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

Senator of Colombia The Senate of the Republic of Colombia () is the upper house of the Congress of Colombia, with the lower house being the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, Chamber 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 the Patriotic Union. A Communist party 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 ...

from 1992 to 1994. In 2010, the

Inter-American Court of Human Rights The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court H.R.) is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a human r ...

determined that Colombia violated the Inter-American Convention On Human Rights in their handling of Vargas's case.

Biography

Early life and education

Manuel Cepeda Vargas was born April 13, 1930, in

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, department of Quindío. While studying at the Universidad del Cauca, he joined the

Colombian Communist Party The Colombian Communist Party (, 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. The party is led by Jaime Caycedo and publi ...

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 The Colombian Communist Youth ( Spanish: ''Juventud Comunista Colombiana, JUCO)'' is a Communist, Marxist-Leninist, and Bolivarian Colombian youth organization, connected to the Colombian Communist Party (PCC). It is a member of the World Feder ...

(JUCO) and was made that group's general secretary. In his work with JUCO, he worked with Jaime Bateman Cayón, Hernando González Acosta, Yira Castro (his future wife), Jaime Pardo Leal 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 suppor ...

, 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 ...

. Vargas and his family were forced into exile in 1965, moving to Czechoslovakia. After the Prague Spring, they moved again to Cuba. The family returned to Colombia in 1970. 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 el ...

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. His killing was attributed to paramilitary groups that received support from individuals affiliated with the Colombian military. Two army officers were found guilty of his murder. A 2010 ruling by the

found the Colombian state had violated the Inter-American Convention On Human Rights in how they handled the investigation of Vargas's death. A school in Bogotá and a Western Bloc of the FARC-EP 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 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 Colombian journalists South American politicians assassinated in the 1990s Politicians assassinated in 1994 1994 murders in Colombia