Movimiento 19 de April

M-19 flag

Movimiento 19 de Abril ( German Movement April 19 ; Numeronym : M-19 ) was a left-wing Colombian guerrilla organization that turned into a political party in 1990 .

Surname

Movimiento 19 de Abril is Spanish and means "April 19th Movement". The name goes back to the Colombian presidential elections on April 19, 1970. In these elections there were gross irregularities that have not yet been clarified. The founder of the M-19 , Jaime Bateman , therefore named his organization after this date.

history

M-19 was founded in 1970 by ex- FARC member Jaime Bateman. The members of the M-19, however, had less dogmatic ideas than the FARC.

In 1974, members of the M-19 stole Simon Bolívar's sword from a museum in Bogotá ; on December 31, 1978, they raided an army depot in Bogotá and stole around 5,000 weapons there. In 1980 an M-19 commando occupied the Dominican Republic's embassy in the Colombian capital for 67 days . They held 15 diplomats under their control, some of whom they took with them on their subsequent escape to Cuba . In 1981 the M-19 kidnapped the sister of two Colombian drug lords , to which the drug mafia responded by founding its own organization , Muerte a los Secuestradores (English: Death to the Kidnappers). In 1985, the Palace of Justice in Bogotá was occupied by M-19 members. In their opinion, the government had violated agreements. The M-19 wanted to react to this with this action and took eleven judges hostage. After heavy fighting with the Colombian army , only rubble was left of the building; there were many deaths and the then President Belisario Betancur was briefly ousted.

After the state of emergency ended, the M-19 began to negotiate with the Colombian state, since it was no longer able to carry out such spectacular actions. The group also found itself isolated internationally; an attempt made in 1988 to obtain an arms delivery by applying to Army General Heinz Keßler , Minister for National Defense of the GDR , failed due to concerns of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of State Security . The members called for a new constitution, which was finally passed in 1991. In the same year the (legal) party Alianza Democrática M-19 (Democratic Alliance M-19) was founded, which at times was the third party in the Colombian parliament alongside the liberal and conservative parties .

Members and former members

Vera Grabe Loewenherz (1951), Colombian politician and human rights activist
Gustavo Petro (* 1960), Colombian politician

Individual evidence

↑ AG Keßler described the M-19 in a memorandum as a “left-wing radical movement with a sometimes adventurous orientation”, which was also certified as being strongly enforced by Western secret services. See Storkmann, Klaus: Geheime Solidarität: Military Relations and Military Aid of the GDR in the “Third World”, Berlin 2012, p. 119.

[1] AG Keßler described the M-19 in a memorandum as a “left-wing radical movement with a sometimes adventurous orientation”, which was also certified as being strongly enforced by Western secret services. See Storkmann, Klaus: Geheime Solidarität: Military Relations and Military Aid of the GDR in the “Third World”, Berlin 2012, p. 119.