Colombia, 1961 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an attempted military coup in Colombia on 11 October 1961, during the National Front power-sharing government of Liberal President Alberto Lleras Camargo, the first president under the Liberal Conservative alternation agreement designed to end the partisan bloodletting of La Violencia. The National Front era brought relative stability after the military junta that had followed Rojas Pinilla's fall, but it faced continuing rural violence from bandit and emerging guerrilla groups, discontent from the excluded Rojas Pinilla movement, and pressure from officers uneasy at the civilian arrangement. Any coup attempt in October 1961 came within that context and did not unseat Lleras Camargo, who completed his term and handed power in 1962 to the Conservative Guillermo Leon Valencia under the alternation pact, continuing the National Front sequence that held until 1974.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
10010111961
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Alberto Lleras Camargo survived and completed his National Front term, handing power to a Conservative successor in 1962.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Powell and Thyne
New York Times
Chicago Tribune
Hartford Courant
Washington Post
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →