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6 The Middle Ground Disappears If I am killed, avenge me! Jorge Eliecer Gaitan (1948) jMataron a Gaitan! Gaitan liked the streets of Bogota. He found safety in public. When he walked out of his office, the shoeshine boys stood at attention. He knew many of them by name, and talked easily with the lottery vendors. Women waited to give him flowers. In his favorite cafe the waitress rushed to serve him. His 1947 dark-green Buick was easily recognized, and small crowds gathered around it. When Gaitan drove away, bystanders stopped to watch. Gaitan enjoyed letting the convivialistas know that the streets were a natural place for him. "Many of my friends," he told his Conservative friend Rafael Azula Barrera, "tell me that this can, at times, be dangerous, given the political situation. But don't you think that I am the one Colombian who has a true life insurance policy? ... I feel more secure in the streets," he added with obvious delight, "than anywhere else. "1 Gaitan's safety, however, was always on his lieutenants' minds. People all over Bogota talked openly about what a threat to the social order he was and how his behavior would get him into trouble. The possibility that he might be assassinated was common gossip. On December 21,1947, El Deber, a Conservative Monteria newspaper, called for the caudillo's elimination.2 His lieutenants never stopped warning him, and the JEGA made elaborate plans to keep him surrounded. The Gaitanistas were especially concerned about the 132 jMataron a Gaitan! 133 Bogota police and about Coronel Virgilio Barco, a shady character of Conservative leanings who was interim police chief in Bogota.3 The Liberal press objected to the chulavitas, the rural recruits from staunchly Conservative regions in Santander that the Conservative regime had brought to Bogota to replace Liberal policemen. Early in 1948Jornada denounced the persecutionof leading Gaitanistasby the police, who were increasingly referred to as the papol, the political police.4 Barco later admitted that he had ordered plainclothes policemen to provoke Gaitanistas so that the police could disrupt their activities.S Even Judge Pedro P. Perez Sotomayor of the Fifth Circuit Court in Bogota warned the caudillo that anyone who wished to harm him could walk unchecked into his office.6 Gaitan scoffed at the warnings and reproached his lieutenants when he discovered them following him.7 Protection would define Gaitan as a regular politician, not a man of the pueblo. Bodyguards would prevent easy and spontaneous contact with shoeshine boys, lottery vendors, and the matrons at the market. Gaitan felt that if he could not walk the streets of Bogota, he did not represent the public order. So, ramrod stiff, carefully dressed and groomed, he walked proudly through the city. "I will not be killed," he told his most assiduous protector, el coronel Ricaurte. "If I am killed, not one stone will be left unturned."8 Bogota was quiet at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, April 9.9 Afew cars and taxis and an occasional trolley car moved up the mile-long Calle Real from the Avenida Jimenez, the city's main intersection, past the new Ministry of Communications , the cathedral, and the capitolio, where both the Senate and the House met, to the Presidential Palace. Lottery vendors awaited the afternoon crowds. Outside Gaitan's office on the Calle Real, a few feet from the Avenida Jimenez, shoeshine boys discussed the leader's successful court defense of an army lieutenant who had killed a journalist.1o The shops and banks were closed for the midday break, and the municipal employees were lunching and napping at home. The Pan American Conference held no plenary session that day. The city's main restaurants, the Temel and the Continental, were filled with local politicians and foreign dignitaries. The lower-priced Monte Blanco , a restaurant overlooking the Calle Real and Gaitan's office, was justas full. The dark cafes that lined the Calle Real, less frequented by foreign visitors, were doing their normal midday business. Dark clouds hovered over the centro, as the downtown area was known. It looked like rain; it usually did on April afternoons. When in Bogota, Gaitan kept to a strict daily schedule. He arrived at his office by 8:30 and divided the following hours between his law practice and politics. From 11:00 to 12:00 he received Liberal and Gaitanista politicians. At midday he moved from his office to the reception room to receive anyone who...

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