Many of those who suffered repression during…

Many of those who suffered repression during Bolivar's final dictatorship are slow to forgive, so that the division between his supporters and opponents foreshadows, at least in part, subsequent party alignments in Colombia.

Nevertheless, from his time to the present, virtually all Colombians have accepted his preeminence among the founders of the nation.

Political liberals, including in due course the founders of the Liberal Party (PL), deplore most of what Bolivar had done in that dictatorship but have no trouble finding things to approve in his earlier words and actions.

Conservatives, naturally including founders of the Conservative Party (PC), tend to see the dictatorship as a necessary evil that Bolivar himself regarded as temporary, while emphasizing his consistent support for strong executive power and latter-day rapprochement with the church.

Certain twentieth-century right-wing extremists laud  the dictatorship as a positive good, while present-day leftists claim him as forerunner and assert that they are striving to complete the work that he left unfinished.

The leftists point to Bolivar's condemnation of slavery, rhetorical defense of Amerindian rights, and often keen analysis of social inequality in his statements to argue that he would have carried out a true social revolution if he had not been thwarted by selfish oligarchs, by which they chiefly mean the faction of Santander.

Their analysis conveniently ignores the fact that Bolivar had retained the support of the very cream of the traditional aristocracy.

There is, in any case, a Bolivar for every conceivable ideological taste.