Here we are on our last day in the country, huffing and puffing our way uphill towards the mansion -- this our final Bolivarian pilgrimage. The house sits at the base of the Bogota's soaring peak, Monserrate, amongst beautiful gardens full of palms, ferns and rhododendrons. After seven weeks of travelling through Colombia, we finally visit the Quinta Bolivar where El Liberatador lived on and off from 1810 to 1830.
Earlier in this blog I mentioned Simon Bolivar's sword and the tale of its theft from the Quinta Bolivar in 1974 by the then outlawed "terrorist" group, M-19 (now an established Leftist party in the Colombian parliament).
The original sword is now safely locked up somewhere in the bowels of the Banca de Republica, the government oddly superstitious and fearful about it disappearing again if placed on public display.
A replica of the sabre and its scabbard, has ironically been donated to the Colombian people by Hugo Chavez, President of the so-called, "Bolivarian Republic" of Venezuela and sits at the foot of El Liberatador's bed on display. I say "ironically", because it is well known that Chavez has secretly provided military and economic support -- and continues to fund -- Colombia's main guerilla group, the FARC, to the tune of millions.
The M-19, split from the FARC in 1974 precisely because the latter refused to support its audacious plan which at the time FARC considered irrelevant to its objectives and damaging to its image.
There is in fact quite a fascinating story behind the raid. One detail that caught my attention was the absurd lead-up to the theft. Once the decision was taken by the M-19 to steal the sword, an advertising campaign ensued with the guerrilla group placing curious messages in the major newspapers.
These ads placed in the papers on the 15, 16, and 17th of February, 1974, read:
“Parasites? Worms? Memory loss? M-19 is coming soon”.
People in the streets tried to guess what the M-19 was. Almost everyone though it was some kind of medicine for an itchy bottom.
Rumours of the "M-19" made the rounds of Bogota as the members of the revolutionary movement set every detail for the definitive strike on the Quinta de Bolívar. Late on the 17th of February, they easily broke into the mansion, stole the sword and left leaving some pamphlets behind about the group and why they had done what they did.
The day after the theft, headlines spoke of big operations to recover it. They did not succeed, in part because the M-19 always knew how to keep the sword safe. It was kept in a notorious brothel for a time, at the home of a famous Colombian poet, Leon de Grieff, then passed along to various M-19 supporters, activists, intellectuals and artists across the country. In the late 1980s it was even flown to Cuba for safe keeping!
The M-19 went about placing graffitti on walls around Bogota the next day:
“Bolívar, your sword is back in the struggle”.
As well as quoting Bolivar himself:
“I will keep my sword unsheathed as long as the liberty of my homeland is not completely assured”.
The international "revolutionary" support for the theft was astonishing. A group called, The Order of the Keepers of the Sword was formed in 1986, and it included people who sympathized with the causes of the M-19 such as Fidel Castro, Ómar Torrijos (the Left wing leader of Panama at the time), and absurdly, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina.
From being an ignored, almost totally forgotten artifact in a small, badly guarded museum, the stolen sword become mythical in the minds of the Colombian general public.
In the 1990s the M-19 joined the new Constituent Assembly formed by the elected liberal President of the Nation, César Gaviria Trujillo. The group laid down its arms and returned the sword as a gesture of goodwill and to demonstrate that a revolutionary group was able to participate in the Democratic process, if genuine opportunity is provided.
"We were no longer at war, so giving it back was a honorable farewell from our times in secrecy,” said one of its foremost leaders who went to Cuba to retrieve the sword.
On January 31 1991, the sword was returned to The Quinta de Bolívar in a lavish ceremony ... but then was rushed off to the high security bank vault.
So the sword has been returned -- after a fashion. Still, (and like Colombian Democracy itself) no one has actually seen the authentic item in decades.
Most amazingly, there are plans to exhibit the sword ... but only in cyberspace. I wonder what message about Colombia the virtually exhibited sword of Simon Bolivar might send?
A representation of freedom without actuality?
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