly rejected him in front of thousands of his fellow men from Antioquia and Colombia, which angered the cartel, especially Escobar.[8]
Galán continued with his ascendant career, absenting himself from the 1986 presidential race to prevent Liberal Party divisions and running his party as an offspring he was reelected once again as a Senator. This allowed the Liberal Party to regain the Presidency with the election of
It was only until the mediation of former president
The Nuevo Liberalism joined the government and was given the Ministry of Agriculture headed by Gabriel Rosas Vega, and the Liberal Party gained a solid union that consolidated further when Galán won the Liberal Party's popular nomination to be the presidential frontrunner.[3] Galán was becoming popular for his open criticism and denunciation of drug cartel violence, as he had promised to extradite drug dealers to the United States.[citation needed] He announced he would run for office on 4 July 1989 in the Tequendama Hotel in Bogotá.[10][11] After this announcement, his popularity rating skyrocketed to 60%.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, Escobar found some support in Tolima's political chief Alberto Santofimio, affiliated also with a faction of the Liberal Party led by Alfonso López Michelsen and with a movement called Movimiento de Renovación Liberal (Liberal Renovation Movement), getting himself elected to the Chamber of Representatives as second runner up for Santofimios' congress candidate Jairo Rojas.[citation needed]
Assassination
According to accounts the first assassination threats were calls made to Galán's home telephone number after the Liberal Party convention to nominate an official candidate. Flyers were left in the mailbox threatening to kill or kidnap his children. An attempt to kill Galán with an
Later on, Galán's staff received information from the Colombian intelligence services advising him of a group of hitmen staying in Bogotá that had the intention of killing him. His staff advised him not to travel to the town of Soacha and that the trip to Valledupar was more suitable since he was also scheduled to travel to nearby Barranquilla to attend a 1990 FIFA World Cup qualification match in which the Colombian national team was going to play. However, Galán changed his mind and ordered his staff to prepare to go to Soacha.[12] On 18 August 1989, Galán, who was being protected by eighteen armed bodyguards,[13] was killed as he walked onto the stage to give a speech in front of 10,000 people in Soacha. At least ten others were wounded in the gunfire.[14] This created a war that both sides did not want, one side being the Colombian Government and the other The Extraditables. Both sides saw deaths at a record toll.
The Colombian drug cartels were worried about the possible approval in congress of an extradition treaty with the
After death
César Gaviria, who had been Galán's debate chief ("Jefe de Debate") during the campaign, was proclaimed as his successor by Galán's family and his supporters inside the Liberal party. He was elected president in 1990.[17]
In 2004, new information in a letter written by one of the hitmen who had infiltrated his escort suggested that Galán's assassination was executed with help of corrupt
On 13 May 2005, a former Justice minister (1974) and congressman of the Colombian Liberal Party, Alberto Santofimio, known for his open connections to Pablo Escobar during the 1980s (Escobar joined Santofimio's political movement), was arrested in Armenia and accused of being the intellectual author of Galán's murder.[18]
According to the newly extended confession of Escobar's former top hitman, John Jairo Velasquez (also known as "Popeye"), Santofimio would have openly suggested Galán's murder during a secret meeting, in order to eliminate a political rival and, should Galán ever be elected president, also prevent Escobar's likely extradition. Santofimio had been previously questioned and mentioned during the investigation and his involvement was widely rumored, but apparently no direct testimonies of his role had been acquired until recently. Velásquez, who served a 23-year sentence and died in 2020, told the Colombian press that he had initially denied Santofimio's participation due to his existing political power at the time. Other new and unspecified evidences would also have contributed to building the case against Santofimio.[18]
On 11 October 2007, Alberto Santofimio was convicted to 24 years in prison.[19] He was later released on appeal in 2008, but in August 2011 the Supreme Court reinstated the conviction and he surrendered himself.[20][21]
On 25 November 2010 Colombian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for the ex-director of the Colombian security agency (DAS), Retired Gen. Miguel Maza Márquez, for involvement in Galán's murder. The prosecutors claimed that Maza intentionally lightened Galán's bodyguard contingent to enable his assassination.[22][23] The Supreme Court convicted Maza in 2016 and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.[24][25]
Family
Son of Mario Galán Gómez and Cecilia Sarmiento Suárez, Galán was one of their 12 children, the others being: María Lucía, Gabriel, Cecilia, Helena, Elsa, Gloria, Antonio, Juan Daniel, Mario Augusto, Francisco Alberto and María Victoria Galán Sarmiento. He was cousin of former
Quotes
Galán was largely influenced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's ideas and Nikos Kazantzakis's books. His father Mario described him as a person fascinated with spirituality, a man with integrity, an individual struggle for knowing one's self between good and evil and that the effort to achieve it consisted in the main objective in life, not only individually, but collectively.[2]
«La sensibilidad social del autor, el hombre integral que buscaba y la lucha interna que Kazantzakis padeció y soportó a través de su vida entre el ángel y la bestia, entre la naturaleza interior y superior del hombre, entre el mundo pasional y el espíritu, lo fascinaban dice su padre- la búsqueda de esa trascendencia espiritual y el esfuerzo para realizarlo constituía para Luis Carlos el objetivo de la vida, no solamente en lo individual sino también en lo colectivo».
Once again the Colombian men turn passionate; but their passion is not that of the parties, the one that perverted their spirits and pushed thousands of countrymen to death towards phantoms of selfish ideals. Now our passion is Colombia and we believe in this ideal as the only one capable of uniting the whole country.[27]
- Luis Carlos Galán – Revista Vértice, May 1964.
For Colombia, always forward, not a single step backwards, and whatever is a necessity let it be.[3]
-Galán's campaign slogan
Popular culture
- Galán is portrayed by actor Nicolás Montero in the Colombian TV series Escobar, el Patrón del Mal.[28] Montero also portrays Galán in TV Series Football Dreams, a world of passion.
- In TV series Tres Caínes, Galán is portrayed in a minor role by the colombian actor Walter Luengas.
- Galán is portrayed by actor Juan Pablo Espinosa on the 2015 Netflix drama/action series Narcos.[29] The show is a serialized take on drug kingpin Pablo Escobar (played by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura) and the Medellín Cartel.
- Galan appears as a prominent figure in Ingrid Rojas Contreras's debut novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree. The protagonist, observant Chula Santiago, is seven years old when her mother Alma takes her and her sister to the fateful Galan rally. Alma was a fervent supporter of Galan, and the assassination is the first interaction Chula had with death, and it touches her deeply.
See also
- Luis Donaldo Colosio, candidate of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party, assassinated in 1994.
- Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, a similar Colombian Liberal Party candidate assassinated in 1948.
- Assassination of Fernando Villavicencio
- List of unsolved murders
References and notes
- ISBN 9780028650609.
- ^ Revista Semana. (in Spanish). Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ Luis Angel Arango Library. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ISBN 9780810878136.
- Revista Semana. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- Revista Semana. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ "Luis Carlos Galan". Colombia Reports. 1 April 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
- ^ The New York Times: The Autumn of the Drug Lord The New York Times. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- Revista Semana. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ISBN 9789587581355.
- ISBN 9789588931494.
- ^ Revista Semana. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ISBN 0-375-40051-6.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ (in Spanish) Fuerza Aérea Colombiana: Histórico llamado a juicio a ex senador Alberto Santofimio por homicidio de Luis Carlos Galán fac.mil.co. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ (in Spanish) El Tiempo: Alianza de militares, mafia y DAS decidió asesinato de Luis Carlos Galán, afirmó Ernesto Báez Archived 22 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine eltiempo.com. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ "Biografía - Cesar Gaviria Trujillo". Oas.org (in Spanish). Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ a b "Ex-Colombia minister held for murder". BBC News. 12 May 2005. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
- ^ "Colombia ex-justice chief jailed". BBC News. 11 October 2007. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ "Colombia court reinstates ex-minister's conviction". BBC News. 31 August 2011. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ "Se entregó ante la Fiscalía el exministro Alberto Santofimio Botero". El Heraldo (in Spanish). 31 August 2011.
- ^ The Miami Herald : Colombian ex-police chief charged in killing The Miami Herald. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ Cardona, Libardo (25 November 2010). "Colombian ex-police chief charged in killing". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ "Cómo el archienemigo de Pablo Escobar terminó condenado por el magnicidio ordenado por el jefe del cartel de Medellín". BBC News Mundo (in Spanish). 25 November 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
- ^ "Colombia general jailed for 30 years over Galan death". BBC News. 25 November 2016. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ (in Spanish) Caracol Radio: Hijo de Luis Carlos Galán propone la legalización de la droga caracol.com.co. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ (in Spanish) Hoy en La Javeriana: Revista Vertice May 1964 javeriana.edu.org. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ "Andrés Parra, prisionero en el cuerpo de Pablo Escobar". El Espectador (in Spanish). 18 May 2012. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
- ^ Balmaceda, Tomás (14 February 2017). "Juan Pablo Espinosa, el actor de Narcos que debutó como galán de la nueva "Betty, la fea"". La Nación (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 August 2018.
External links
- Spanish Language News Report on the hitman letter
- Video of the assassination on YouTube
- Another video of the assassination (Requires QuickTime)