19th of April Movement

Among the actions performed by the M-19, some significant events stand out. In a highly symbolic action, the M-19 stole one of the swords of Simon Bolivar from a museum in 1974, an event which was used by the group to symbolize what they called a civilian uprising against a regime perceived as unjust. M-19 promised to return the sword by 18 December 1990, the 160th anniversary of Bolivar's death. But the organization was unable to keep its pledge and was forced to admit it was no longer in possession of the sword. But in 1991, M-19 eventually returned the sword.[4]

On 15 February 1976, the M-19 kidnapped the union leader Jose Raquel Mercado, who was the president of Confederation of Workers of Colombia (CTC), charged him with selling out the interests of Colombian workers to U.S. imperialism, and sentenced him to death. The group accused Mercado of taking bribes and collaborating with the CIA. The M-19 had offered to "commute" the labor leader's death sentence if the government reinstated thousands of fired workers, gave public employees the right to strike and published a communique in 12 Colombian newspapers.[5] Mercado's body was wrapped in plastic, and propped up against a lamppost in a Bogota park.

On New Year's Eve 1979, the group dug a tunnel into a Colombian Army weapons depot, taking over 5000 weapons. It was considered one of the first signs of the group's true potential for armed action.

The group is also recognized for other high-profile activities, such as the Dominican embassy siege. The guerrillas stormed the Dominican Republic's embassy during a cocktail party on 27 February 1980. They took the largest recorded number of diplomats held hostage to date in Colombia, which accounted for 14 ambassadors, including the United States'. Eventually, after tense negotiations with the government of Julio César Turbay Ayala, the hostages were peacefully released and the hostage takers were allowed to leave the country for exile in Cuba. Some of them later returned and actively rejoined the M-19's activities. Many contemporary rumors and later accounts from the participants in this event have suggested that the Colombian government might have submitted to another of the M-19 demands, by allegedly giving the group 1 to 2.5 million U.S. dollars in exchange for the release of the hostages.

During the government of Belisario Betancur (1982–1986), Jaime Bateman Cayón, by then top leader of the M-19, proposed a meeting in Panama with the Colombian government toward solving the conflict. But Bateman died on 28 April 1983 in an airplane accident, apparently while on the way to Panama, and the negotiations were suspended.

The negotiations culminated with the Agreements of Corinto, Cauca. A ceasefire was agreed, as well as the continuation of dialogue for the future demobilization of the guerrilla detachment. Nevertheless, sectors of the army opposed to the agreements of La Uribe and Corinto were responsible for attacks against the life of main leaders Iván Marino Ospina, Antonio Navarro Wolff, Carlos Pizarro, Marcos Chalita, etc.

The M-19, as a guerrilla group, are also recognized as the perpetrators of Palace of Justice siege. In this attack, on 6 November 1985, some 300 lawyers, judges, and Supreme Court magistrates were taken hostage by 35 armed rebel commandos at the Palace of Justice, the building that houses the Supreme Court of Colombia. They demanded that president Belisario Betancur be tried by the magistrates for allegedly betraying the country's desire for peace. When this situation became publicly known, the Colombian Army surrounded the Palace of Justice's perimeter with soldiers and EE-9 Cascavel armored reconnaissance vehicles. Initially, the military attempted to negotiate with the hostage takers, but these efforts was ultimately unsuccessful, despite the desperate pleas of some of the more prominent hostages. One of them, Supreme Court President Alfonso Reyes Echandia, was able to contact a Bogota radio station via telephone, during which he begged the authorities to agree to "a ceasefire and dialogue with the rebels."[6]

The Betancur administration and its council found themselves in a difficult position. They were not willing to submit to the rebels' demands, as they allegedly believed that this would set a worrying precedent and considerably jeopardize the government's position. Eventually, after tense discussions, it was decided during an emergency meeting that the military would be allowed to handle the situation and attempt to recover the Palace by force.

This led to a highly controversial turn of events which, to a lesser or greater degree, continues to be debated in Colombia to this date. In the ensuing heavy crossfire between the incoming soldiers and the entrenched rebels, which included supporting gunfire from the EE-9 Cascavels, the building caught fire, more than 100 people died (including 11 of the country's 21 Supreme Court Justices),[7] and valuable legal records were destroyed.

The M-19 lost several of its top commanders during the event, and blamed the government for the ensuing bloodshed. The surviving civilian victims and their families held different positions; some blamed the M-19, some blamed the Betancur administration, many blamed both. There is apparently no clear consensus on the matter.

Author Ana Carrigan rejects the widely accepted version that drug lords, such as Pablo Escobar, may have masterminded the operation in order to get rid of several criminal investigations recorded in the documents lost during the event. A Special Commission of Inquiry, established by the Betancur government, released a June 1986 report which concluded that Escobar had no relation with this event, so these allegations could not be proven (though it did not rule out the possibility either). Carrigan alleged that the act was a conspiracy of the Colombian government.[8] Others state that the alleged Guerrilla-Cartel relation was unlikely to occur because the two organizations had several standoffs and confrontations, like the kidnapping of Nieves Ochoa, the sister of Medellin cartel founder Juan David Ochoa, by M-19.[9][10][11][12] The kidnapping led to the creation of the MAS/Muerte a Secuestradores ("Death to Kidnappers") paramilitary group by the Medellin cartel. However, her theories and skepticism of Escobar and the Medellin Cartel's involvement was greatly discredited by others such as Rex Hudson, who presented allegedly "overwhelming evidence" linking the cartel to the plot.[13]

Former Assistant of the Colombia Attorney General, National Deputy Comptroller, author and Professor Jose Mauricio Gaona along with Former Minister of Justice and Ambassador to the United Kingdom Carlos Medellín Becerra, the sons of two of the murdered Supreme Court magistrates, have pushed for further investigations into the presumed links between the M-19 and the Medellín Cartel drug lords. Mayor of Bogota Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla, has denied these accusations and dismissed them as based upon the inconsistent testimonies of drug lords. Petro says that the surviving members of the M-19 do admit to their share of responsibility for the tragic events of the siege, on behalf of the entire organization, but deny any links to the drug trade.[14]

• Carrigan, Ana. The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. ISBN 978-0-941423-82-3
• Vásquez Perdomo, María Eugenia. My Life as a Colombian Revolutionary: Reflections of a Former Guerrillera, Trans. Lorena Terando, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-59213-101-3