>>24338Hope it helps
<POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF CAMILO TORRES>Camilo’s lifeJorge Camilo Andres Torres was born in Bogotá the 3rd of February of 1929. His parents were Calixto Torres Umaña, a prestigious doctor, and Isabel Restrepo Gaviria. Coming from a wealthy, bourgueois and liberal family. Lived with his family in Europe, between 1931 and 1934. In 1937, the marriage dissolved and Camilo went to live with his mother and his brother Fernando.
He graduated as bachelor in the Cervantes Lycée in 1946. After studying a semester of law in the National University of Colombia, he was admitted to the Conciliar Seminary of Bogotá, were he remained seven years, time where Camilo began to be interested by the social reality, creating a group of social studies, along with his companion Gustavo Pérez. As a Christian, he felt attracted to the theme of poverty and social justice.
Camilo was ordained as priest in 1954, and later travelled to Belgium to study sociology at the University of Lovaina. During his stay in Europe, he made contact with the Christian Democracy, the Christian syndical movement and with the Algerian resistance groups in Paris, factors that made him grow close to the cause of the downtrodden. He founded with a group of Colombian students the ECISE (Colombian team of socioeconomic research).
In 1958 he graduated as a sociologist with the work “A statistical approximation to the socioeconomic reality of Bogotá” (published in 1987 as “The proletarianization of Bogotá”), that was one of the pioneers of urban sociology in the country. In 1959 he returns to Bogotá and his appointed chaplain of the National University. There, along with Orlando Fals Borda, founded the Sociology Faculty in 1960, where he was a professor.
His sociological researches initiated with his undergraduate thesis familiarised him with the urban as well as the rural social structures. He founded the Universitarian movement of communal promotion (MUNIPROC), and developed research works and of social action in popular and worker’s neighborhoods of Bogotá, as the Tunjuelito neighbourhood. As chaplain, he introduced to Colombia many of the reforms of the II Vatican Council, as giving mass in front and not giving the back, to say it in Spanish and not in Latin. He preached that the problem was not praying more but loving more.
In 1961 he began to have problems with Cardinal Concha Córdoba, who did not see favourably the works of Camilo. The situation was turning a bit thourny, until the prelate destitute him of his charge as chaplain, of the academic research and the administrative functions he had in the National University.
He collaborated with the investigation headed by Germán Guzmán, published as “The violence in Colombia” (1962, second tome 1964). In 1963 he presented the essay “The violence and the sociocultural changes in the Colombian rural areas”, in the first National Congress of Sociology. He was part of the Agrarian Reform Colombian Institute (INCORA) and the Superior School of Public Administration (ESAP). Pressured by the high clergy, in 1965 renounced to priesthood.
That year, he proposes a platform for a movement of popular unity, forming in that way the political force “United Front of the People”. He develops many manifestations and public acts, and publishes the weekly newspaper “United Front”. He also made contact with the National Liberation Army, founded in 1964, with whom accorded the continuation of the political agitation in the cities, and his later entry to the organisation when it would be considered necessary.
The second semester of 1965 Camilo worked in building the United Front and the publication of the weekly newspaper of the movement (the “United Front”). Camilo filled public squares and had a vertiginous political ascent. He ratified absentationism as a revolutionary position.
After the state harassment and persecution, he linked with the ELN in November and launched “Proclaim to the Colombians”. In his first combat, the 15 of Febraury of 1966, dies in combat in Patiocemento, Santander. His mortal remains were buried in some clandestine tomb, unknown to this moment.
>POLITICAL THOUGHTCamilo formed part of an anti-establishment international church that develops in the decade of the 1960, turning him into one of his main figures. Well thought christianity, for Camilo, was supposed to be the creation of a just and egalitarian society. This translated to the obligation to do a profound revolution, that would strip the rich and exploiters (the oligarchy) of power, to give pass to a socialist society.
The principals propositions by Camilo Torres can be synthesised in this ideas around the national context: To transform the country and to achieve the wellness of the popular class is necessary free the country from north-american imperialism and from the oligarchy who serves their interest; is necessary the fusion, mobilisation and linking of poor sectors of the population to the fight for the construction of a new state. For this, it must be generated unity in the opposition and the revolutionary movement, joining the oppressed masses of the country; it must had the conviction to take the fight to the end facing all the consequences, and lastly, that christians do not only have the possibility of participating in the revolution, but that they have the obligation to do it (“the duty of all Christians is to be revolutionary, and the duty of all revolutionary is to do the revolution”).
Another fundamental element on Camilo’s thought was his effort to conciliate Christianity with Marxism, promoting a new type of society of socialist and christian character, based on the just distribution of wealth. “The Marxists fight for a new society, and we, the Christians, should be fighting by their side”.
All this process must be developed, as Camilo sets, from popular action, joining political activity with military one, and doing political and organisational actions from the masses, meaning, in a close relation with the people.
The formation of the political thought was in many stages. The first one, he had a catholic christian formation, but always connected to the social reality, and to the poverty situation of the Colombian population. Later he travelled to Europe where he was formed as a sociologist, but also made contact with the socialist world and the worker’s movement.
In his return to Colombia, Camilo proposed complementing his efforts to the wellness of the poor with research and scientific activities, using his knowledge of sociology. In this, he developed projects of social and communitarian action, in which he put to use his sociological knowledge in service of the poor sectors.
But his works were stopped and hindered by the governmental bureaucracy and the political regime, factors for which Camilo went to participate in the political camp, opposing the system of the National Front (1958-1974) in which the traditional parties, the liberal and conservative, shared power milimetrically, excluding the other political sectors. In this perspective, Camilo formed and promoted the “National Front of the People” where he searched to agglutinate all the revolutionary political forces, and of opposition around a “Platform of the United Front” that was 10 point about agrarian reform, urban reform, planning, tax politics, monetary politics, nationalisation, international relationships, health, family and armed forces.
The inability to achieve authentic and deep changes by peaceful and legal means, took Camilo to think about the necessity of armed struggle as a mean to stablish a new state and a new society, of a socialist character. For it he linked with the ELN, where he hoped to achieve the fulfilment of the revolution in Colombia, until he died in his first combat.*
His example inspired movements in christian sectors as the group “Golconda”, or the Chilean case of “Priests for Socialism”, promoting the rise of Salvador Allende, and of personalities as the father Ernesto Cardenal, participant of the sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, and in general, the basis eclesial communities, who conformed a new Latinoamerican church committed with revolutionary change, originating the movement known as “liberation theology”
Similarly, the example of Camilo was taken by committed priests who took the armed struggle, as the cases of the Spanish Domingo Laín and Manuel Pérez, who died fighting with the ELN (Pérez rose to be political commander of the organization, until he died of a disease in 1998).
Today, his example is kept in the revolutionary struggle that the ELN maintains since 38 years ago, and his thought remains in students, workers and farmers in all of Colombia and Latin America.
Edgar Camilo Rueda Navarro
2002
>BibliographyAbout Camilo there have been written many works that transcend all genres, were can be found essays, books, thesis, articles, reports, etc., as works at an international level. The most outstanding are:
SOTO APARICIO, Fernando. “La siembra de Camilo”. (novela). Bogotá, Plaza y Janés, 1971.
BRODERICK, Walter. “Camilo Torres. El cura guerrillero”. Bogotá, Círculo de lectores, 1977. {edición colombiana}
VILLANUEVA, Orlando. “Camilo. Acción y utopía”. Bogotá, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1995.
HABEGGER, Norberto. “Camilo Torres, el cura guerrillero”. Buenos Aires, Peña Lillo, 1967.
LÓPEZ, María. “Camilo camina en Colombia”. Bogotá, 1989.
TRUJILLO, Francisco. “Camilo y el Frente Unido”. Bogotá, 1987.
>**In an interview done by Marta Harnaecker and published with the title Unidad que multiplica [Unity that multiplies] (Quito, Editorial La Quimera, 1988) Rafael Ortiz, member of the Central Command of the Camilist Union Army of National Liberation (UCELN), explains the circumstances of the death of Camilo Torres:
“By linking with the armed struggle, he gets along immediately with the guerrilla life … In this circumstances, when an ambush was being planned, he himself argues that he has to participate arguing that if there are norms, he can not be outside of them … Camilo convinces Fabio and Medina and those resolve that he goes, but put him in the most secure place, meaning, the tip of the spear … The companions, thinking that the troop that was ambushed was already eliminated, gave the word to recover, but when Camilo goes to recover a weapon he is shot by one of the military troops that had fallen wounded. The ambush was a bit long and when they realise that Camilo has fallen they go to rescue him but it is too late … In this action five companions died trying to assist Camilo”
[Note from MIA]