Aníbal Charry González
For these days of Holy Week, which believers always say are for reflection but they never do so dedicated to leisure and merriment, rereading the book “When Colombia Bleed” by the writer James Henderson – which is a study of Violence in this martyred country that continues to bleed without remedy -, and when President Petro proposes a permanent dialogue to unravel the causes of the atrocious violence that we have suffered and continue to suffer, it is pertinent here as a way of reflection to cite what the aforementioned author attributed as fundamental cause of the Violence that he considered an undeclared civil war, unique in its kind that took place between the years 1946 and 1965 that left us with 300,000 dead.
“And the Violence in Colombia was eminently political, the fruit of a hundred years of struggle between the liberal and conservative parties for dominance of the national government. Through a process whose dynamics have not yet been fully understood, these two parties came to enroll all Colombians, great and humble, in their ranks. The polarization of citizens was so intense, and their confrontation so acute, that some have referred to such political groups as systems of “inherited hatred.” These red-hot hatreds…triggered the Violence.” After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the Violence in Colombia was the longest and most destructive civil war that has befallen any nation in the Western Hemisphere during the 20th century.
The above generated different versions of the massacre between liberals and conservatives, to the point that Germán Arciniegas, an illustrious liberal, maintained that “a reactionary and “neofascist” group, headed by Laureano Gómez, used both the army and the police to “commit the crime of genocide in the countryside.” Which was true. And in turn, several conservative writers such as Rafael Azula cynically stated that “the Violence was a communist plot to destroy Colombian civilization, and that liberals were complicit in communism.”
And there we remain undefeated in all forms of violence, crying sterilely for peace, which is a right and a duty that was only designed in the paper of the Constitution, where the polarizing hatred of the right against the left continues to be encouraged, invoking the outdated communism making the Government of President Petro impossible with mendacity sustained by the violent and perfidious Cabal, who shouted in the marches against the government cynically that they were not going to allow themselves to be robbed of the country, when we know that it was that political and violent class that It has systematically stolen it, also trying to make a society forgetful and complicit in corruption and violence believe, with psychological manipulation through the media and technology, that they are the ones who have to continue governing as saviors of the violence and widespread corruption that they have created for more than 200 years, maintaining political hatred as an infamous instrument to remain in power for their own benefit.