Having mentioned “El Bogotazo” in my prior post, I have come to realize that relatively few are aware of that awful event. And the few who are, see it as a wholly indigenous conflagration resulting entirely from local politics, exacerbated beyond the breaking point by the shocking assassination of a left-wing presidential candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. This horrible event set off the terrible 10-year period in Colombian history known as La Violencia. See Hicacos for a brief overall commentary on the situation in South America in 1966, after the end of La Violencia.

As Orlando Avendaño notes in his book, Días de sumisión, “El Bogotazo” was the first of many “azos” in Latin America, including “El Paquetazo” and “El Caracazo” (Venezuela), “El Rosariazo” (Argentina), “El Limazo” (Peru); “El Ibañazo” (Chile); and more. As uncritically reported, both at the time of the occurrences as well as in retrospect (e.g., see Wikipedia), they were all alike: “spontaneous” uprisings by “abused and overwhelmed” peoples against “corrupt oligarchies” and “yanqui-dominated” governments”. 

I am often (though not always) amused by journalists and professors and their followers who never question how events can share so many common, even predictable, characteristics and yet all be described as “spontaneous”. Without even batting an eye. 

A brief review of the first “azo”, the “Bogotazo” will help us understand the later ones, at least two of which occurred in Venezuela, as future posts will note.

This will be a two-part post because, before going into the Bogotazo itself, we need to take a glance at a man who was a player in it, though this fact is rarely if ever mentioned.

Fidel Castro was a violent man. The pitiless nature of his character was notable even in childhood where his teachers would report his bullying and boorishness to his father, so much so that his own father, not known for compassion, was angered and eventually placed him in the prestigious Colegio de Belén where he assumed the Jesuits would keep him minding his manners (see prior posts).

In the University of Havana, which he entered in 1945, his lawlessness was given much freer rein. The university was completely autonomous and a “haven for gangsters and political movements”. Murders were frequent and almost unremarkable because of their ubiquitousness. In a four-year period in the mid-40s, over 100 mob-style murders had been committed. Even American newspapers reported on the pandemonium. For example, a Times-Picayune (New Orleans) August 16, 1940, headline read, “Professor Slain by Gunmen in Uptown Havana”; a Boston Herald headline on November 28, 1940, read “Youths Assassinate Havana Professor”; a Chicago Tribune headline from November 29, 1940, read, “Youths, Picked in Lottery, Kill Cuban Teacher”; etc.

By the end of his university career, Castro had been accused and interrogated for at least two murders for which suspicion could not be denied, including the dying words of Oscar Fernandez, who identified Castro as his murderer. In both cases he would not stand trial due to lack of evidence. In another case where the victim, who survived, identified Castro as his would-be assassin, Castro again beat the rap.

One murder was that of Manolo de Castro (no relation), a well-known student revolutionary who, coincidentally, had shortly before returned from a trip to Venezuela where he had been invited to observe the latest attempt at democracy there. Manolo was with the Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MSR) whose main opposition was the Unión Insurreccional Revolucionaria (UIR), headed by Emilio Tró, who had befriended Fidel Castro by shielding him from being accused of attempted murder — Castro had shot and wounded a UIR comrade, but Tró took a liking to Castro and actually gave him a pistol which Castro carried with him for years — and all was forgotten.

Emilio Tró was a man who believed nothing could be accomplished without violence. This is not to question his genuine courage. For example, he went into exile to the United States from whence he joined the Army and fought in the Europe theater during the Second World War. Some accounts report that he also fought in the Pacific, although that is disputed. He earned at least one Purple Heart and was commended for bravery under fire. 

We are not cartoon or cardboard characters. We all have shades and self-contradictions, and men like Tró, more than most. An ardent leftist, he thrived in the “gangsterism” at the University of Havana, eventually leading the UIR, to which he invited Castro. Friends and acquaintances testified to his compulsive insistence on violence and death to all enemies and to impose a new government on Cuba. However, paradoxically, he had no “program”. In other words, although he thrived in leftist circles, he did not propose nor promote a Communist government, or any ideological government. It seemed his only focus was vengeance against “the guilty” and only afterwards, supposedly, would he determine what type of government to impose.

The utter lunacy of politics in Cuba, is illustrated by then-President Ramón Grau San Martín’s having named Emilio Tró, known as a “political gangster” with murders or attempted murders on his account, as Director of the National Police Academy. Grau had also named another unsavory character, Mario Salabarría, as Chief of Research and Information, another security apparatus with its own weapons and personnel. Tró and Salabarría were bitter enemies and each had attempted to murder the other.

Grau’s rationale was that by naming such bitter enemies to his administration he would neutralize their violence. Sort of a Mutually Assured Destruction approach to local mayhem which the United States and Soviet Union would bring to an art form during the Cold War, which also spawned mayhem in myriad “hot war” spots around the globe.

Emilio Tró insisted on installing his offices in the same building where Salabarría and his team worked. Anyone should have seen that Grau’s gambit would not work.

Emilio Tró was assassinated at his friend’s home where he was having dinner. Six others were killed along with him, including his friend’s wife and child, who was in the womb, near full term. The massacre took place in a firefight lasting over three hours in a Havana neighborhood and much of it was caught on film and photos, since suppressed. The perpetrators were a rival gang, headed by Tró’s bitter enemy, Mario Salabarría, who was later found guilty, along with others.

Despite the clear guilt of Salabarria’s gang, Fidel Castro accused the MSR, specifically, Manolo de Castro, who was murdered months later.

It is important to understand the nature of Fidel Castro. He was pitiless, cynical, and ambitious for power. He gravitated naturally to violence and to totalitarianism and he would brook no opponents, whether real or imaginary. His character is brilliantly reflected by those he gravitated to, men such as Tró.

Parallel with these events, Castro had been meeting with the Dominican, Juan Bosch, who had sought exile in Cuba. Castro flattered Bosch, invited him to speak to a group of university radicals, and begged him to be included in a planned incursion into the Dominican Republic with finance and weaponry supplied by Venezuela. The team had not accepted Castro, but with Bosch’s insistence, they had no choice. 

It did not end well for Fidel: the leader, Rolando Masferrer, became so infuriated at Castro’s arrogance and insubordination that he punched him in the nose. Castro never forgave nor forgot that insult. He attempted to murder Masferrer a few weeks later but failed, and Masferrer’s accusation never got traction, given his own radical politics. Castro eventually prevailed, having arranged for Masferrer’s car bomb assassination in Miami in 1975.

It was this Fidel Castro whom the Comintern ensured was sent to Colombia to frustrate the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS) as a hedge against Soviet Communist activity in Latin America.