| This is the history of Colombia. See also history of South
America and the history of present-day nations and states.
Pre-Colombian period
During the pre-Colombian period, the area now known as Colombia was inhabited by
many different indigenous peoples with various kinds of organizations
and levels of civilization. These include primitive hunters or nomadic farmers but also, for example, the Sinú, who lived in the
northern hot and humid lowlands and had developed a very efficient system for enhancing the fertility of their soils. Other
pre-Colombian populations include Narińo, Tierradientro, San Augustín, and Quimbaya. The Chibchas lived in the Bogotá region, but there was nothing like a
dominating people among them.
Colonial times
The Spanish sailed along the north coast of today's Colombia as early as 1500, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, was not made until 1525. In 1549, the establishment of the Audiencia in Santa Fe de Bogotá, turned that city into the capital of
the New Granada, which included the provinces which approximately make up the
territory of today's Colombia. In 1717 the Viceroyalty of New Granada was created, with Bogotá as capital. This Viceroyalty included
some other provinces of northwestern South America which had been so far under jurisdiction of the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and
correspond mainly to today's Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. So, Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with
Lima and Mexico City.
Struggle for independence
On July 20, 1810, the citizens of Bogotá created the first representative council to defy Spanish authority, with full
independence being proclaimed in 1813. A long Independency War, led mainly by Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander in New Granada ended after the Battle of Boyaca, on August 7, 1819. That year, the Congress of Angostura established the Republic of Greater Colombia, which included all territories under jurisdiction of the
Viceroyalty of New Granada. For more information, see Bolivar's
War
The Republic
Bolívar was elected first president of Greater Colombia and
Francisco de Paula Santander, vice
president.
As the Federation of Greater Colombia was dissolved in 1830, the Department of
Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a new country, the Republic of New Granada.
In 1863 the name of the Republic was changed officially to "United States of Colombia",
and in 1886 adopted its present day name: "Republic of Colombia".
Two political parties grew out of conflicts between the followers of Bolívar and Santander and their political visions -- the
Conservatives and the Liberals -- and have since dominated Colombian politics. Bolívar's supporters, who later formed the nucleus
of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise. Santander's followers, forerunners of the Liberals,
wanted a decentralized government, state rather than church control over education and other civil matters, and a broadened
suffrage.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, each party held the presidency for roughly equal periods of time. Colombia maintained a
tradition of civilian government and regular, free elections. The military has seized power three times in Colombia's history: in
1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854, and 1953-1957. Civilian rule was
restored within one year in the first two instances.
Notwithstanding the country's commitment to democratic institutions, Colombia's history has also been characterized by
widespread, violent conflict. Two civil wars resulted from bitter rivalry between the Conservative and Liberal parties. The War
of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) cost an estimated
100,000 lives, and up to 300,000 people died during "La Violencia" (The Violence) of the late 1940s and 1950s, a bipartisan confrontation which erupted after the
assassination of Liberal populist candidate Jorge Eliécer
Gaitán.
A military coup in 1953 toppled the right-wing government of Conservative Laureano Gómez and brought Gen.
Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla to power. Initially, Rojas enjoyed considerable popular support, due largely to his success in reducing "La
Violencia." When he did not restore democratic rule and occasionally engaged in open repression, however, he was overthrown by
the military in 1957 with the backing of both political parties, and a provisional government was installed.
The National Front
In July 1957, former Conservative President Laureano Gomez (1950-1953) and former Liberal President Alberto
Lleras Camargo (1945-1946, 1958-1962) issued the "Declaration of Sitges," in which they proposed a
"National Front," whereby the Liberal and Conservative parties would govern jointly. The presidency would be determined by
regular elections every 4 years; the two parties would have parity in all other elective and appointive offices.
The National Front ended "La Violencia," and National Front administrations attempted to institute far-reaching social and
economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for Progress. In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal
and Conservative administrations made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and
political injustices continued.
The National Front system itself eventually began to be seen as a form of political repression by dissidents and even many
mainstream voters, especially after what was apparently later confirmed as the supposedly fraudulent election of Misael Pastrana Borrero in 1970, which resulted in the defeat of the relatively populist candidate Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.
The M-19 guerrilla movement, "Movimiento 19 de Abril" (19th of April Movement), would
eventually be founded in part as a response to this particular event.
Although the system established by the Sitges agreement was phased out by 1978, the
1886 Colombian constitution--in effect until 1991--required that the losing political party be given adequate and equitable participation in the government which,
according to many observers and later analysis, eventually resulted in some increase in corruption and legal relaxation. The
current 1991 constitution does not have that requirement, but subsequent administrations have tended to include members of
opposition parties.
Post-National Front years
Between 1978 and 1982, the government focused on ending the limited, but persistent,
both Cuban-backed (ELN) and relatively homegrown
(FARC) insurgencies that sought to
undermine Colombia's traditional formally democratic system, claiming to represent the poor and weak against the rich and
powerful classes of the country, asking for the completion of true land and political reform, though from an openly Communist perspective.
The relative success of the government's earlier efforts enabled it to lift the state-of-siege decree that had been in effect
for most of the previous 30 years. The ELN guerrilla had been seriously crippled in 1974 but it managed to reconstitute itself
and escape destruction, in part due to the government's allowing it to escape encirclement, hoping to initiate a peace process
with the group.
In 1984, President Belisario Betancur, a Conservative, who won 47% of the popular vote, negotiated a cease-fire that
included the release of many guerrillas imprisoned during the effort to overpower the insurgents. The cease-fire ended when
Democratic Alliance/M-19 (AD/M-19) guerrillas resumed fighting in 1985, claiming that the
cease-fire was incomplete and questioning the government's real willingness to implement any accords. The government in turn
questioned the guerrilla's commitment to the process.
A showcase attack and hostage taking in the Palace of Justice in Bogotá by the AD/M-19 on November 6-7, 1985, and its violent
suppression by the army, shocked Colombians. Though most hostages were freed, many casualties did occur. Of the 115 people killed
in the ensuing battle and massive fire that erupted inside the building, 11 were Supreme Court justices. Although the government
and the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) renewed their truce in March 1986, peace with other
revolutionary movements, in particular the AD/M-19--then the largest insurgent group--and the National Liberation Army (ELN) was remote
as Betancur left office.
The AD/M-19 and several smaller guerrilla groups were successfully incorporated into a peace process during the late 1980s, which culminated in the elections for a Constituent Assembly of Colombia that would write a new constitution, which took
effect in 1991. The FARC had declared a unilateral cease-fire under Betancur, which led to the establishment of the Unión Patriótica (Colombia) (UP), a legal and
non-clandestine political organization. Many of the FARC's armed guerrillas and militiamen did not demobilize, as that was not a
requirement of the process, though a substantial part of what can be considered their more political sectors did. After growing
violence against its UP members (including several presidential candidates), both from private proto-paramilitary organizations, increasingly powerful drugdealers and a number of would-be
paramilitary-sympathizers within the armed forces, the truce with the FARC ended in 1990.
Following administrations had to contend with the guerrillas, paramilitaries, narcotics traffickers and the violence and
corruption that they all perpetuated, both through force and negotiation. Narcoterrorists assassinated three presidential
candidates before César Gaviria Trujillo was elected
in 1990. Since the death of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar in a police shootout during December 1993,
indiscriminate acts of violence associated with that organization have abated as the "cartels" have broken up into multiple,
smaller and often-competing trafficking organizations. Nevertheless, violence continues as these drug organizations resort to
violence as part of their operations but also to protest against government policies, including extradition.
President Ernesto Samper Pizano assumed office in
August 1994. However, a political crisis relating to large-scale contributions from drug
traffickers to Samper's presidential campaign diverted attention from governance programs, thus slowing, and in many cases,
halting progress on the nation's domestic reform agenda. The military also suffered several setbacks in its fight against the
guerrillas, when several of its rural bases began to be overun and a record number of soldiers and officers were taken prisoner
by the FARC (which since 1982 was attempting to implement a more "conventional" style of warfare, seeking to eventually defeat
the military in the field).
On August 7, 1998, Andrés Pastrana Arango was sworn in as the President of
Colombia. A member of the Conservative Party, Pastrana defeated Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa in a run-off election
marked by high voter turn-out and little political unrest. The new president's program was based on a commitment to bring about a
peaceful resolution of Colombia's longstanding civil conflict and to cooperate fully with the United States to combat the
trafficking of illegal drugs.
While early initiatives in the Colombian peace process gave reason for optimism, the Pastrana administration also has had to
combat high unemployment and other economic problems, such as the fiscal deficit and the impact of global financial instability
on Colombia. During his administration, unemployment has risen to over 20%. Additionally, the growing severity of countrywide
guerrilla attacks by the FARC and ELN, and smaller movements, as well as the growth of drug production, corruption and the spread
of even more violent paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has made it difficult to solve the
country's problems.
Although the FARC and ELN accepted participation in the peace process, they did not make explicit commitments to end the
conflict. The FARC suspended talks in November 2000, to protest what it called
"paramilitary terrorism" but returned to the negotiating table in February 2001, following
2 days of meetings between President Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The Colombian Government and ELN in early 2001
continued discussions aimed at opening a formal peace process.
No single explanation fully addresses the deep roots of Colombia's present-day troubles, but they include limited government
presence in large areas of the interior, the expansion of illicit drug cultivation, endemic violence, and social inequities. In
order to confront these challenges, the Pastrana administration unveiled its Plan Colombia in late 1999, an integrated strategy to deal with these longstanding, mutually reinforcing
problems.
The main stated objectives of the original Plan Colombia were to promote peace, combat the narcotics industry, revive the
Colombian economy, improve respect for human rights, and strengthen the democratic and social institutions of the country.
Colombia planned to finance $4 billion of the estimated $7.5 billion overall cost, most of which would go towards the social
portion of the project, but was ultimately unable to do so due to the state's 1997-1998 economic crisis.
The United States approved a $1.3 billion assistance package, mostly of military and counternarcotics nature but also
including a minority amount of social aid. The Colombian Government sought additional support from the IFIs, the European Union, and other countries, with the intention of financing the social
component of the original plan, but met with little cooperation as the would-be donors considered that the U.S. approved aid
represented an undue military slant and additionally lacked the will to spend such amounts of money.
After the eventual breakup of the peace negotiations, which had been stalled numerous times and finally ended due to a
guerrilla kidnapping of a congressman and other political figures, the Caguán demilitarized zone was terminated by the Pastrana
administration.
Soon after that, in May 2002, the former liberal politician of conservative leanings
Álvaro Uribe Vélez, whose father had been killed by
left-wing guerrillas, was sworn in as Colombian president. He immediately began taking action to crush the FARC, ELN, and AUC,
including the employment of citizen informants to help the police and armed forces track down suspected members in all three
armed groups.
In the fall of 2002, the administration released the much-awaited Colombian national security strategy, entitled Democratic
Security and Defense Policy. The Plan fit within the broader social, economic, and political goals of Plan Colombia. Though much
attention has been focused on the security and military aspects of Colombia's situation, the administration also is spending
significant time on issues such as expanding international trade, supporting alternate means of development, and reforming
Colombia's judicial system.
Recent developments
As of 2004, two years after its implementation began, the security situation
of inside Colombia has suffered some measure of an improvement and the economy, while still fragile, has also shown some positive
signs according to observers, but relatively little has yet to have been accomplished in structurally solving most of the
country's other grave problems, possibly in part due to legislative and political conflicts between the administration and the
Colombian Congress (including those over the controversial project to eventually re-elect Uribe), and a relative lack of freely
allocated funds and credits.
Some critical observers consider that Uribe's policies, while admittedly reducing crime and guerrilla activity, might be too
slanted in favor of a military solution to Colombia's internal war, neglecting grave social and human rights concerns to a
certain extent. They ask for Uribe's government to change this position and make serious efforts towards improving the human
rights situation inside the country, protecting civilians and reducing any abuses committed by the armed forces.
Uribe's supporters in turn believe that increased military action is a necessary prelude to any serious negotiation attempt
with the guerrillas and that the increased security situation will help to, in the long term, focus more actively on reducing
most wide-scale abuses and human rights violations on the part of both the armed groups and any rogue security forces that might
have links to the paramilitaries. In short, that the security situation must be stabilized in favor of the government before any
other social concerns can take precedence.
With such conflicting perspectives, it can be argued that a certain polarization between both supporters and opponents of
President Uribe seems to be forming both inside and outside the country.
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