[3] The siege began on the mid-day of February 27, 1980, when seventeen guerrillas dressed in the warm-up clothes of joggers stormed the embassy compound, located in a suburb of Bogotá.

[1] Within 30 minutes of learning that the Dominican Embassy had been seized, a Colombian task force was established on the State Department's 7th floor.

Anthony Quainton, director of the State Department's office for combatting terrorism, was named to head the task force.

[5] The hostages included the Papal nuncio to Colombia, Angelo Acerbi, as well as the ambassadors from fourteen countries: Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, the United States (Diego C. Asencio), Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Early on March 17, the Uruguayan ambassador, Fernando Gomez Fyns, escaped from the embassy by jumping from a window and running to troops surrounding the compound.

The sixteen guerrillas left the embassy with the remaining twelve diplomatic hostages under the supervision of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States, and boarded a Cubana Airlines flight to Cuba.

[9] The M-19's second in command, a guerrilla named Carmenza Cardona Londoño, known by her nom de guerre 'La Chiqui', returned to Colombia after spending some time in Havana, and died in combat with the Colombian Army a few years later.