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((short description|Civil war in Colombia from 1948 to 1958))
((for|the period (c. 1978–1984) of the Guatemalan Civil War generally known as "La Violencia"|Guatemalan Civil War))
((italic title))
((Infobox civil conflict
| title             = La Violencia
| width             = 
| partof            = the [[Colombian Civil Wars]]
| image             = 
| caption           = 
| date              = 9 April 1948 – 1958
| place             = ((COL))
| coordinates       = 
| map_type          = 
| map_relief        = 
| latitude          = 
| longitude         = 
| map_size          = 
| map_marksize      = 
| map_caption       = 
| map_label         = 
| territory         = 
| result            = Stalemate
* Creation of the [[National Front (Colombia)|National Front]]
* [[Colombian conflict]]
| status            = 
| combatants_header = 
| side1             = 
[[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Colombian Conservative Party]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] Conservative party paramilitary groups
**[[Pájaros (Colombia)|Pájaros]]
**[[Los Chulavitas|Chulavitas]]
| side2             = [[File: Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Colombian Liberal Party]] and allied militias
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|border|20px]] Liberal party paramilitary groups
* [[File:Partido Comunista Colombiano.svg|20px]] [[Colombian Communist Party]]
**Grupos de Autodefensas Campesinas
| leadfigures1      = ((plainlist|
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Mariano Ospina Pérez]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Laureano Gómez Castro]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] General [[Gustavo Rojas Pinilla]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Junta Militar de Colombia|Junta Militar]]
))
----
((plainlist|
* [[Alberto Lleras Camargo]]
* [[Guillermo Leon Valencia]]
))
----
((plainlist|
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[León Maria Lozano "El Condor"]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Jair Giraldo]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - 0434B1.svg|20px]] [[Efraín González Téllez]]
))
| leadfigures2      = ((plainlist|
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Guadalupe Salcedo]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Dumar Aljure]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Gerardo Loaiza]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] Saúl Fajardo
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Eduardo Franco Isaza]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Juan de La Cruz Varela]]
* [[File:Single Color Flag - BF0000.svg|20px]] [[Juan de Jesús Franco]]
))
----
((plainlist|
* [[Jacinto Cruz Usma]] "Sangrenegra"
* [[Teófilo Rojas Varón]] "Chispas"
))
----
((plainlist|
* [[File:Partido Comunista Colombiano.svg|20px]] [[Jacobo Prias Alape]]
* [[File:Partido Comunista Colombiano.svg|20px]] [[Manuel Marulanda]]
* [[File:Partido Comunista Colombiano.svg|20px]] [[Ciro Trujillo Castaño]]
* [[File:Partido Comunista Colombiano.svg|20px]] Alfonso Castañeda
))
| units1            = 
| units2            = 
| strength1         = 
| strength2         = 
| casualties1       = 2,900 soldiers and 1,800 police officers dead (1948–57)<br>3,000–5,000 conservative paramilitaries dead
| casualties2       = 15,000 rebels dead (1948–58)
| casualties3       = 200,000 civilians killed (1947–60)
| notes             = 
))
((La Violencia))
((History of Colombia))

'''''La Violencia''''' (((IPA-es|la βjoˈlensja)), '''The Violence''') was a ten-year [[civil war]] in [[Colombia]] from 1948 to 1958, between the [[Colombian Conservative Party]] and the [[Colombian Liberal Party]], fought mainly in the countryside.<ref>((cite book |last=Stokes |first=Doug |author-link=Doug Stokes |year=2005 |title=America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=1-84277-547-2 |quote=Azcarate quotes a figure of 300,000 dead between 1948–1959...))((Page needed|date=June 2016))</ref><ref>((cite news|last=Gutierrez |first=Pedro Ruz |date=31 October 1999 |title=Bullets, Bloodshed And Ballots |url=http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1999-10-31/news/9910290631_1_political-violence-carlos-galan-political-maneuvering |url-status=live |newspaper=Orlando Sentinel |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160815225028/http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1999-10-31/news/9910290631_1_political-violence-carlos-galan-political-maneuvering |archive-date=2016-08-15 |quote=Political violence is not new to that South American nation of 38 million people. In the past 100 years, more than 500,000 Colombians have died in it. From the 'War of the Thousand Days,' a civil war at the turn of the century that left 100,000 dead, to a partisan clash between 1948 and 1966 that claimed nearly 300,000...))</ref><ref>((cite web |url=http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564636_10/Colombia.html |title=Colombia |last=Bergquist |first=Charles |last2=Robinson |first2=David J. |year=2005 |website=Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2005 |publisher=Microsoft Corporation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071111194946/http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564636_10/Colombia.html |archive-date=2007-11-11 |url-status=dead |access-date=16 April 2006 |quote=On April 9, 1948, Gaitán was assassinated outside his law offices, in downtown Bogotá. The assassination marked the start of a decade of bloodshed, called ''La Violencia'' (The Violence), which took the lives of an estimated 180,000 Colombians before it subsided in 1958.))</ref>

''La Violencia'' is considered to have begun with the [[assassination]] on 9 April 1948 of [[Jorge Eliécer Gaitán]], a Liberal Party presidential candidate and frontrunner for the [[Colombian presidential election, 1949|1949 November election]].<ref name="Grace" /> His murder provoked the ''[[Bogotazo]]'' rioting, which lasted ten hours and resulted in around 5,000 casualties.<ref name="Grace">((cite book |last=Livingstone |first=Grace |author2=foreword by Pearce, Jenny |year=2004 |title=Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy, and War |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=0-8135-3443-7 |page=42))</ref> An alternative historiography proposes the Conservative Party's return to power following the [[Colombian presidential election, 1946|election of 1946]] to be the cause.<ref name="Grace" /> Rural town police and political leaders encouraged Conservative-supporting peasants to seize the agricultural lands of Liberal-supporting peasants, which provoked peasant-to-peasant violence throughout Colombia.<ref name="Grace"/>

''La Violencia'' is estimated to have cost the lives of at least 200,000 people, almost 2% of the population of the country at the time.<ref>Britannica, 15th edition, 1992 printing((page needed|date=August 2013))</ref><ref>((cite book |last=Palmowski |first=Jan |year=1997 |title=A Dictionary of Twentieth Century World History |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoftwen0000palm |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192800169))((page needed|date=August 2013))</ref><ref>((cite book |last=Grenville |first=J.A.S. |author-link=John Grenville |year=1994 |title=A History of the World in the 20th Century |title-link=A History of the World in the 20th Century))((page needed|date=August 2013))</ref>

==Development==
((refimprove section|date=August 2018))
[[File:CapitolioNacionalDeColombia2004-7.jpg|thumb|left|In September 1949, Senator Gustavo Jiménez was assassinated mid-session, in Congress.<ref>((cite news |date=7 September 1999 |title=El día que mataron a Gustavo Jiménez |url=http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-863597 |url-status=live |newspaper=[[El Tiempo (Colombia)|El Tiempo]] |language=es |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160712034702/http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-863597 |archive-date=2016-07-12))</ref>]]
The ''La Violencia'' conflict took place between the [[Military Forces of Colombia]] and the [[National Police of Colombia]] supported by [[Colombian Conservative Party]] paramilitary groups on one side, and paramilitary and guerrilla groups aligned with the [[Colombian Liberal Party]] and the [[Colombian Communist Party]] on the other side.

The conflict caused millions of people to abandon their homes and property. Media and news services failed to cover events accurately for fear of revenge attacks. The lack of [[public order]] and [[civil authority]] prevented victims from laying charges against perpetrators. Documented evidence from these years is rare and fragmented.((Citation needed|date=August 2010))

The majority of the population at the time was [[Catholic]]. During the conflict there were press reports that [[Catholic Church]] authorities supported the Conservative Party. [[#Anticlerical conspiracy theory|Several priests were accused]] of openly encouraging the murder of the political opposition during [[Mass (liturgy)|Catholic mass]], including the [[Santa Rosa de Osos]] Bishop [[Miguel Ángel Builes]], although this is unproven. No formal charges were ever presented and no official statements were made by the [[Holy See]] or the Board of Bishops. These events were recounted in the 1950 book ''Lo que el cielo no perdona'' ("What heaven doesn't forgive"), written by the secretary to Builes, Father Fidel Blandon Berrio.<ref>((cite book |last=Berrio |first=Fidel Blandon |title=Lo que el cielo no perdona. |date=1996 |publisher=Planeta |isbn=9789586145169 |language=es |oclc=777958769))</ref><ref name=":2">((cite journal |last1=Gil Jaramillo |first1=Rosa Carolina |title= Interpretación del sacerdote, la guerrilla liberal y la policía en ''Lo que el cielo no perdona'' |journal=Historia y sociedad |page= 103|date=June 2018 |issue=34 |doi=10.15446/hys.n34.66232 |url=http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/hiso/n34/0121-8417-hiso-34-00103.pdf |access-date=7 August 2018 |doi-access=free)) Article at URL contains a short English-language abstract. PDF is full article in Spanish.</ref> [[Eduardo Caballero Calderón]] also recounted these events in his 1952 book ''El Cristo de Espaldas'' ("Backwards [[Christ]]"). After releasing his book, Blandon resigned from his position and assumed a false identity as Antonio Gutiérrez. However, he was eventually identified and legally charged and prosecuted for libel by the Conservative Party.<ref name=":2" />

As a result of ''La Violencia'' there were no liberal candidates for the presidency, congress, or any public corporations in the [[Colombian presidential election, 1950|1950 elections]]. The press accused the government of [[pogroms]] against the opposition. [[Censorship]] and reprisals were common against journalists, writers, and directors of news services; in consequence many media figures left the country. Jorge Zalamea, director of ''Critica'' magazine, fled to [[Buenos Aires]]; Luis Vidales to [[Chile]]; Antonio Garcia to [[La Paz]], and Gerardo Molina to Paris.((Citation needed|date=August 2010))

== Timeline ==
=== Before 1946 ===
Since the 1920s, Conservatives had held the majority of governmental power, a position it would continue to occupy until the 2002 election of [[Alvaro Uribe]]. Even when Liberals gained control of the government in the 1930s, there was tension and even violent outbursts between peasants and landowners, as well as workers and industry owners. <ref name=":1">((Cite web|url=http://www.banrepcultural.org/blaavirtual/revistas/rhcritica/arias.htm|title=Los sucesos del 9 de abril de 1948 como legitimadores de la violencia oficial ((!)) banrepcultural.org|date=2014-01-05|access-date=2019-11-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140105023350/http://www.banrepcultural.org/blaavirtual/revistas/rhcritica/arias.htm|archive-date=2014-01-05))</ref> The number of yearly deaths from conflict, however, were far less than those estimated to have occurred during ''La Violencia''.<ref name=":1" />

=== 1946–1947 ===
In the 1946 election, [[Mariano Ospina Pérez]] of the Conservative party won the presidency, largely because the Liberal votes were split between two Liberal candidates.<ref>((Cite book|title=Elections in the Americas: A Data Handbook|last=Nohlen|first=Dieter|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|isbn=0199253587|location=New York|oclc=58051010))</ref> 
Mariano Ospina Pérez and the Conservative party Government used the police and army to repress the Liberal party. Their response was to fight back with violent protests. This led to an increasing amount of pressure within political and civil society. <ref>Burnyeat, G. (2018). Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building. Springer.</ref> Some consider ''La Violencia'' having started at this point because the Conservative government began increasing the backlash against Liberal protests and small rebel groups.<ref>((Cite book|title=Inside Colombia : drugs, democracy and war|last=Livingstone, Grace.|date=2004|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=0813534429|location=New Brunswick, N.J.|oclc=53398041))</ref> There were an estimated 14,000 deaths in 1947 due to this violence.<ref name=":1" />

=== 1948 ===
On April 9, 1948, Liberal Party leader [[Jorge Eliécer Gaitán]] was assassinated by [[Juan Roa Sierra]] on the street in Bogotá, via three shots from a revolver.<ref name=":0" /> Gaitán was a popular candidate and would have been the likely winner of the 1950 election.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> This began the ''[[Bogotazo]]'' as angry mobs beat Roa Sierra to death and headed to the presidential palace with the intent of killing President Ospina Pérez.<ref name=":0" /> The murder of Gaitán and subsequent rioting sparked other popular uprisings throughout the country.<ref name=":1" /> Because of the Liberal nature of these revolts, the police and military, who had been largely neutral before, either [[Defection|defected]] or became aligned with the Conservative government.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />

=== 1949–1953 ===
Initially, Liberal leaders in Colombia worked with the Conservative government to stop uprisings and root out Communists.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0">((Cite book|title=Wars of Latin America, 1948-1982: The Rise of the Guerrillas|last=De La Pedraja Tomán|first=René|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc.|year=2013|isbn=9780786470150|location=Jefferson, N.C.|oclc=860397564))</ref> In May 1949, Liberal leaders resigned from their positions within the Ospina Pérez administration, due to the widespread persecution of Liberals throughout the country.<ref name=":0" />  Attempting to end ''La Violencia'', the Liberals, who had majority control of [[Congress of Colombia|Congress]], began impeachment proceedings against President Ospina Pérez on November 9, 1949.<ref name=":0" /> In response, Ospina Pérez dissolved the Congress, creating a Conservative dictatorship. The Liberal Party decided to stage a military coup, and it was planned for November 25, 1949.<ref name=":0" /> However, many of the party members decided it was not a good idea and called it off. One conspirator, Air Force Captain Alfredo Silva, in the city of [[Villavicencio]], had not been notified of the abandonment of the plan and carried it out. After rallying the Villavicencio garrison, he disarmed the police and took control of the city.<ref name=":0" /> Silva proceeded to urge others in the region to join the revolt, and [[Eliseo Velásquez]], a peasant guerrilla leader, took [[Puerto López, Meta|Puerto López]] on December 1, 1949, as well as capturing other villages in the [[Meta River]] region.<ref name=":0" /> In this time, Silva was caught and arrested by troops from Bogotá coming to take back control of Villavicencio.<ref name=":0" />

In 1950, [[Laureano Gómez]] was elected president of Colombia, but it was a largely manipulated election, leading Gómez to become the new Conservative dictator.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Colombia|title=Colombia - La Violencia, dictatorship, and democratic restoration|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-11-14))</ref>

After Alfredo Silva's disappearance, Velásquez assumed power of the forces in the [[Orinoquía natural region|Eastern Plains]] that, by April 1950, included seven rebel zones with hundreds of guerrillas known as the "cowboys".<ref name=":0" /> While in command of the forces, Velásquez suffered from a [[superiority complex]], leading him to commit abuses including body mutilation of those killed.<ref name=":0" /> Without sufficient arms, during the first major offensive of the Conservative army, the Liberal forces took major losses and confidence in Velásquez was lost.<ref name=":0" /> New populist leaders took control of the different groups of rebels and eventually came together to impose a 10% tax on wealthy landowners in the region.<ref name=":0" /> This tax created divisions from the wealthy Liberals and the Conservative government used them to recruit counter guerrillas. The Conservative army then increased its offensive attacks; committing atrocities along the way, they burned entire villages, slaughtered animals, and massacred suspected rebels, as well as set up a [[blockade]] of the region.<ref name=":0" />  The rebels were able to combat the offensive with small, covert, attacks to capture outposts and supplies. By June 1951, the government agreed to a truce with the guerrilla forces and they temporarily lifted the blockade.<ref name=":0" /> 

A few months after the truce, larger army units were sent to the Eastern Plains to end the Liberal revolt, but they were still unsuccessful.<ref name=":0" /> In this time, the Liberal leadership in Bogotá realized the Conservatives were not giving up power any time soon, and they wanted to organize a national revolt. In December 1951 and January 1952, [[Alfonso López Pumarejo]], the former Colombian president and leader of the Liberal Party, made visits to the Eastern Plains to renew his alliance with the "cowboys".<ref name=":0" /> When López Pumarejo returned to Bogotá he issued declarations stating that the guerrillas were not criminals but were simply fighting for freedom, and in response the Conservative dictatorship shut down the newspapers and imposed strict censorship.<ref name=":0" /> 1952 passed with only small skirmishes and no organized guerrilla leader, but by June 1953, [[Guadalupe Salcedo]] had assumed command.<ref name=":0" />

In 1952 the future revolutionary leader [[Ernesto "Che" Guevara]], then an unknown young man traveling through South America, briefly visited Bogotá. In a letter he wrote to his mother on July 6, 1952, later published in "[[The Motorcycle Diaries (book)|The Motorcycle Diaries]]", Guevara noted that "There is more repression of individual freedom here than in any country we've been to, the police patrol the streets carrying rifles and demand your papers every few minutes". He went on to describe the atmosphere as "tense" and "suffocating", even hypothesizing that "a revolution may be brewing". 

In other parts of Colombia, different rebel groups had formed in throughout 1950; they formed in [[Antioquia Department|Antioquia]], [[Tolima Department|Tolima]], [[Sumapaz]], and the [[Middle Magdalena Valley]].<ref name=":0" /> On January 1, 1953, these groups came together to launch an attack against the [[Captain Germán Olano Moreno Air Base|Palanquero Air Base]], with the hope of using the jet planes to bomb Bogotá and force the resignation of the Conservative dictatorship.<ref name=":0" /> The attack relied entirely on surprise to be successful, but the rebels were spotted by the sentry posts and were quickly hit with machine gun fire.<ref name=":0" /> The attempt was a failure, however it did incite fear into Bogotá elites.

==Conclusion==
((Unreferenced section|date=June 2016))

Most of the armed groups (called guerrillas liberales, a pejorative term) were demobilized during the amnesty declared by General [[Gustavo Rojas Pinilla]] after he took power on 13 June 1953. The most prominent Guerrilla leaders, [[Guadalupe Salcedo]] and Juan de la Cruz Varela, signed the 1953 agreement.

Some of the guerrilleros did not surrender to the government and organized into criminal bands or bandoleros, which caused intense military operations against them in 1954. One of them, the guerrillero leader [[Tirofijo]], had changed his political and ideological inclinations from being a Liberal to supporting the Communists during this period, and eventually he became the founder of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or [[FARC]].

Rojas was removed from power on 10 May 1957. Civilian rule was restored after moderate Conservatives and Liberals, with the support of dissident sectors of the military, agreed to unite under a bipartisan coalition known as the [[National Front (Colombia)|National Front]] and the government of [[Alberto Lleras Camargo]] and which included a system of alternating the president and power-sharing both in cabinets and public offices.

In 1958, Lleras Camargo ordered the creation of the Commission for the Investigation of the Causes of "La Violencia". The commission was headed by the Bishop [[Germán Guzmán Campos]].

The last bandolero leaders were killed in combat against the army. Jacinto Cruz Usma, alias ''Sangrenegra'' (Blackblood), died in April 1964 and Efraín Gonzáles in June 1965.

==Impacts==
===Humanitarian===
Due to incomplete or non-existent statistical records, exact measurement of ''La Violencia'''s humanitarian consequences is impossible. Scholars, however, estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 people died; 600,000 to 800,000 were injured; and almost one million people were displaced. ''La Violencia'' directly or indirectly affected 20 percent of the population.<ref name="Bailey, 1967">((cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Norman A. |author-link=Norman Bailey (government official) |year=1967 |title=La Violencia in Colombia |jstor=164860 |journal=Journal of Inter-American Studies |publisher=Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=561–75 |doi=10.2307/164860))</ref>

''La Violencia'' did not acquire its name simply because of the number of people it affected; it was the manner in which most of the killings, maimings, and dismemberings were done. Certain death and torture techniques became so commonplace that they were given names—for example, ''picar para tamal'', which involved slowly cutting up a living person's body; or ''bocachiquiar'', where hundreds of small punctures were made until the victim slowly bled to death. Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for the [[United States National Security Council]] and current President of the [[Institute for Global Economic Growth]], [[Norman Bailey (government official)|Norman A. Bailey]] describes the atrocities succinctly: "Ingenious forms of quartering and beheading were invented and given such names as the 'corte de mica', 'corte de corbata' (aka [[Colombian necktie]]), and so on. Crucifixions and hangings were commonplace, political 'prisoners' were thrown from airplanes in flight, infants were bayoneted, schoolgirls, some as young as eight years old, were raped ''en masse'', unborn infants were removed by crude Caesarian section and replaced by roosters, ears were cut off, scalps removed, and so on."<ref name="Bailey, 1967"/> While scholars, historians, and analysts have all debated the source of this era of unrest, they have yet to formulate a widely accepted explanation for why it escalated to the notable level it did.

===Legal===
As a result of ''La Violencia'', landowners were allowed to create private armies for their security, which was formally legalized in 1965. Holding private armies was made illegal in 1989, only to be made legal once more in 1994.<ref>((cite journal|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-041916-015628|doi-access=free|title=Complicit States and the Governing Strategy of Privilege Violence: When Weakness is Not the Problem|year=2018|last1=Kleinfeld|first1=Rachel|last2=Barham|first2=Elena|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=21|pages=215–238))</ref>

==Historical interpretations==
The death of the bandoleros and the end of the mobs was not the end of all the violence in Colombia. One [[communist]] guerrilla movement, the [[Peasant Student Workers Movement]], started its operations in 1959.<ref>[http://www.moir.org.co/mosquera/Tres_vias_a_la_revolucion.htm] ((webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070626143728/http://www.moir.org.co/mosquera/Tres_vias_a_la_revolucion.htm |date=June 26, 2007 ))</ref> Later, other organizations such as the FARC and the [[National Liberation Army (Colombia)|National Liberation Army]] emerged, marking the beginning of a guerrilla insurgency.

===Credence in conspiracy theories as causes of violence===
As was common of 20th-century eliminationist political violence, the rationales for action immediately before ''La Violencia'' were founded on conspiracy theories, each of which blamed the other side as traitors beholden to international [[cabal]]s. The left were painted as participants in a global [[Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory|Judeo-Masonic conspiracy]] against Christianity, and the right were painted as agents of a [[Nazi]]-[[Falangist]] plot against democracy and progress.

====Anticlerical conspiracy theory====
After the death of Gaitán, a [[conspiracy theory]] which was circulated by the [[Left-wing politics|left]], that leading [[Conservatism|conservatives]], militant priests, [[Nazism|Nazis]] and [[Falangism|Falangists]] were involved in a plot to take control of the country and undo the country's moves toward progress, spurred the violence.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=218)) This conspiracy theory supplied the rationale for Liberal Party radicals to engage in violence, notably the [[Anti-clericalism|anti-clerical]] attacks and killings, particularly in the early years of ''La Violencia''. Some propaganda leaflets circulating in Medellín blamed a favorite of [[Anti-Catholicism|anti-Catholic]] conspiracy theorists, the [[Society of Jesus]] (Jesuits), for the murder of Gaitán.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=277))

Across the country, militants attacked churches, convents, and monasteries, killing priests and looking for arms, because they believed that the clergy had guns, a rumor which was proven to be false when no serviceable weapons were found during the raids.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=218)) One priest, [[Pedro María Ramírez Ramos]], was slaughtered with machetes and hauled through the street behind a truck, despite the fact that the militants had previously searched the church grounds and found no weapons.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=277))

Despite the circulation of the conspiracy theories and the propaganda after Gaitán was killed, most of the leftists who were involved in the rioting on 9 April learned from their errors, and as a result, they stopped believing that priests had harbored weapons.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=278))

The belief in the existence of some sort of conspiracy, a belief which was adhered to by members of both camps, made the political environment toxic, increasing the animosity and the suspicion which existed between both parties.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=185))

====Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory====
((Main|Anti-Masonry))
((See also|Opposition to Freemasonry within Christianity#Catholic Church|Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory))

The Conservatives were also motivated by their belief in the existence of a supposed international Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. In their view, they would prevent the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy from coming to fruition by eliminating the [[Liberalism|Liberals]] who were in their midst.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=217)) In the two decades prior to ''La Violencia'', Conservative politicians and churchmen adopted from [[Europe]]  the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory to portray the Liberal Party as involved in an international anti-Christian plot, with many prominent Liberal politicians actually being [[Freemasons]].((sfn|Williford|2005|p=142))

Although most of the rhetoric of conspiracy was introduced and circulated by some of the clergy, as well as by Conservative politicians, by 1942, many clerics became critical of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory. [[Jesuits]] outside Colombia had already questioned and published refutations of the authenticity of ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', disproving the concept of a global Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. Regarding this same matter, Colombian clergy also came under the increasing influence of U.S. clergy; and [[Pius XI]] asked U.S. Jesuit [[John LaFarge, Jr.]] to draft an encyclical against [[Antisemitism|anti-Semitism]] and [[racism]].((sfn|Williford|2005|p=197)) The belief in the existence of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy played a prominent role in the politics of [[Laureano Gómez]], who lead the Colombian Conservative Party from 1932 to 1953.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=178))  More provincial politicians followed suit, and the fact that prominent national and local politicians voiced this conspiracy theory, rather than just a portion of the clergy, gave the idea greater credibility while it gathered momentum among the party's members.

The atrocities that were committed at the outset of the [[Spanish Civil War]] in 1936 were seen by both sides as a possible precedent for Colombia, causing both sides to fear that it could also happen in their country; this belief also spurred the credibility of the conspiracies and it also served as a rationale for violence.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=185)) [[Red Terror (Spain)|anticlerical violence in the Republican zones in Spain]] in the first months of that war when [[anarchism|anarchists]], left-wing socialists and independent communists burned churches and murdered nearly 7,000 priests, monks, and nuns, and used this to justify their own mass killings of Jews, Masons, and socialists.((sfn|Williford|2005|p=185))

==See also==
((portal|Colombia))
* [[Central American crisis]]
* [[Colombian Civil War]]
* [[Colombian conflict]]
* [[History of Colombia]]
* [[History of FARC]]
* [[Liberalism and conservatism in Latin America]]
* [[List of civil wars]]
* [[List of conflicts in Central America]]
* [[List of conflicts in South America]]
* [[Marquetalia Republic]]
* [[Cali explosion]]

==Notes==
((Reflist|2))

==References==
* ((cite thesis |last=Williford |first=Thomas J. |date=2005-05-26 |title=Armando los espiritus: Political Rhetoric in Colombia on the Eve of La Violencia, 1930–1945 |type=Dissertation |publisher=Vanderbilt University |url=http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07222005-085639/ ))

==Further reading==
* ((cite journal |last=Rempe |first=Dennis M. |date=Winter 1995 |title=Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics: US Counter-insurgency Efforts in Colombia 1959-1965 |url=http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |url-status=dead |journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=304–27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100330101500/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/colombia/smallwars.htm |archive-date=30 March 2010|doi=10.1080/09592319508423115 ))
* Wirpsa, Leslie. [http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011113222429/http://www.natcath.com/ncr_online/archives/102497/102497a.htm Economics fuels return of La Violencia]

((Colombia topics|state=uncollapsed))
[[Category:La Violencia| ]]
[[Category:Anti-clericalism]]
[[Category:Antisemitism in South America]]
[[Category:Attacks on religious buildings and structures in South America]]
[[Category:Civil wars of the 20th century]]
[[Category:Conservatism in Colombia]]
[[Category:History of Catholicism in South America]]
[[Category:Military history of Colombia]]
[[Category:Persecution of Christians]]
[[Category:Political repression in Colombia]]
[[Category:Rebellions in South America]]
[[Category:Revolution-based civil wars]]
[[Category:20th-century Catholicism]]

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