The prior post in this series (El Bogotazo I) reviewed Fidel Castro’s violent career in Cuba during high school and college, including arrests and questioning for suspicion of murder and more. This is important background for today’s post, which picks up in 1948, when the United States, concerned by Communist infiltration throughout Latin America, recommended the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS), an idea which was quickly seized upon by South American countries. 

The function of this new organization was to provide a forum for the nations in the American continent to meet to discuss and address regional problems. For example, fast forward to 1962: President Rómulo Betancourt demanded and got the expulsion of Cuba from the OAS given repeated, proven attempts by Fidel Castro to subvert and overthrow the government of Venezuela, including shipments of armaments and men to Communist guerrilla groups operating under Castro. See Spurning Fidel.

The OAS was to be inaugurated during an international conference taking place in Bogota, Colombia in April, 1948. Although one could argue the site was appropriate, nevertheless, one could also argue that the timing was all wrong. Colombia was gearing up to hold presidential elections less than two years later, in 1950, and the Unión Nacional de Izquierda Revolucionaria (UNIR, translated “National Union of the Revolutionary Left”) were vocal in asserting those elections would be won by their candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a radical leftist populist.

Gaitán’s extremist nature was obvious, as witness his frequently repeated motto: “If I advance, follow me, if I retreat, push me, if I betray you, kill me, and if I die, avenge me! To the charge!” His bellicosity was not empty rhetoric. A few months before the OAS conference, he called for a march against the conservative government, “The March of Silence”, to which over 100,000 came, many of them fully armed. 

To add to tensions, Rómulo Betancourt, who had assumed the temporary presidency of Venezuela by means of a military coup d’etat, and who was still known for his Communism, which was later abandoned (see Envy), had signaled his support for Gaitán and did not denounce rumors signaling that should the elections be fraudulent (interpreted to mean, should Gaitán lose), Venezuela would support the overthrow of Colombia’s conservative government. Talk about chickens coming home to roost: a little over a decade later, Betancourt led the expulsion of Castro from the OAS for having sought the overthrow of his government.

Opposed to the creation of the OAS, Argentina and the Soviet Union agreed together to sabotage it by surreptitiously financing a conference of Latin American “students” to denounce “Yankee aggression”, meaning the creation of the OAS. This conference would be held simultaneously with the OAS inauguration conference. The Soviet Union and Argentina sought to capitalize on the smoldering animosity between Colombia and Venezuela as well as the anti-American Zeitgeist in Latin American universities. 

Argentina emerged from the Second World War as a major economic power. However, Juan Domingo Perón, yet another leftist military leader (see Right-Wing Military for discussion on military leftism) helped overthrow its government in a military coup and was its dictator from 1946 to 1955. He was very anti-American and had close ties with Nazi Germany and later the Soviet Union. Like all good Communists, he took Argentina from economic dominance to massive expropriations and economic decline. Argentina eventually became the poster child of hyperinflation which was eventually broken in the 1990s. 

Perón and Stalin were determined to cause chaos in Bogota. They promoted, financed, and ensured the inauguration of the Congreso Estudiantil Latinoamericana (Latin American Student Congress) to be held alongside the assembly creating the OAS. The promotion and organization of the students to attend that congress was headquartered in Havana, Cuba, led by Fabio Grobart. The Congress itself was to be led by Gustavo Machado. And the star attraction of the Congress would be none other than Gaitán himself.

That would be the fuel. The lit matches would be groups of revolutionary Latin American students from all geographic points, directed from Argentina. These would travel separately and converge in Bogota a few days before the inauguration of the OAS. Their objective was to engage in violent street actions and sabotage operations ostensibly to prohibit the establishment of the OAS. The hard-nosed reality behind their purpose was actually to foment chaos.

Among the student groups traveling to Bogota would be a handpicked group of four from Havana, Cuba. And one of the four was Fidel Castro, fully in his element.