Word: bogota
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Election day passed in relative calm. Fumbling Liberals, who had already withdrawn their presidential candidate, Dario Echandia, in protest at government indifference to violence (TIME, Nov. 14), called for a three-day general strike. Though some railroads were affected in the provinces, the main results of the strike in Bogota were a shortage of taxicabs and the nonappearance of the Liberal newspapers. Electricity, telephone and water service continued under guard...
Bullfight. The sense of an approaching climax kept feelings high. Liberals flocked to Carrera Septima, Bogota's main street, and defied the government ban on demonstrations by gibing at the police and cheering for their party. One enthusiast amused the crowd by making bullfight passes with his coat at a clumsy young policeman charging him with a rifle butt. The cop finally fired from the hip into the air; the torero and his aficionados fled...
...most tragic occurrence of the campaign windup involved the Liberal Party's ex-candidate himself. Echandia had been making a point of strolling about downtown Bogota unguarded, in silent contrast to Laureano Gómez' self-imposed seclusion in his son-in-law's tightly barred home. On the first day of the general strike he set out accompanied by his brothers, Vicente and Domingo, and 19 Liberal politicians...
Political Passion. Ever since the tragic Bogota uprising of April 9, 1948, Colombia had been drifting toward just such a moment of force. Liberals, having healed the division that cost them the presidency in 1946, used their congressional majority to push the election date seven months forward in expectation of victory. The Conservative reply, in an atmosphere hot with political passion, was to choose their most inflammatory rightist, Franco-loving Laureano Gomez, as their nominee, and to throw every government resource into his campaign...
Panic spread fast as news of the state of siege exploded over Bogota. Tanks rumbled into the plazas. Rifle-toting troopers turned Congressmen away from the Capitol. Rumors spread through Carrera Septima crowds that Liberal leaders had been assassinated. Panicky shopkeepers slammed down their iron shutters. People stampeded. One woman, asked why she was running, answered: "Because everyone else is." An Austrian who had seen Dollfuss take over Vienna in 1932 said: "It is not only the same but exactly the same...