Legacy
of a Nonviolent
Political Leader
Governor
Gulliermo Gaviria
of Colombia
By
Glenn
D. Paige
President, Center for Global
Nonviolence, Honolulu
TFF
associate
June 11, 2003
The killing of Antioquia state Governor Guillermo
Gaviria Correa on May 5, 2003, among ten hostages
massacred by FARC guerrillas in reaction to a military
rescue attempt, deprived Colombia and the world of a
nonviolent political leader whose legacy is no less
significant than those of Gandhi and Martin Luther King,
Jr.
He was born in Medellín in 1962, eldest son of
a family prominent in politics, publishing and business.
A mining management specialist by training at the
Colorado School of Mines, after a decade of innovative
public service including as Antioquian Secretary of Mines
and General Director of the Colombian Roads Institute he
campaigned for "A New Antioquia" in 2000 and was
overwhelmingly elected Governor by 600,000 of six million
people in Colombia's most populous state.
Gaviria's brief but dynamic governorship was
profoundly rooted in the principles and practices of
nonviolence derived from his Christian faith and serious
study of the legacies of Gandhi and King. He explained,
"Nonviolence was born with Jesus Christ; it was followed
in the past century by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and
in this century it will be the light to guide the people
of Antioquia."
He understood Colombia's violence to be the result of
"imbalanced" political and socioeconomic conditions and
saw participatory nonviolence as a way to bring about
needed structural change. "Nonviolence is more than
simply no aggression and is more than putting an end to
terrorist attacks, kidnappings, threats, and blackmail.
Nonviolence aims to break silence and rise up out of
passiveness to build a balanced society of justice and
social well-being." He wanted all Antioquians to be
educated in nonviolence and trained in skills of putting
it into practice.
Unlike Gandhi and King, Gaviria as Governor was able
to combine the powers of government with those of popular
political leadership. He engaged more than 5,000 leaders
in a process to clarify Antioquia's priority problems and
to suggest solutions for them. This produced a Strategic
Plan of Action and a Congruent Peace Plan. Personally
leading marches and caravans, together with First Lady
Dr. Yolanda Pinto de Gaviria, he awakened citizen
participation for implementing action.
The most dramatic of these was the thousand person
March of Reconciliation and Solidarity to Caicedo, a
mountain coffee growing town 85 miles from the capital
Medellín, undertaken over five days from April 17
to 21, 2002. The March was intended to express solidarity
with the FARC-threatened people of Caicedo who had
declared themselves a nonviolent community and to seek
reconciliation with the guerrillas. The Governor had
ordered the police and army not to protect the March and
not to rescue him or retaliate if he were kidnapped or
killed. He had disagreed with Colombian President
Andrés Pastrana's February 23 decision to
terminate peace talks with the FARC.
On April 21, just short of Caicedo, the March was
stopped by the FARC. The Governor embraced his wife, both
knowing he might be kidnapped or killed, and went forward
with three companions to talk with the guerrillas. Six
hours later two returned with the news that the Governor
and his Peace Commissioner, former defense minister
Gilberto Echeverri Mejia, had been kidnapped. During his
year in captivity, the Governor expressed in messages to
his wife even greater commitment to nonviolence and said
that when free he intended to resume the March to
Caicedo.
Gaviria's tragic death on May 5, together with his
Peace Commissioner and eight captive soldiers, resulted
from the clash of two lethal ideologies. Righteous state
violence and righteous revolutionary violence. If either
side had understood his nonviolent message all ten would
be alive.
Guillermo Gaviria's unique legacy is that a
democratically elected political leader can courageously
work for nonviolent social justice from the "top down."
It is no less important than the courageous legacies of
Gandhi and King seeking freedom and justice from the
"bottom up." The convergence of these legacies offers the
best hope for the survival and well-being of humanity.
Transcending death, Gaviria's legacy continues to
challenge Colombia and the world in the slogan of the
March to Caicedo. " Sí…Hay un camino: la
Noviolencia." Yes, there is a way: Nonviolence.
TFF recommends the following links for more on
Governor Guillermo Gaviria Correa and his
nonviolence:
http://www.colombia-noviolencia.gov.co
http://www.forusa.org/Programs/Colombia/042302_ColumbiaAlert.html
http://www.wmd.org/alert/may902.html
http://news.amnesty.org/mavp/news.nsf/VwDocid/1A200855300DB73D80256D1E003DE389?openDocument
_________________________________________
Glenn D. Paige is the author of Nonkilling Global
Political Science (Xlibris 2002) and president of the
Center for Global Nonviolence in Honolulu.
©
TFF & the author 2003
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