July 19, 2024 • 35 mins
Colombia's deepest political conflicts stem from contradictions embedded in its founding DNA. The country's perpetual cycle of violence originated from competing visions of nationhood that transformed political disagreements into tribal hatreds and normalized extreme brutality as a tool for resolving disputes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains detailed descriptions of
extreme violence that somelisteners may find deeply
disturbing.
Listener discretion is advised.
Bogota, april 9th 1948, 1.05 pm.
(00:22):
The typewriter keys strike withmechanical precision in the
cramped office of El Tiempo,colombia's most influential
newspaper.
Jorge Eliezer, gaitán'ssecretary, finishes typing his
schedule for this afternoon alunch meeting at the Granada
Hotel, followed by a speech atPlaza de Bolívar, where
(00:46):
thousands of workers areexpected to gather.
The man they call the Tribuneof the People has been receiving
death threats for months, buttoday feels different.
There's electricity in the air,the kind that precedes either
revolution or catastrophe Timethat precedes either revolution
(01:07):
or catastrophe.
Three blocks away, in theornate halls of the conservative
club, a different kind oftension simmers.
Wealthy landowners from acrossColombia have gathered for what
they euphemistically call apolitical coordination meeting.
But the conversation isn'tabout coordination, it's about
(01:29):
elimination.
Haitan's radical platformpromising land redistribution
and workers' rights, hasterrified them into
unprecedented unity.
As one hacendado from Antioquiaputs it to his companions, that
mestizo agitator threatenseverything our families have
built for centuries.
Something must be done.
(01:52):
At exactly 1.10 pm, gaitan stepsout of his law office on
Carrera Septima, bustling heartof Bogotá.
He's a compact man withpenetrating eyes and the callous
hands of someone who rose frompoverty through sheer
intellectual force.
As he walks towards his lunchappointment, passers-by call out
(02:13):
Jefe, jefe, chief.
Their faces light up with thedesperate hope of people who
believe, perhaps for the firsttime in their lives, that
someone in power actuallyunderstands their suffering.
Behind them, unnoticed in thecrowd, a young man named Juan
(02:36):
Roa Sierra follows with his handinside his jacket, fingering
the grip of a .38 caliberrevolver.
His eyes are wild with thefanaticism of someone who
believes he's about to changehistory.
In his mind, he's notcommitting murder, he's
performing surgery on the bodypolitic, cutting out a cancer
(02:57):
before it can metastasize.
But neither man knows at thismoment.
These few blocks, these crucialminutes, will determine whether
Colombia finds its path todemocracy or plunges into a half
century of violence that willcost hundreds of thousands of
lives and leave scars thathaven't healed to this
(03:19):
day.
At 1.15pm, three shots ring outon Caldera Septima.
The tribune of the peoplecollapses on the sidewalk, his
blood mixing with the rain thathas begun to fall on the capital
(03:40):
.
Within hours, bogota will be inflames.
Within days, rural Colombiawill explode into the
fratricidal nightmare known asLa Violencia.
And within decades, the singleassassination will spawn
guerrilla armies, paramilitarydeath squads and narco cartels.
(04:00):
That will transform Colombiainto the world's laboratory for
every conceivable form ofpolitical violence.
But to understand how threebullets on a Bogota street could
unleash such havoc, we need togo back to the beginning, back
to the moment when Colombia wasborn, already fractured, already
(04:23):
carrying within its DNA theseeds of perpetual
conflict.
This is part one of our serieson the Colombian conflict the
roots of rebellion.
You know how they say you can'tunderstand someone until you
walk a mile in their shoes.
(04:44):
You know how they say you can'tunderstand someone until you
walk a mile in their shoes.
Well, I'd argue, you can'tunderstand a nation until you've
walked through its history, notjust the highlight reel or the
sanitized version you find intextbooks.
I mean really getting into itsDNA, those defining moments that
shaped everything that cameafter, those moments where paths
were chosen, where decisionswere made in palaces and
(05:06):
backrooms and city streets thatchanged the course of millions
of lives.
I'm your host, paul, and thisis Double Helix Blueprint of
Nations, where we unravel thegenetic code of countries
through their mosttransformative moments.
Think of it like ancestrytesting, but for entire nations.
We dig deep into the historicalDNA, finding those crucial
(05:31):
moments that made countries whothey are
today.
When people think aboutColombia, they think about
coffee.
They think about Colombia.
They think about coffee.
They think about soccer, aboutGabriel Garcia Marquez, about
the rhythms of vallenato musicdrifting through the Caribbean
(05:54):
coastal towns.
But if they're being honest,brutally honest, many of them
also think about violence, aboutPablo Escobar and the cocaine
cartels, about kidnappings andmassacres and a seemingly
endless war that has raged forso long that most Colombians
can't remember what peaceactually feels like.
(06:14):
This isn't Colombia's fault.
It's the byproduct of aconflict so complex, so deeply
rooted in the nation's foundingcontradictions, that it's
consumed entire generationstrying to understand it, let
alone resolve it.
Today we begin our explorationof that conflict, not just its
modern manifestations, but itshistorical DNA, the patterns
(06:39):
embedded in Colombians'political genetics that turn
what should have been afunctioning democracy into one
of the world's longest-runningcivil wars.
Because here's what makesColombia's tragedy so profound
it didn't have to happen thisway.
This is not a story of ancientethnic hatreds or inevitable
(06:59):
resource conflicts, but it is astory about choices political
choices, economic choices, moralchoices made by people who
prioritize short-term advantageover long-term stability.
It's about a society that,again and again, chose violence
over compromise, exclusion overinclusion, regional loyalty over
(07:22):
national unity.
And so today we explore theroots of rebellion, how a nation
born in the fires ofindependence managed to embed
civil war so deeply into itsinstitutional DNA that conflict
became not the exception, butthe rule the rule.
(07:49):
We are in Santa Fe de Bogota,july 20th of 1810.
In the Plaza Mayor, crowdsgather as news spread that the
Spanish Viceroy has been deposed.
Colombia's independence hasbegun not with a declaration,
but with a riot over a flowervase, a Spanish merchant's
(08:11):
refusal to lend decorative itemsfor a patriot celebration.
It's an absurdly trivialcatalyst for revolution, except
it perfectly captures what willbecome Colombia's defining
characteristic the ability totransform minor disagreements
into existential conflicts.
But even as Colombianscelebrate their liberation from
(08:33):
Spanish rule, the seeds offuture conflict are already
being implanted In backrooms andcoffeehouses across the nascent
republic.
Two fundamentally incompatiblevisions of the future are taking
shape.
Picture the scene In one salon,the centralists gather around
(09:00):
maps of the new republic,drawing lines that consolidate
power in Bogota.
These are urban elites educatedin European philosophy who
believe that only a strongcentral government can hold
together a territory stretchingfrom the Caribbean coast to the
Amazon basin.
They look at the chaos of theindependence wars and conclude
(09:21):
that what Colombia really needsis order, french-style
administrative efficiencyimposed from the capital.
Just three blocks away, theFederalists meet in a merchant's
warehouse, surrounded by goodsthat arrive from different
provinces.
These are regional leaders,landowners from Antioquia and
(09:41):
Cauca Traders from the coast,who understand that Colombia's
geography makes centralizedcontrol not just impractical but
impossible.
They've seen how Spanishcolonial administration
collapsed when communicationsbroke down, and they want a
confederation that respectslocal autonomy.
Both groups are patriots, bothwant an independent Colombia,
(10:05):
but they're deciding twocompletely different countries,
and neither is willing tocompromise.
The period historians call LaPatria Boba, the Foolish
Fatherland, lasts from 1810 to1816.
And it established patternsthat will haunt Colombia for the
next two centuries.
During these six years, the newrepublic has not one
(10:29):
constitution, but two thecentralist constitution of
Cundinamarca and the federalistconstitution of the United
Provinces of New Granada.
Think about what this means.
Colombia isn't just politicallydivided, it is constitutionally
(10:50):
schizophrenic Two competinglegal frameworks, two
incompatible theories ofgovernment trying to operate in
the same territorysimultaneously no-transcript.
The military consequences areimmediate and catastrophic.
(11:10):
When Spanish forces launchedtheir reconquests in 1815, they
don't face a unified republic,but a collection of squabbling
city-states.
At the crucial Battle ofChakiri, patriot forces collapse
not because they're outnumbered, but because the Bogotá and
Cartagena militias refuse tocoordinate their strategies.
(11:31):
Colombian independence dies notfrom Spanish strength, but from
Colombian disunity.
Here's what makes this periodso significant.
It isn't just about thepolitical chaos.
It's the moment when Colombia'sfundamental contradictions get
written into its institutionalDNA the tension between central
(11:52):
authority and regional autonomy,between urban sophistication
and rural traditionalism,between those who believe
government should impose orderand those who believe it should
reflect local preferences.
These are not just policydisagreements.
They're competing philosophiesabout what Colombia should be,
and once they're embedded in thepolitical culture, they prove
(12:15):
impossible to resolve throughnormal democratic processes.
Instead, they get settledthrough violence, establishing
the precedent that whenColombians disagree
fundamentally, they reach forweapons rather than balance.
Eduardo Santos, the historianand future president, would
later write In those six yearsof the foolish fatherland, we
(12:38):
established our nationaltradition of making the perfect
the enemy of the good.
We chose ideological purityover practical governance.
We've been paying the priceever since.
We've been paying the priceever since.
When Simón Bolívar finallyliberates Colombia in 1819, he
inherits not just Spanishcolonial problems, but uniquely
(12:59):
Colombian ones.
The country he's fighting tocreate has already demonstrated
its capacity forself-destruction.
We are in Bogotá, 1831.
Simón Bolívar is dead and withhim dies the dream of Gran
(13:22):
Colombia, the unified republicthat was supposed to stretch
from Venezuela to Peru.
As this massive confederationfragments into separate nations,
the rump state that becomes theRepublic of New Granada faces a
choice that will define itsnext century Learn from the
failures of the past or repeatthem on an even grander scale.
(13:44):
Colombia chooses repetition.
What emerges isn't a stabledemocracy, but a political
machine designed to perpetuateconflict.
The old centralists transforminto the conservative party,
while the federalists become theliberals.
This isn't just rebranding, itis weaponization.
(14:04):
These are not just politicalparties in any modern sense.
They are tribal affiliationspassed down through generations,
complete with their ownnewspapers, their own militias
and their own incompatiblevisions of Colombian identity.
The conservatives draw theirpower from the alliance between
large landowners, the CatholicChurch and urban merchants, who
(14:26):
benefit from stable hierarchies.
They believe Colombia needsstrong central authority to
prevent regional chaos, but theydefine order as the
preservation of colonial socialstructures.
For them, the ideal Colombia isone where everyone knows their
place, the church provides moralguidance, the hacendados
(14:47):
control rural labor, andpolitical power remains
concentrated among familieswho've held it since Spanish
times.
The Liberals represent acompletely different Colombia,
one where individual meritmatters more than family lineage
, where economic modernizationbreaks down traditional barriers
, where education and democracycreate opportunities for social
(15:10):
mobility.
Where education and democracycreate opportunities for social
mobility, they draw support fromurban professionals, small
landowners and the emergingmiddle class who see traditional
hierarchies as obstacles toprogress.
Neither vision is inherentlyevil, but they are mutually
exclusive.
You can't have both centralizedorder and federalist autonomy.
You can't preserve traditionalhierarchies while promoting
(15:36):
social mobility, and you can'tmaintain church authority while
advancing secular education.
So Colombia spends the entire19th century fighting civil wars
to determine which vision willprevail.
Not philosophical debates orelectoral competitions, actual
(15:56):
wars with armies and casualtiesand economic devastation.
The pattern becomesdepressingly predictable.
The party in power governs notfor the nation but for its
supporters, systematicallyexcluding the opposition from
political participation,economic opportunities and even
basic civil rights.
The excluded party buildsresentment until it explodes
(16:20):
into armed rebellion.
The insurance civil wardevastates the country, exhausts
both sides and leads to anegotiated settlement that
temporarily restores theexcluded party to power, only
for the cycle to begin again theWar of the Supremes 1839-1842,
(16:40):
the Civil War of 1851, the Warof 1860-1862, the War of the
Schools 1876-1877.
Each conflict follows the samescript Political exclusion leads
to armed rebellion, which thenleads to brutal repression,
which then leads to temporaryaccommodation and finally leads
(17:02):
back to political exclusion.
By the 1890s, colombia hasperfected the art of cyclical
self-destruction, but the worstis yet to come.
General Rafael Uribe Uribestands in the ruins of what was
(17:23):
once the prosperous town ofPeralonso.
We are in Santander in Novemberof 1900.
He is surveying the aftermathof the bloodiest battle yet
fought on Colombian soil.
The liberal army he leads hasjust suffered a catastrophic
defeat.
That's not what horrifies him.
What horrifies him is what hisown soldiers did to the
(17:45):
conservative prisoners theycaptured.
The bodies are arranged in neatrows, but they're no longer
intact.
Hands have been severed andplaced on chest, eyes have been
gouged out and arranged in piles.
Some corpses have beendecapitated, their heads mounted
on stakes around the town plaza, like a medieval European
(18:07):
battlefield.
This isn't military strategy.
It is ritualized butcherydesigned to terrorize not just
enemy soldiers but entirecommunities.
Uribe Uribe, who consideredhimself a civilized man fighting
for democratic principles,stares at this monument to
savagery and realizes that thewar has transformed into
(18:28):
something beyond his control.
In his memoirs he would laterwrite we began fighting for
political principles.
We ended fighting for thepleasure of causing pain.
The War of a Thousand Days,which actually lasted 1,130 days
from October of 1899 toNovember of 1902, represents the
(18:53):
culmination of everything thathad been building in Colombian
society since independence.
All the regional tensions, allthe ideological divisions, all
the accumulated resentments andgrievances finally exploded into
a conflict that consumed thenation like a fever, exploded
into a conflict that consumedthe nation like a fever.
The immediate trigger was, asusual, a disputed election.
(19:15):
The conservative candidate,manuel Antonio San Clemente, was
declared the winner of the 1898presidential race amid
widespread accusations of fraud.
But this time the liberals hadreached their breaking point.
Excluded from power for eightconsecutive years, watching
their supporters systematicallypersecuted, decided that
(19:36):
democracy was impossible underconservative rule.
The war began with liberaluprisings in Santander and
quickly spread across thecountry.
This wasn't a limited conflictof previous civil wars.
This was total war, a conflictwhere military strategy merged
with social revolution, whereregional grievances fused with
(19:57):
ideological fanaticism, wherethe very concept of civilian
immunity disappeared.
What made the War of a ThousandDays uniquely devastating was
his intimate brutality.
This wasn't armies fighting indistant battlefields.
It was neighbors, killingneighbors, often with personal
knowledge of their victims'families, their histories, their
(20:20):
individual vulnerabilities.
Take the massacre at LaChorrera in March of 1901.
Conservative forces surroundeda liberal village suspected of
providing supplies to guerrillafighters.
Instead of simply burning thesupplies, they decided to send a
message Every male over the ageof 12 was herded into the town,
(20:42):
church Doors were barred fromthe outside and the building was
set on fire.
As the roof collapsed and thescreaming stopped, conservative
soldiers bayoneted anyone whotried to escape.
But the liberals were equallysavage.
After their victory at theBattle of Los Cuchillos, they
captured nearly 200 conservativesoldiers and civilians.
(21:04):
Instead of taking prisoners,they organized what witnesses
described as a celebration ofvengeance.
Prisoners they organized whatwitnesses described as a
celebration of vengeance.
Captives were tortured forhours before being killed, but
particularly creative methodsreserved for anyone identified
as a local conservative leader.
One survivor's accountpreserved in the archives of the
(21:25):
National Library in Colombiadescribes how a conservative
mayor was forced to watch histeenage sons being dismembered
before being buried alive withtheir severed limbs.
The liberal commanderresponsible reportedly said he
wanted the man to die knowingthat his family line had been
extinguished.
This level of personal crueltyrequired more than political
(21:50):
disagreement.
It required genuine hatred.
And that hatred didn't emergespontaneously.
It was the product of decadesof systematic exclusion, where
conservatives and liberals hadbeen taught to see each other
not as fellow Colombians withdifferent ideas, but as
existential enemies whose veryexistence threatened their own
survival.
(22:10):
But the wars most lastingimpact wasn't military, it was
psychological.
An entire generation ofColombians learned that
political differences justifiedunlimited violence.
Children who witnessed themassacres grew up believing that
compromise was weakness, thattolerance was betrayal, that
(22:30):
tolerance was betrayal, that theonly way to resolve conflict
was through the completedestruction of your enemies.
José María Samper, aconservative intellectual who
lived through the war, capturedthis transformation in his diary
.
We entered this conflict asColombians who disagreed about
governance.
We emerged as tribes whohappened to share the same
(22:52):
geography.
When the war finally ended,with the Treaty of Netherlandia
in November of 1902, thecasualty figures were staggering
.
Conservative estimates put thedeath toll at 100,000, roughly
2.5% of Colombia's entirepopulation.
(23:14):
Liberal estimates reached ashigh as 180,000.
Either way, proportionately, itwas one of the deadliest
conflicts in Latin Americanhistory.
But the numbers only tell partof the story.
The war also destroyedColombia's economic
infrastructure, devastated itsinternational reputation and
(23:37):
created the conditions forPanama's succession in 1903, a
humiliation that convinced manyColombians that their nation was
fundamentally ungovernable.
More importantly, itestablished violence as the
default mechanism for resolvingpolitical disputes.
The generation that survivedthe War of a Thousand Days
(23:59):
raised children who understoodthat when politics failed, war
began.
Those children would repeat thepattern during La Violencia.
Their children would joinguerrilla movements in the 1960s
.
Their grandchildren wouldbecome narco-traffickers in the
1980s.
The war did not resolve any ofColombia's fundamental problems.
(24:21):
It just taught Colombians thatproblems were resolved through
bloodshed rather than compromise.
The banana plantationsstretched to the horizon under
the Caribbean sun, neat rows ofgreen that represent both
Colombia's integration into theglobal economy and its
(24:43):
continuing dependence on foreigncapital.
We are in the Magdalenaprovince in December of 1928.
In the company town of Cienega,thousands of workers have
gathered not to celebrate theChristmas season, but to demand
something revolutionary theright to be treated as human
(25:08):
beings rather than productionunits.
The United Fruit Company, theAmerican corporation that
controls vast swaths ofColombia's most fertile land,
has created what economies wouldlater recognize as a perfect
model of extractive capitalism.
Colombian workers plant, tendand harvest bananas that are
shipped to American and Europeanmarkets, generating enormous
profits that flow back to Bostonboardrooms, while leaving local
(25:31):
communities in perpetualpoverty.
The company pays its workersnot in money but in script,
redeemable only at companystores that charge inflated
prices for basic necessities.
Workers live in company housing, buy from company stores, send
their children to companyschools and receive medical care
(25:51):
from company doctors.
It's a total system designed toensure that every peso of
worker wages eventually returnsto company coffers.
But by 1928, the workers havehad enough.
Led by organizers who'd beensecretly building unions despite
company prohibitions, theyformulated a set of demands that
(26:13):
sound modest by modernstandards but represent a
fundamental challenge to thesystem Actual wages instead of
script, sunday as a day of rest,medical care for work-related
injuries and recognition oftheir rights to organize.
The Colombian government'sresponse reveals everything
(26:34):
about the nature of politicalpower in early 20th century
Colombia.
Instead of mediating betweenworkers and management,
officials immediately side withthe company.
General Carlos Cortes Vargas isdispatched with army units to
break the strike, and his ordersare unambiguous Restore order
(26:54):
at any cost.
On the night of December 5th,soldiers surround the central
plaza of Cienega, where strikingworkers have gathered for a
peaceful assembly.
What happens next becomes oneof the most defining moments in
Colombian history, not justbecause of the immediate horror,
but because of how it's coveredup and what that cover-up
(27:17):
reveals about the relationshipbetween power and truth in
Colombia.
And what that cover-up revealsabout the relationship between
power and truth in Colombia.
Without warning, withoutnegotiation, without even an
order to disperse, the soldiersopened fire on the crowd.
The official government reportwould later claim that only nine
people died.
Eyewitness accounts suggest thenumber was closer to 2,000.
(27:38):
The truth probably liessomewhere in between, but the
exact figure matters less thanwhat it represents.
The stories about the massacrefrom his grandfather would later
(27:59):
immortalize the event in 100years of solitude.
In his fictional version, thegovernment doesn't just cover up
the casualty count, it erasesthe event entirely, convincing
the population that the massacrenever happened at all.
And this isn't just literarymetaphor, it's historical
analysis.
(28:19):
The Banana Massacre revealedthat in Colombia, truth itself
was a political weapon.
Those in power didn't justcontrol resources and
institutions, they controlledthe narrative, determining not
just what was legal but what wasreal.
The massacre's impact onColombian politics was immediate
(28:40):
and profound.
It discredited the conservativegovernment's claim to represent
order and stability, itradicalized a generation of
liberal politicians whoconcluded that meaningful reform
was impossible within existinginstitutions.
And it demonstrated to ruralcommunities across Colombia that
the state would use unlimitedviolence to preserve economic
(29:01):
arrangements that kept them inpoverty.
Among those deeply affected wasa young liberal lawyer named
Jorge Eliezer Gaitan.
Born in the urban middle classbut raised on stories of rural
oppression, gaitan saw in theBanana Massacre proof that
(29:22):
Colombia's problems were notjust political.
They were structural.
The system itself was designedto extract wealth from the many
for the benefit of the few, andthat system would defend itself
with whatever violence wasnecessary.
Gaitan spent the next twodecades building a political
movement that promised tofundamentally transform
(29:43):
Colombian society, not throughrevolution but through democracy
, not through violence butthrough the mobilization of
popular will.
He believed that if enoughColombians understood how the
system worked against theirinterests, they would vote to
change it.
System worked against theirinterests, they would vote to
(30:04):
change it.
By 1948, gaitan was the mostpopular politician in Colombia
and the odds-on favorite to winthe next presidential election.
His rallies drew crowds ofunprecedented size.
His radio speeches werebroadcast to packed public
squares across the country.
For the first time sinceindependence, it seemed possible
that Colombia might resolvethese fundamental contradictions
through peaceful, democraticmeans.
(30:24):
That's when three bullets on aBogotá street ended not just
Gaitán's life, but Colombia'slast best hope for avoiding the
violence that was about toconsume it.
Jorge Eliezer Gaitán collapseson Carrera Séptima.
(30:52):
We are in Bogotá on April 9 of1948 at 1.15 pm.
His blood is spreading acrossthe sidewalk as crowds gather
around his body.
Juan Roacera, the assassin,tries to flee, but makes it only
three blocks before an enragedmob catches him.
And they don't just kill him,they dismember him, dragging
(31:19):
pieces of his body through thestreets, as if violence could
somehow resurrect their fallenleader.
Within hours, bogota is burning.
Crowds armed with machetes andMolotov cocktails attack
government buildings,conservative newspaper offices
and anything else thatrepresents the system that they
believe has murdered theirchampion.
The presidential palace comesunder siege.
The radio stations broadcastcalls for revolution For 48
(31:44):
hours.
The Colombian state effectivelyceases to exist.
This was called El Bogotazo,and these riots were so
significant because it's notjust an urban uprising.
It's the moment when all ofColombia's accumulated tension
finally reached critical mass.
As news of Gaitan'sassassination spreads through
(32:06):
radio and telegraph, ruralcommunities across the country
also explode in violence.
Peasants attack conservativelandowners.
Conservative militias retaliateagainst liberal villages.
Local police forces choosesides based on political
affiliation rather than legalauthority.
Within weeks, colombia hascollapsed into what historians
(32:27):
will come to know as LaViolencia, a civil conflict that
would last for nearly a decadeand kill roughly 200,000 people.
This is the violence thatcreates the psychological
conditions for everything thatfollows the revolutionary
guerrilla movements of the 1960s, the paramilitary death squads
(32:50):
of the 1980s, the narco-cartelwars of the 90s and 80s.
Because la violencia doesn'tjust kill people.
It kills the idea thatColombians can resolve their
differences throughinstitutional means.
A generation grows up learningthat political participation is
literally a matter of life anddeath, that compromise is
(33:12):
betrayal, that the only way toprotect your family, your
community, your way of life isthrough the organized
application of violence.
In our next episode, we'llwitness how La Violencia
transforms from spontaneousuprising into organized civil
war, creating the ideologicaland institutional foundations
(33:33):
for the guerrilla movements thatstill operate in Colombia today
.
We'll also see how a nationthat seemed poised for
democratic transformationinstead chose the path of mutual
destruction, and how thatchoice continues to shape
Colombian society more than halfa century later.
Next time on Double Helix LaViolencia and the birth of the
(33:58):
guerrilla movements that wouldtransform Colombia from a
struggling democracy into theworld's longest-running active
conflict zone.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
We will see you soon.
(34:47):
©.
Transcript Emily Beynon.
This episode contains detailed descriptions of
extreme violence that somelisteners may find deeply
disturbing.
Listener discretion is advised.
Bogota, april 9th 1948, 1.05 pm.
(00:22):
The typewriter keys strike withmechanical precision in the
cramped office of El Tiempo,colombia's most influential
newspaper.
Jorge Eliezer, gaitán'ssecretary, finishes typing his
schedule for this afternoon alunch meeting at the Granada
Hotel, followed by a speech atPlaza de Bolívar, where
(00:46):
thousands of workers areexpected to gather.
The man they call the Tribuneof the People has been receiving
death threats for months, buttoday feels different.
There's electricity in the air,the kind that precedes either
revolution or catastrophe Timethat precedes either revolution
(01:07):
or catastrophe.
Three blocks away, in theornate halls of the conservative
club, a different kind oftension simmers.
Wealthy landowners from acrossColombia have gathered for what
they euphemistically call apolitical coordination meeting.
But the conversation isn'tabout coordination, it's about
(01:29):
elimination.
Haitan's radical platformpromising land redistribution
and workers' rights, hasterrified them into
unprecedented unity.
As one hacendado from Antioquiaputs it to his companions, that
mestizo agitator threatenseverything our families have
built for centuries.
Something must be done.
(01:52):
At exactly 1.10 pm, gaitan stepsout of his law office on
Carrera Septima, bustling heartof Bogotá.
He's a compact man withpenetrating eyes and the callous
hands of someone who rose frompoverty through sheer
intellectual force.
As he walks towards his lunchappointment, passers-by call out
(02:13):
Jefe, jefe, chief.
Their faces light up with thedesperate hope of people who
believe, perhaps for the firsttime in their lives, that
someone in power actuallyunderstands their suffering.
Behind them, unnoticed in thecrowd, a young man named Juan
(02:36):
Roa Sierra follows with his handinside his jacket, fingering
the grip of a .38 caliberrevolver.
His eyes are wild with thefanaticism of someone who
believes he's about to changehistory.
In his mind, he's notcommitting murder, he's
performing surgery on the bodypolitic, cutting out a cancer
(02:57):
before it can metastasize.
But neither man knows at thismoment.
These few blocks, these crucialminutes, will determine whether
Colombia finds its path todemocracy or plunges into a half
century of violence that willcost hundreds of thousands of
lives and leave scars thathaven't healed to this
(03:19):
day.
At 1.15pm, three shots ring outon Caldera Septima.
The tribune of the peoplecollapses on the sidewalk, his
blood mixing with the rain thathas begun to fall on the capital
(03:40):
.
Within hours, bogota will be inflames.
Within days, rural Colombiawill explode into the
fratricidal nightmare known asLa Violencia.
And within decades, the singleassassination will spawn
guerrilla armies, paramilitarydeath squads and narco cartels.
(04:00):
That will transform Colombiainto the world's laboratory for
every conceivable form ofpolitical violence.
But to understand how threebullets on a Bogota street could
unleash such havoc, we need togo back to the beginning, back
to the moment when Colombia wasborn, already fractured, already
(04:23):
carrying within its DNA theseeds of perpetual
conflict.
This is part one of our serieson the Colombian conflict the
roots of rebellion.
You know how they say you can'tunderstand someone until you
walk a mile in their shoes.
(04:44):
You know how they say you can'tunderstand someone until you
walk a mile in their shoes.
Well, I'd argue, you can'tunderstand a nation until you've
walked through its history, notjust the highlight reel or the
sanitized version you find intextbooks.
I mean really getting into itsDNA, those defining moments that
shaped everything that cameafter, those moments where paths
were chosen, where decisionswere made in palaces and
(05:06):
backrooms and city streets thatchanged the course of millions
of lives.
I'm your host, paul, and thisis Double Helix Blueprint of
Nations, where we unravel thegenetic code of countries
through their mosttransformative moments.
Think of it like ancestrytesting, but for entire nations.
We dig deep into the historicalDNA, finding those crucial
(05:31):
moments that made countries whothey are
today.
When people think aboutColombia, they think about
coffee.
They think about Colombia.
They think about coffee.
They think about soccer, aboutGabriel Garcia Marquez, about
the rhythms of vallenato musicdrifting through the Caribbean
(05:54):
coastal towns.
But if they're being honest,brutally honest, many of them
also think about violence, aboutPablo Escobar and the cocaine
cartels, about kidnappings andmassacres and a seemingly
endless war that has raged forso long that most Colombians
can't remember what peaceactually feels like.
(06:14):
This isn't Colombia's fault.
It's the byproduct of aconflict so complex, so deeply
rooted in the nation's foundingcontradictions, that it's
consumed entire generationstrying to understand it, let
alone resolve it.
Today we begin our explorationof that conflict, not just its
modern manifestations, but itshistorical DNA, the patterns
(06:39):
embedded in Colombians'political genetics that turn
what should have been afunctioning democracy into one
of the world's longest-runningcivil wars.
Because here's what makesColombia's tragedy so profound
it didn't have to happen thisway.
This is not a story of ancientethnic hatreds or inevitable
(06:59):
resource conflicts, but it is astory about choices political
choices, economic choices, moralchoices made by people who
prioritize short-term advantageover long-term stability.
It's about a society that,again and again, chose violence
over compromise, exclusion overinclusion, regional loyalty over
(07:22):
national unity.
And so today we explore theroots of rebellion, how a nation
born in the fires ofindependence managed to embed
civil war so deeply into itsinstitutional DNA that conflict
became not the exception, butthe rule the rule.
(07:49):
We are in Santa Fe de Bogota,july 20th of 1810.
In the Plaza Mayor, crowdsgather as news spread that the
Spanish Viceroy has been deposed.
Colombia's independence hasbegun not with a declaration,
but with a riot over a flowervase, a Spanish merchant's
(08:11):
refusal to lend decorative itemsfor a patriot celebration.
It's an absurdly trivialcatalyst for revolution, except
it perfectly captures what willbecome Colombia's defining
characteristic the ability totransform minor disagreements
into existential conflicts.
But even as Colombianscelebrate their liberation from
(08:33):
Spanish rule, the seeds offuture conflict are already
being implanted In backrooms andcoffeehouses across the nascent
republic.
Two fundamentally incompatiblevisions of the future are taking
shape.
Picture the scene In one salon,the centralists gather around
(09:00):
maps of the new republic,drawing lines that consolidate
power in Bogota.
These are urban elites educatedin European philosophy who
believe that only a strongcentral government can hold
together a territory stretchingfrom the Caribbean coast to the
Amazon basin.
They look at the chaos of theindependence wars and conclude
(09:21):
that what Colombia really needsis order, french-style
administrative efficiencyimposed from the capital.
Just three blocks away, theFederalists meet in a merchant's
warehouse, surrounded by goodsthat arrive from different
provinces.
These are regional leaders,landowners from Antioquia and
(09:41):
Cauca Traders from the coast,who understand that Colombia's
geography makes centralizedcontrol not just impractical but
impossible.
They've seen how Spanishcolonial administration
collapsed when communicationsbroke down, and they want a
confederation that respectslocal autonomy.
Both groups are patriots, bothwant an independent Colombia,
(10:05):
but they're deciding twocompletely different countries,
and neither is willing tocompromise.
The period historians call LaPatria Boba, the Foolish
Fatherland, lasts from 1810 to1816.
And it established patternsthat will haunt Colombia for the
next two centuries.
During these six years, the newrepublic has not one
(10:29):
constitution, but two thecentralist constitution of
Cundinamarca and the federalistconstitution of the United
Provinces of New Granada.
Think about what this means.
Colombia isn't just politicallydivided, it is constitutionally
(10:50):
schizophrenic Two competinglegal frameworks, two
incompatible theories ofgovernment trying to operate in
the same territorysimultaneously no-transcript.
The military consequences areimmediate and catastrophic.
(11:10):
When Spanish forces launchedtheir reconquests in 1815, they
don't face a unified republic,but a collection of squabbling
city-states.
At the crucial Battle ofChakiri, patriot forces collapse
not because they're outnumbered, but because the Bogotá and
Cartagena militias refuse tocoordinate their strategies.
(11:31):
Colombian independence dies notfrom Spanish strength, but from
Colombian disunity.
Here's what makes this periodso significant.
It isn't just about thepolitical chaos.
It's the moment when Colombia'sfundamental contradictions get
written into its institutionalDNA the tension between central
(11:52):
authority and regional autonomy,between urban sophistication
and rural traditionalism,between those who believe
government should impose orderand those who believe it should
reflect local preferences.
These are not just policydisagreements.
They're competing philosophiesabout what Colombia should be,
and once they're embedded in thepolitical culture, they prove
(12:15):
impossible to resolve throughnormal democratic processes.
Instead, they get settledthrough violence, establishing
the precedent that whenColombians disagree
fundamentally, they reach forweapons rather than balance.
Eduardo Santos, the historianand future president, would
later write In those six yearsof the foolish fatherland, we
(12:38):
established our nationaltradition of making the perfect
the enemy of the good.
We chose ideological purityover practical governance.
We've been paying the priceever since.
We've been paying the priceever since.
When Simón Bolívar finallyliberates Colombia in 1819, he
inherits not just Spanishcolonial problems, but uniquely
(12:59):
Colombian ones.
The country he's fighting tocreate has already demonstrated
its capacity forself-destruction.
We are in Bogotá, 1831.
Simón Bolívar is dead and withhim dies the dream of Gran
(13:22):
Colombia, the unified republicthat was supposed to stretch
from Venezuela to Peru.
As this massive confederationfragments into separate nations,
the rump state that becomes theRepublic of New Granada faces a
choice that will define itsnext century Learn from the
failures of the past or repeatthem on an even grander scale.
(13:44):
Colombia chooses repetition.
What emerges isn't a stabledemocracy, but a political
machine designed to perpetuateconflict.
The old centralists transforminto the conservative party,
while the federalists become theliberals.
This isn't just rebranding, itis weaponization.
(14:04):
These are not just politicalparties in any modern sense.
They are tribal affiliationspassed down through generations,
complete with their ownnewspapers, their own militias
and their own incompatiblevisions of Colombian identity.
The conservatives draw theirpower from the alliance between
large landowners, the CatholicChurch and urban merchants, who
(14:26):
benefit from stable hierarchies.
They believe Colombia needsstrong central authority to
prevent regional chaos, but theydefine order as the
preservation of colonial socialstructures.
For them, the ideal Colombia isone where everyone knows their
place, the church provides moralguidance, the hacendados
(14:47):
control rural labor, andpolitical power remains
concentrated among familieswho've held it since Spanish
times.
The Liberals represent acompletely different Colombia,
one where individual meritmatters more than family lineage
, where economic modernizationbreaks down traditional barriers
, where education and democracycreate opportunities for social
(15:10):
mobility.
Where education and democracycreate opportunities for social
mobility, they draw support fromurban professionals, small
landowners and the emergingmiddle class who see traditional
hierarchies as obstacles toprogress.
Neither vision is inherentlyevil, but they are mutually
exclusive.
You can't have both centralizedorder and federalist autonomy.
You can't preserve traditionalhierarchies while promoting
(15:36):
social mobility, and you can'tmaintain church authority while
advancing secular education.
So Colombia spends the entire19th century fighting civil wars
to determine which vision willprevail.
Not philosophical debates orelectoral competitions, actual
(15:56):
wars with armies and casualtiesand economic devastation.
The pattern becomesdepressingly predictable.
The party in power governs notfor the nation but for its
supporters, systematicallyexcluding the opposition from
political participation,economic opportunities and even
basic civil rights.
The excluded party buildsresentment until it explodes
(16:20):
into armed rebellion.
The insurance civil wardevastates the country, exhausts
both sides and leads to anegotiated settlement that
temporarily restores theexcluded party to power, only
for the cycle to begin again theWar of the Supremes 1839-1842,
(16:40):
the Civil War of 1851, the Warof 1860-1862, the War of the
Schools 1876-1877.
Each conflict follows the samescript Political exclusion leads
to armed rebellion, which thenleads to brutal repression,
which then leads to temporaryaccommodation and finally leads
(17:02):
back to political exclusion.
By the 1890s, colombia hasperfected the art of cyclical
self-destruction, but the worstis yet to come.
General Rafael Uribe Uribestands in the ruins of what was
(17:23):
once the prosperous town ofPeralonso.
We are in Santander in Novemberof 1900.
He is surveying the aftermathof the bloodiest battle yet
fought on Colombian soil.
The liberal army he leads hasjust suffered a catastrophic
defeat.
That's not what horrifies him.
What horrifies him is what hisown soldiers did to the
(17:45):
conservative prisoners theycaptured.
The bodies are arranged in neatrows, but they're no longer
intact.
Hands have been severed andplaced on chest, eyes have been
gouged out and arranged in piles.
Some corpses have beendecapitated, their heads mounted
on stakes around the town plaza, like a medieval European
(18:07):
battlefield.
This isn't military strategy.
It is ritualized butcherydesigned to terrorize not just
enemy soldiers but entirecommunities.
Uribe Uribe, who consideredhimself a civilized man fighting
for democratic principles,stares at this monument to
savagery and realizes that thewar has transformed into
(18:28):
something beyond his control.
In his memoirs he would laterwrite we began fighting for
political principles.
We ended fighting for thepleasure of causing pain.
The War of a Thousand Days,which actually lasted 1,130 days
from October of 1899 toNovember of 1902, represents the
(18:53):
culmination of everything thathad been building in Colombian
society since independence.
All the regional tensions, allthe ideological divisions, all
the accumulated resentments andgrievances finally exploded into
a conflict that consumed thenation like a fever, exploded
into a conflict that consumedthe nation like a fever.
The immediate trigger was, asusual, a disputed election.
(19:15):
The conservative candidate,manuel Antonio San Clemente, was
declared the winner of the 1898presidential race amid
widespread accusations of fraud.
But this time the liberals hadreached their breaking point.
Excluded from power for eightconsecutive years, watching
their supporters systematicallypersecuted, decided that
(19:36):
democracy was impossible underconservative rule.
The war began with liberaluprisings in Santander and
quickly spread across thecountry.
This wasn't a limited conflictof previous civil wars.
This was total war, a conflictwhere military strategy merged
with social revolution, whereregional grievances fused with
(19:57):
ideological fanaticism, wherethe very concept of civilian
immunity disappeared.
What made the War of a ThousandDays uniquely devastating was
his intimate brutality.
This wasn't armies fighting indistant battlefields.
It was neighbors, killingneighbors, often with personal
knowledge of their victims'families, their histories, their
(20:20):
individual vulnerabilities.
Take the massacre at LaChorrera in March of 1901.
Conservative forces surroundeda liberal village suspected of
providing supplies to guerrillafighters.
Instead of simply burning thesupplies, they decided to send a
message Every male over the ageof 12 was herded into the town,
(20:42):
church Doors were barred fromthe outside and the building was
set on fire.
As the roof collapsed and thescreaming stopped, conservative
soldiers bayoneted anyone whotried to escape.
But the liberals were equallysavage.
After their victory at theBattle of Los Cuchillos, they
captured nearly 200 conservativesoldiers and civilians.
(21:04):
Instead of taking prisoners,they organized what witnesses
described as a celebration ofvengeance.
Prisoners they organized whatwitnesses described as a
celebration of vengeance.
Captives were tortured forhours before being killed, but
particularly creative methodsreserved for anyone identified
as a local conservative leader.
One survivor's accountpreserved in the archives of the
(21:25):
National Library in Colombiadescribes how a conservative
mayor was forced to watch histeenage sons being dismembered
before being buried alive withtheir severed limbs.
The liberal commanderresponsible reportedly said he
wanted the man to die knowingthat his family line had been
extinguished.
This level of personal crueltyrequired more than political
(21:50):
disagreement.
It required genuine hatred.
And that hatred didn't emergespontaneously.
It was the product of decadesof systematic exclusion, where
conservatives and liberals hadbeen taught to see each other
not as fellow Colombians withdifferent ideas, but as
existential enemies whose veryexistence threatened their own
survival.
(22:10):
But the wars most lastingimpact wasn't military, it was
psychological.
An entire generation ofColombians learned that
political differences justifiedunlimited violence.
Children who witnessed themassacres grew up believing that
compromise was weakness, thattolerance was betrayal, that
(22:30):
tolerance was betrayal, that theonly way to resolve conflict
was through the completedestruction of your enemies.
José María Samper, aconservative intellectual who
lived through the war, capturedthis transformation in his diary
.
We entered this conflict asColombians who disagreed about
governance.
We emerged as tribes whohappened to share the same
(22:52):
geography.
When the war finally ended,with the Treaty of Netherlandia
in November of 1902, thecasualty figures were staggering
.
Conservative estimates put thedeath toll at 100,000, roughly
2.5% of Colombia's entirepopulation.
(23:14):
Liberal estimates reached ashigh as 180,000.
Either way, proportionately, itwas one of the deadliest
conflicts in Latin Americanhistory.
But the numbers only tell partof the story.
The war also destroyedColombia's economic
infrastructure, devastated itsinternational reputation and
(23:37):
created the conditions forPanama's succession in 1903, a
humiliation that convinced manyColombians that their nation was
fundamentally ungovernable.
More importantly, itestablished violence as the
default mechanism for resolvingpolitical disputes.
The generation that survivedthe War of a Thousand Days
(23:59):
raised children who understoodthat when politics failed, war
began.
Those children would repeat thepattern during La Violencia.
Their children would joinguerrilla movements in the 1960s
.
Their grandchildren wouldbecome narco-traffickers in the
1980s.
The war did not resolve any ofColombia's fundamental problems.
(24:21):
It just taught Colombians thatproblems were resolved through
bloodshed rather than compromise.
The banana plantationsstretched to the horizon under
the Caribbean sun, neat rows ofgreen that represent both
Colombia's integration into theglobal economy and its
(24:43):
continuing dependence on foreigncapital.
We are in the Magdalenaprovince in December of 1928.
In the company town of Cienega,thousands of workers have
gathered not to celebrate theChristmas season, but to demand
something revolutionary theright to be treated as human
(25:08):
beings rather than productionunits.
The United Fruit Company, theAmerican corporation that
controls vast swaths ofColombia's most fertile land,
has created what economies wouldlater recognize as a perfect
model of extractive capitalism.
Colombian workers plant, tendand harvest bananas that are
shipped to American and Europeanmarkets, generating enormous
profits that flow back to Bostonboardrooms, while leaving local
(25:31):
communities in perpetualpoverty.
The company pays its workersnot in money but in script,
redeemable only at companystores that charge inflated
prices for basic necessities.
Workers live in company housing, buy from company stores, send
their children to companyschools and receive medical care
(25:51):
from company doctors.
It's a total system designed toensure that every peso of
worker wages eventually returnsto company coffers.
But by 1928, the workers havehad enough.
Led by organizers who'd beensecretly building unions despite
company prohibitions, theyformulated a set of demands that
(26:13):
sound modest by modernstandards but represent a
fundamental challenge to thesystem Actual wages instead of
script, sunday as a day of rest,medical care for work-related
injuries and recognition oftheir rights to organize.
The Colombian government'sresponse reveals everything
(26:34):
about the nature of politicalpower in early 20th century
Colombia.
Instead of mediating betweenworkers and management,
officials immediately side withthe company.
General Carlos Cortes Vargas isdispatched with army units to
break the strike, and his ordersare unambiguous Restore order
(26:54):
at any cost.
On the night of December 5th,soldiers surround the central
plaza of Cienega, where strikingworkers have gathered for a
peaceful assembly.
What happens next becomes oneof the most defining moments in
Colombian history, not justbecause of the immediate horror,
but because of how it's coveredup and what that cover-up
(27:17):
reveals about the relationshipbetween power and truth in
Colombia.
And what that cover-up revealsabout the relationship between
power and truth in Colombia.
Without warning, withoutnegotiation, without even an
order to disperse, the soldiersopened fire on the crowd.
The official government reportwould later claim that only nine
people died.
Eyewitness accounts suggest thenumber was closer to 2,000.
(27:38):
The truth probably liessomewhere in between, but the
exact figure matters less thanwhat it represents.
The stories about the massacrefrom his grandfather would later
(27:59):
immortalize the event in 100years of solitude.
In his fictional version, thegovernment doesn't just cover up
the casualty count, it erasesthe event entirely, convincing
the population that the massacrenever happened at all.
And this isn't just literarymetaphor, it's historical
analysis.
(28:19):
The Banana Massacre revealedthat in Colombia, truth itself
was a political weapon.
Those in power didn't justcontrol resources and
institutions, they controlledthe narrative, determining not
just what was legal but what wasreal.
The massacre's impact onColombian politics was immediate
(28:40):
and profound.
It discredited the conservativegovernment's claim to represent
order and stability, itradicalized a generation of
liberal politicians whoconcluded that meaningful reform
was impossible within existinginstitutions.
And it demonstrated to ruralcommunities across Colombia that
the state would use unlimitedviolence to preserve economic
(29:01):
arrangements that kept them inpoverty.
Among those deeply affected wasa young liberal lawyer named
Jorge Eliezer Gaitan.
Born in the urban middle classbut raised on stories of rural
oppression, gaitan saw in theBanana Massacre proof that
(29:22):
Colombia's problems were notjust political.
They were structural.
The system itself was designedto extract wealth from the many
for the benefit of the few, andthat system would defend itself
with whatever violence wasnecessary.
Gaitan spent the next twodecades building a political
movement that promised tofundamentally transform
(29:43):
Colombian society, not throughrevolution but through democracy
, not through violence butthrough the mobilization of
popular will.
He believed that if enoughColombians understood how the
system worked against theirinterests, they would vote to
change it.
System worked against theirinterests, they would vote to
(30:04):
change it.
By 1948, gaitan was the mostpopular politician in Colombia
and the odds-on favorite to winthe next presidential election.
His rallies drew crowds ofunprecedented size.
His radio speeches werebroadcast to packed public
squares across the country.
For the first time sinceindependence, it seemed possible
that Colombia might resolvethese fundamental contradictions
through peaceful, democraticmeans.
(30:24):
That's when three bullets on aBogotá street ended not just
Gaitán's life, but Colombia'slast best hope for avoiding the
violence that was about toconsume it.
Jorge Eliezer Gaitán collapseson Carrera Séptima.
(30:52):
We are in Bogotá on April 9 of1948 at 1.15 pm.
His blood is spreading acrossthe sidewalk as crowds gather
around his body.
Juan Roacera, the assassin,tries to flee, but makes it only
three blocks before an enragedmob catches him.
And they don't just kill him,they dismember him, dragging
(31:19):
pieces of his body through thestreets, as if violence could
somehow resurrect their fallenleader.
Within hours, bogota is burning.
Crowds armed with machetes andMolotov cocktails attack
government buildings,conservative newspaper offices
and anything else thatrepresents the system that they
believe has murdered theirchampion.
The presidential palace comesunder siege.
The radio stations broadcastcalls for revolution For 48
(31:44):
hours.
The Colombian state effectivelyceases to exist.
This was called El Bogotazo,and these riots were so
significant because it's notjust an urban uprising.
It's the moment when all ofColombia's accumulated tension
finally reached critical mass.
As news of Gaitan'sassassination spreads through
(32:06):
radio and telegraph, ruralcommunities across the country
also explode in violence.
Peasants attack conservativelandowners.
Conservative militias retaliateagainst liberal villages.
Local police forces choosesides based on political
affiliation rather than legalauthority.
Within weeks, colombia hascollapsed into what historians
(32:27):
will come to know as LaViolencia, a civil conflict that
would last for nearly a decadeand kill roughly 200,000 people.
This is the violence thatcreates the psychological
conditions for everything thatfollows the revolutionary
guerrilla movements of the 1960s, the paramilitary death squads
(32:50):
of the 1980s, the narco-cartelwars of the 90s and 80s.
Because la violencia doesn'tjust kill people.
It kills the idea thatColombians can resolve their
differences throughinstitutional means.
A generation grows up learningthat political participation is
literally a matter of life anddeath, that compromise is
(33:12):
betrayal, that the only way toprotect your family, your
community, your way of life isthrough the organized
application of violence.
In our next episode, we'llwitness how La Violencia
transforms from spontaneousuprising into organized civil
war, creating the ideologicaland institutional foundations
(33:33):
for the guerrilla movements thatstill operate in Colombia today
.
We'll also see how a nationthat seemed poised for
democratic transformationinstead chose the path of mutual
destruction, and how thatchoice continues to shape
Colombian society more than halfa century later.
Next time on Double Helix LaViolencia and the birth of the
(33:58):
guerrilla movements that wouldtransform Colombia from a
struggling democracy into theworld's longest-running active
conflict zone.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
We will see you soon.
(34:47):
©.
Transcript Emily Beynon.
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