Manuel Cepeda Vargas (13 April 1930 — 9 August 1994) was a lawyer and

Senator of Colombia The Senate of the Republic of Colombia ( es, Senado de la República de Colombia) is the upper house of the Congress of Colombia, with the lower house being the House of Representatives. The Senate has 108 members elected for concurrent (non- ...

, gunned down in Bogotá on 9 August 1994 as part of a campaign against of the Patriotic Union. A

Communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

politician, he had been a Member of the

Chamber of Representatives of Colombia The Chamber of Representatives (Spanish: ''Cámara de Representantes'') is the lower house of the Congress of Colombia. It has 172 members elected to four-year terms. Electoral system According to the Colombian Constitution, the Chamber of R ...

from 1992 to 1994, and had served a sentence in prison because of his political ideology, charged for revolutionary activity.

Biography

Early life and education

Manuel Cepeda Vargas was born April 13, 1930, in

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...

, department of Quindío. While studying at the

Universidad del Cauca The Universidad del Cauca is a public institution of higher education located in the city of Popayán, capital of the department of Cauca, Colombia. It was created on April 24, 1827, by Decree by the President Francisco de Paula Santander, ci ...

, he joined the

Colombian Communist Party The Colombian Communist Party ( es, Partido Comunista Colombiano, PCC) is a legal communist party in Colombia. It was founded in 1930 as the Communist Party of Colombia, at which point it was the Colombian section of the Comintern, and change ...

in 1952.

Career

In 1958, at the VIII Congress of the Colombian Communist Party, he was elected to the party's Central Executive Committee. He was put in charge of rebuilding the Colombian Communist youth, JUCO, and was made that group's general secretary. In his work with JUCO, he worked with

Jaime Bateman Cayón Jaime Alfonso Bateman Cayón (23 April 1940– 28 April 1983), also known as "El flaco" (the skinny one) or Comandante Pablo (Commander Pablo) by his fellow guerrilleros, was a Colombian guerrilla leader and both founder and commander of the 19 ...

, Hernando González Acosta, Yira Castro (his future wife), Loyal Brown Jaime and Miller Chacón. Cepeda Vargas was jailed for revolutionary activity in 1964. While imprisoned in

La Modelo La Modelo (English: ''The Model rison') is a prison in Bogotá, Colombia. With 11,000 inmates, the facility is known for its violence. The prison's north wing accommodates left-wing rebels while the south wing has right-wing government supporte ...

, he wrote the poetry book ''Vencerás Marquetalia'' ("You will overcome Marquetalia"), a tribute to the

Marquetalia Republic "Marquetalia Republic" was an unofficial term used to refer to one of the enclaves in rural Colombia which communist peasant guerrillas held during the aftermath of "La Violencia" (approximately 1948 to 1958). Congressmen of the Colombian Conser ...

. He was a columnist for the weekly ''Proletarian Voice'' (later known as the ''Weekly Voice''), which he later directed. The paper continuously denounced the repression of the Colombian Communist Party (PCC), National Union of Opposition (UNO) and the Patriotic Union (UP). Cepeda Vargas was named Secretary General of the Colombian Communist Party in 1992, succeeding Álvaro Vásquez. He was elected to the

senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...

on the Patriotic Union ticket.

Marriage and children

He married Yira Castro in 1960. (She died in 1981.) The couple had two children: Iván Cepeda Castro and María Cepeda Castro.

Death and afterward

Manuel Cepeda Vargas was assassinated in the streets of Bogotá on August 9, 1994. A school in Bogotá and a

Western Bloc of the FARC-EP The Western Bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was the smallest of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's (FARC) blocs in size, although not in military capability. It was often held responsible for attacks that occurred in Cal ...

front are named in his honor, although his son Iván Cepeda Castro has repudiated the use of his father's name on the part of FARC and has repeatedly condemned the actions of that guerrilla organization, reiterated who “a right and democratic society, like which it loved my father, is not constructed to end of indiscriminate attacks against the civil populace ".

Published works

*''Vencerás Marquetalia'' (1964) *''Yira Castro : i bandera es la alegría'' (1983) *''Balada de los hombrecitos anónimos'' (Fondo Mixto de Promoción de la Cultura y las Artes del Cauca, c. 1995)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cepeda Vargas, Manuel 1930 births 1994 deaths People from Quindío Department 20th-century Colombian lawyers Colombian journalists Male journalists Members of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia Members of the Senate of Colombia Colombian Communist Party politicians Patriotic Union (Colombia) politicians People murdered in Colombia Assassinated Colombian politicians People from Armenia, Colombia 20th-century journalists