Cardona
MPSA 2004
23
Police, the officers of which had not received professional training through the Escuela
General Santander,
8
participated on the side of the Liberal rioters, although in the
aftermath, the institution as a whole was accused of excessive politicization. (Naturally,
this accusation came from a Conservative administration.) As a result, a sweeping reform
of the National Police took place, with the entire command of the institution being
replaced by military officers (Echeverri Ossa 1993: 207-210).
Return to Chaos: La Violencia and the Unraveling of the Peace
However, these changes were not enough to affect the dynamics taking place at
the local level during this period. In the Eastern Plains in particular, the tension between a
politicized police loyal to the Conservative government in power and Liberal guerrillas
reached the breaking point. According to an Army officer who was called in to mediate
the conflict:
In the first months of the presence of the Police in the [Eastern] Plains, there were no real
problems. But as time passed and the agents remained there without receiving basic services, their
meal rations, etc., incidents began taking place that culminated in the general revolt that took place
in the Eastern Plains in 1949. There began the struggle of the state against guerrillas who, as I
said, were provoked by the mistaken use of authority. A struggle between a civil population that
had been run over [atropellada] and the politicized police [policía política] (Matallana in Alape
1985: 40).
The struggle between Police and Liberal guerrillas in the Eastern Plains generated
political dynamics that reverberate down to the present day. For it was among the
defeated Liberal forces that there grew the initial seeds for the development of the
guerrilla group that came to be known as the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (Molano 1989).
8
Author’s interview with a retired Police general, Bogotá, December 2003.
Convention