First issue of España Combatiente

As Republican exiles came to Colombia and met with groups and individuals sympathetic to their cause, initiatives sprang up to continue the resistance against Francoist Spain. The most significant of these groups was the Colombian Committee to Aid the Struggle of the Spanish People (Comité Colombiano de Ayuda a la Lucha del Pueblo Español) which included members of the Spanish Republican political organization in exile Acción Republicana as well as Colombians who had professed and performed their support for Republican Spain during the civil war. The committee’s manifesto situated their activism within a continental campaign in which ‘all youth and popular forces’ are forming ‘a solidarity movement to support the Spanish people’s struggle’. According to the committee, Colombia was the best place to lead the campaign, citing its supposed democratic exceptionalism: ‘as a country with a deep democratic tradition... it has, more than any other nation, a duty to start the campaign to help defeat the fascist regime that rules Spain.’ 

To inform Colombians about Spain’s domestic situation, in  October 1944 the committee published the magazine “España Combatiente” (Fighting Spain) which, by September 1945, had been converted into a fortnightly bulletin distributed free of charge thanks to donations from Colombians and Spaniards. The articles were written by Spanish and Latin American authors from across the continent, and the magazine also published information about solidarity initiatives at home and abroad. Aside from the magazine, the committee organized fundraising activities for Republican resistance, held events to commemorate key moments in Spanish Republican history and called on Colombians to support their campaign to restore democracy to Spain. For instance, on 6 November 1944, the committee organized an event to commemorate the defence of Madrid in Bogotá’s Municipal Theatre with the participation of several important Colombian intellectuals and artists. 

CE