Julio César Turbay
Colombian president who defused a hostage siege, but whose daughter was later kidnapped and killed
JULIO CÉSAR TURBAY, who died yesterday aged 89, was President of Colombia from 1978 until 1982, and negotiated the release of dozens of diplomats who had been taken hostage by terrorists in 1980; but his administration was criticised for human rights abuses, and Turbay’s own daughter was later kidnapped and killed by drug barons.
On February 27 1980, terrorists from the M- 19 guerrilla group broke into the residence of the Dominican ambassador to Colombia by posing as footballers who had kicked their ball over his wall. Once inside, they launched a gunfight, killing a guard and wounding two others, and taking some 50 people hostage, among them 17 ambassadors or consuls, including the American and Papal delegates. Turbay was unflinching in his refusal to accede to the terrorists’ demands, which included the release of Left-wing prisoners and a ransom of US $ 50 million.
Sixty-one days after the start of the siege, and after the intervention of Fidel Castro, the rebels were allowed to escape to Cuba with a payoff of $1 million. By Latin American standards at the time, it amounted to a principled triumph over terrorism. One of the terrorists later paid tribute to Turbay’s handling of the situation as “ calm, measured [and] admirable”.
But Colombia’s notoriety for kidnapping, corruption and terrorism was not noticably dented by Turbay’s regime. He himself came under attack from liberal figures for human rights abuses: the Nobel-prizewinning novelist and Left-wing journalist Gabriel García Marquez quit the country in disgust at his administration. Almost a decade after Turbay left office, kidnappings were still common. His daughter Diana, editor and publisher of the magazine Hoy por Hoy, died in January 1991 after being shot during a botched rescue attempt by police at Copacabana, near Medellín, headquarters of the cocaine baron Pablo Escobar, generally held to have been responsible for the kidnap.
Julio César Turbay Ayala was born in Bogotá to a middle-class family of Lebanese descent (he was later nicknamed “Turco” by political journalists). He was educated at the Escuela Nacional de Comercio in Bogotá and the Colegio Universitario de Botero, though he never earned a university degree. He was, however, usually addressed as “Doctor” in later life, on the basis of an honorary law degree from the University of Cauca in 1957.
He began his rise to power from a modest base as a councillor for the village of Engative, south-west of Bogotá, in 1938. He soon became a representative at departmental level, before coming into national politics in 1943 as a deputy for Cundinamarca in the lower house of Colombia’s Congress.
In 1946 and 1949 he was president of the Chamber and for five years presided over the commission on military and foreign affairs. He also became, in 1947, an ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly and regional director of the Liberal party.
After the overthrow of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, in 1957 Turbay joined the cabinet as minister of mines and energy under the junta known as the gobierno de los quintuples; the following May he became Minister for Foreign Affairs. Turbay advocated Latin American unity and co-operation with America and the Western powers; though at fi rst sympathetic to Castro, he quickly fell out with the Cuban leader over Russian support for his regime. He pushed this message in other South American countries. In 1961, REUTERS he was on board a plane hijacked and taken to Havana. It was released “in deference to the presence of Señor Turbay”.
Turbay became a senator in 1962 and, in his second term, again served, from 1967 until 1969, as Colombia’s ambassador to the UN. He was also a Vice-President of Congress, and did a stint as an ambassador to the Holy See.
In 1970 he became ambassador to the Court of St James, before returning, in June 1973, to become national chairman of his Liberal party. In April 1975 Turbay moved to the United States as ambassador, but gave up the post little more than a year later in order to run for president back home.
It was a heated, tightly-fought and – according to most observers – corrupt election, although characterised by huge voter apathy (three-quarters stayed away from the polls). But Turbay’s party emerged victorious at the general elections of 1978, and he narrowly won the presidential elections that June.
At his inauguration in August, he promised to uphold civil liberties, strengthen democracy, and fight corruption. In September he issued a security statute allowing civilians to be tried by military courts, forbidding the media to report strikes or unrest, and tackling all (undefined) “subversive propaganda”. There were widespread, though hotly denied, reports of torture. The Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional.
Turbay did make efforts to tackle narcotics barons, though neither he nor his successors could hope to compete with the resources which the Medellín and other cartels had at their disposal.
He tried, too, to tackle terrorist guerrillas, though with little more success. He made occasional sallies into political life in his later years, arguing that the president should be allowed a second term.
Turbay was a large, burly man who usually sported a bow tie and was fond of riding and drinking beer. He wrote a biography of Simon Bolivar.
He married, in 1948, Nydia Quintero. Besides his daughter Diana, who acted for a time as his private secretary, they had two other daughters and a son.