Rebellion in the Colombian Llanos: The Arauca Affair of 1917

Abstract

On January 8, 1917 Bogotanos who glanced at the morning newspapers were startled to learn of a rebellion in the Llanos. Ten days before Humberto Gómez and a band of armed men had seized the town of Arauca. Ordinarily such an event would excite little concern in the capital. A small village on the Venezuelan border, Arauca was surrounded by vast tropical plains and lacked even a telegraph connection with Bogotá. It was a favorite refuge for Colombian and Venezuelan outlaws who routinely defied with impunity the laws of both countries. Yet Humberto, by killing the principal Colombian authority, the Comisario Especial and proclaiming himself Civil and Military Chief of the “Republic of Arauca” sounded a challenge that could not be ignored. Anxious to safeguard precarious treaty negotiations then in progress with Venezuela, President José Vicente Concha took swift action. He declared a state of siege and ordered two separate military expeditions commanded by General Jeśus García to Arauca. The daily periodicals gave full coverage to the ensuing drama. Their interest continued even after Humberto's capture in Venezuela on February 9, when eye-witness reports of atrocities committed in the Llanos by García's soldiers brought demands for an investigation. Between May and September, the editor of El Diario Nacional and future president, Enrique Olaya Herrera fanned the border incident into a major scandal by attacking the government in the columns of his newspaper and on the floor of the Chamber of Representatives. An analysis of what came to be called “The Arauca Affair” brings to light a little-known aspect of Concha's administration and explores a neglected theme of Colombian history—the interrelationship between the Andean interior and the Llanos frontier.