Word: echandia
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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 Fumbling Liberals, who had already withdrawn their presidential candidate, Dario Echandia, in protest at government indifference to violence (TIME, Nov. 14), called for a three-day general strike.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...
...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...
Gunfight. When the party reached the tiny, treeless Plaza San Martin, dominated by an equestrian statue of the Argentine hero, two military policemen rounded the corner. A shot was fired. More soldiers raced up, more bullets flew. Echandia and some of his followers dropped to the ground; others scrambled behind the statue. After five minutes, an army officer pulled up in a car and stopped the shooting...
...minor Liberal politicians died where they fell in the plaza; one other Liberal and a policeman were slightly wounded. Echandia's brother Vicente was rushed to the Clinica del Sagrado Corazon. There, two hours later, Dario Echandia saw his brother die. The funeral was held on the day that triumphant Conservatives were electing Laureano Gómez President. Nearly 25,000 Liberals marched in the cortege, and there were excited shouts of "Down with the dictatorship!" and "To the Palace!" But nobody went to the Palace; troops and tanks had closed off the streets four blocks away...
...president. Ospina won because of a Liberal split. Many thought Laureano might have the good sense to put up another moderate this year. But the fires of April 9 burned too brightly in his memory. Liberals, moreover, heaped on fresh fuel. United behind middle-of-the-road Dario Echandia, and fed to the teeth by unsuppressed rural political violence (392 deaths in September according to the Liberals), they used their congressional majority to advance the election date six months to Nov. 27 in expectation of a quick victory...