COLOMBIA: The Press - El Espectador

The tragedy of Colombia was largely the result of its social structure. Bogotá boasted that it was the Athens of America (I have not heard that for a long time), and it had indeed a highly educated elite which carried on conversations on a level seldom heard in the rest of Latin America. The problem was that it was like France before the Revolution in that the masses, both in the cities and the countryside, were uneducated and violent. To some degree therefore the unrest in Colombia is the equivalent of the French Revolution.

Of the two major parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, the Liberal was the more intellectual and Athenian. The Lleras clan was one of the mainstays of the Liberal Party. Alberto Lleras Camargo, the founder of the newspaper El Tiempo, served as president of Colombia (1945-46). Carlos Lleras Restrepo had a similar career, serving as editor of El Tiempo and as President of Colombia (1966--70). His son, Carlos Lleras de la Fuente, was ambassador to the US and editor of El Espectador of Medellín, which is much older then El Tiempo, having been founded in 1887. Medellín is one of the cities which has suffered most from the civil war and the ensuing financial crisis. Carlos Lleras de la Fuente has announced that because of this it will cease to be a daily and publish only on Sunday. Andrés Mantilla has circulated a sad note on this development. All friends of Colombia share his sorrow.

Ronald Hilton - 9/2/01