By: Iván Gallo – Content editor
Forty -one years after his death Jaime Bateman is still a trend in social networks. History has blessed: it is an immortal. In the chaotic council of ministers that by order of the president was televised in the National Chain and that nothing more in social networks was seen by one million people Petro brought the leader of the organization to which he belonged to the table, comparing Armando Benedetti With Bateman. Immediately the debate exploded and the youngest wondered for this English name that hid a Caribbean Motor gallor, disciplined and at the same time implacable.
One of the most complete biographies ever made in Colombia was written by Dario Villamizar and is about Bateman. The samario, born in 1940, wanted this country, where inequality was the norm, could have more equity. He supported Cura Camilo Torres in several my mitines and even ended up giving trumpent with the police to protect who his death would become one of the saints of the Latin American revolution. The possibility that a political project of change arrived at the polls refused when on April 19, 1970 he was robbed in front of the anapo elections, the political party created by General Rojas Pinilla. After a blackout, it was decreed that the winner was a son of the establishment: Misael Pastrana. That disenchantment was brought to military the ranks of the Farc but so much Stalinism burst it. So in 1975, after an intense and creative expectation campaign, where the announcement appeared daily? M-19 is coming, the group appeared giving one of their spectacular and loaded symbolism: the theft of Bolívar’s sword.
The groups resemble their leaders and Bateman perhaps was the first socialbacano in the history of this country. Gabriel García Márquez, from the Alternative magazine, seconded by Enrique Santos, wrote panegyric about the new Bolívar. Meanwhile he did not give so important. It appeared even on Fridays from the time of Julio César Turbay and its security statute in places such as pagan enjoy by Eddie Palmieri or Santos Colón.
That air of invincibility, of knowing that they were never going to grab it, the violence did not give it the bacanería. As he remembers in a written profile more than a decade ago in the spectator Erick Camargo, it was his network of friends, his sympathy, more than a shield of armed men, which protected him from all evil and danger. It was not a bandit, he was a true revolutionary.
He moved with agility even though at age eight in his native Santa Marta a truck ran over him. For years he followed therapies, even sent him to clinics in Moscow to see if he improved but always had his private walked. He was a conversationalist so charming that Fidel Castro described him as a “unique revolutionary” after being a whole weekend with him swimming in Playa Girón. He took sparks to the Army after performing the Blue Ballena operation, which consisted of stealing the army for more than three thousand weapons on October 31, 1978 in the north canton. They could never take advantage of them. The army unleashed his war dogs and the repression was brutal, from Macana and Cachiporra. Many innocent were tortured, others killed, traumatized and missing.
Another blow full of symbolism was the taking of the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Bogotá. The country met guerrilla commanders as charismatic as Alias La Chiqui. From that moment on many students and society in general began to feel the fever of the EME. Bateman’s personality was magnetic. So much that, when Belisario Betancur came to the presidency and his will to peace began to establish direct bridges between the insurgency and the establishment. There was then talk of “the national sancocho.” In the Bateman Revolutionary Project, all the levels fit. On April 23, 1983, an appointment was held in Panama between Bateman and the Betancur government. The leader of the M-19 left for his destiny despite the climatic conditions that advised to fly. In the radial transmission of the plane, the pilot’s anguish is heard. He spoke with Panama until contact was lost.
For nine months the plane was sought in the jungle of the plane. The country was in suspense. It was said that the most radical sector of the Armed Forces was against dialogue and Bateman and that they could have disappeared. All the rumors were silenced when on February 21, 1984 they found their remains.
Thirty -eight years later Bateman would come true, one of his men, Gustavo Petro Urrego, was elected by democratic president of Colombia. It was shown that by democratic way the struggle can also be.
