A century ago, Belisario Betancur, the conservative politician who became president of Colombia in 1982, was born in the mining region of Amagá. Study and culture were predominant features in his life, he sought peace with the insurgent movements and was the protagonist of two of the most painful events in recent national history: the Takeover of the Palace of Justice and the Armero catastrophe. At the end of his days, Betancur moved away from the political spotlight and assumed the role of godfather of numerous cultural activities and organizations, including the Casa de Poesía Silva and the Tercer Mundo publishing house.
In this special, EL COLOMBIANO publishes texts by Juan Luis Mejía and Mario Jursich Durán that address the former president’s personality from different angles. Both were close to Betancur at some point in his life and reveal facets of his personality.
It also includes a sample of the politician’s most beloved belongings: the books and paintings he donated to the Pontifical Bolivarian University. This tribute emphasizes the humanist side of a man who made his way in life through effort and discipline; a man who, as Mejía and Jursich agree, was the most liberal of the conservative politicians that Colombia has produced
In a flyer from the second campaign for the presidency of Belisario Betancur–which he lost in 1978 to Julio César Turbay–the origin of the politician is one of the features of his biography that is emphasized. The text reports that the conservative candidate was born in the mining region of Amagá, a municipality in the southwest of Antioquia, just over an hour by car from Medellín. This feature was and is always the first to be mentioned in his profiles, interviews, biographical notes. Belisarius was the incarnation of Self-Made Man –the man made by himself–: from rural poverty he passed to state command posts.
LOVE FOR STUDY AND BOOKS
The Pontifical Bolivarian University granted President Belisario Betancur the baccalaureate and law degrees. In his classrooms, the Antioquia politician polished the knowledge he received at the Amagá village school and at the Yarumal Missions Seminary. From a very young age, Betancur ventured into journalism and published literary essays in the Generación supplement of EL COLOMBIANO. Those writing skills were the ones that opened the first doors for him in politics and the Bogotá press. One of his first jobs in the capital of the Republic was in the newspaper El Siglo, owned by Laureano Gómez.
FROM SON OF PEASANTS TO DOCTOR OF LAW
He received his law degree in 1955 thanks to the thesis Approach to the economic order, which has an epigraph by Simone Weil: “All the misadventures that afflict men have gradually created zones of silence in which human beings find themselves locked up as if on an island”. That concern for development issues also made him found Anif. Betancur was convinced of the power of work to dignify human life.
In 2006, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the university, Betancur donated 13,000 volumes to his alma mater. With that mountain of books, the directors of the cloister opened the Belisario Betancur room in the library: there are the medals he received as president, the image that Pope John Paul II brought him in 1986, and a painting that he painted in his retirement. Also old books –one from 1606–, others signed by Fernando Vallejo, Otto Morales Benítez, León de Greiff and Gonzalo Arango. There are, according to the librarians, almost 30 different editions of Don Quixote, including one with a dedication by Betancur.
HIS COMMITMENT TO A COUNTRY WITHOUT POLITICAL PASSIONS
Betancur’s response to a rudeness by Alfonso López lasts in the memory of Colombians: “I’ve been sleeping with the enemy for half my life”, referring to the liberal affiliations of his first wife. Beyond the humor of the outing, Belisario Betancur began dialogues with different political actors, among them with the insurgent movements. His half with Rodrigo Arenas and León de Greiff are also well remembered, intellectuals who were in the antipodes of his political thought. His closest collaborators remember him as a man who valued the talent of people above their social origin and his partisan affiliations.
SEARCHED FOR THE FRIENDSHIP OF WRITERS AND ARTISTS
“He had contact with the great poets of this country: he was a friend of Jorge Rojas, of the teacher Carranza, of the Nadaists. He deeply admired people who were eager to learn and eager to write. He established an immediate connection with those people, ”says his eldest daughter Beatriz Betancur. “One saw him until the last days of his life reading and finding out things, but with delight, for him it was never an obligation. He enjoyed life, he enjoyed his books. He was a lover of reading and poetry, of course, ”concludes the eldest daughter of the former president.
A MAN WHO ENJOYED LIFE
When talking about her father’s last days, Beatriz Betancur tells an anecdote: “When my dad got sick, he took the texts of El Colombiano Ejemplar to the clinic. One day they had to take him to the emergency room and he asked for the texts because he needed to look at some. And when he was already so sick to die, he was looking at the texts of EL COLOMBIANO. A beauty, he had a commitment and he was going to fulfill it, he was not able to do it, but he was going to fulfill it, he had all the intentions”.