2023-05-27 20:56:44
The event, related by the journalist Ovidio Castro Medina, from the Efe agency, revived one of the most striking cases in national history.
Unrequited love, a scorned president and a letter that did not reach its addressee led to a war that lasted 121 years, in which a single bullet was never fired and the parties involved were not even aware of it. of the Macondian conflict between Colombia and Belgium.
Although there are no documents that validate it historically, it is stated that in 1867 the Colombian soldier and politician José de los Santos Gutiérrez (1820-1872) sent a letter to the Kingdom of Belgium in which the then province of Boyacá, one of the seven that that made up what is now Colombia, declared war on it.
The reasons for such determination were not political, much less economic, it was out of love or better, out of spite.
To explain such a Quixote, one must go back in time. Gutiérrez, born in the town of El Cocuy (Boyacá), was a prominent liberal politician and as a soldier he fought in various civil wars in the country.
Being very young, he was selected to be part of a group of Colombians who went to the University of Leuven (Belgium) to study law and there, Gutiérrez met Josefina Harboot.
Legend has it that the relationship did not prosper because the young woman’s parents opposed the union and also because she did not fully reciprocate Gutiérrez’s flirtations.
The young lawyer paid no attention to anything and even embarked on the preparations for a wedding that never took place because the bride’s parents were not willing for their daughter to travel more than 8,000 kilometers to Boyacá, a land lost in the mountains of South America of which they knew little or nothing.
Against his wishes, Gutiérrez had to return to Colombia without his love, but with the idea that such an offense would not stay that way.
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Letter from Boyacá to Belgium did not arrive to start a war in Colombia
Gutiérrez had a long political career that led him to be president of the State of Boyacá and of the United States of Colombia between 1868 and 1870, remembered as one of the most radical.
Being in power, and at a time when each province was autonomous and the country was federated, Gutiérrez sent a letter to Belgium declaring war on the European country. However, the letter never reached its destination due to poor postal service at the time.
“What happened in this episode, which is not documented, is that it really represents the consequences of the provincial governments and the anarchic feudalism that existed in Colombia in the 19th century,” lawyer and historian Hernán Olano explained to Efe.
Peace signing between Boyacá and Belgium
Olano, a member of the Boyacense Academy of History, points out that although it is true that the letter in which war was supposedly declared on the Kingdom of Belgium is not available, there is documentary evidence of the signing of the armistice.
That step to end the war was taken in May 1988 and was headed by the Belgian ambassador at the time, Willy Stevens, who formed a commission of honor with various ambassadors, including Bolivia and Uruguay. Others say that there were also those from Holland (now the Netherlands), Lebanon, Morocco and China.
In this way, on May 28, 1988, that is to say 35 years ago, and with the assistance of those delegations, the peace treaty between the State of Boyacá and Belgium was signed with the then governor of Boyacá, Carlos Eduardo Vargas Rubiano.
The trip, recalls Olano, was by train, with stops in various places in Boyacá, all amid music and food from the region and with the assistance of some media outlets that reported on the particular event.
A symbolic wedding was even held in the town of Paipa in which “large rag dolls were made, there were fabric rings, one for the groom and one for the bride,” the historian details.
In addition to what was reported in the newspapers, there is also a sound document with a part of Ambassador Stevens’s speech where he says that in that “war there has never been a single shot.”
This transatlantic war fought silently and without bullets has been the longest war in which the country has been involved. Fortunately, it did not cost anyone their lives.
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