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Travel to Colombia — Unbiased reviews and great
deals from TripAdvisorColombia
| Republic of Colombia National
name: República de Colombia President: Alvaro Uribe (2002)
Current government officials
Land area: 401,042 sq mi (1,038,699 sq
km); total area: 439,736 sq mi (1,138,910 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 45,013,674 (growth
rate: 1.4%); birth rate: 19.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 19.5/1000;
life expectancy: 72.5; density per sq mi: 43
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Santafé de Bogotá, 7,594,000 (metro. area),
7,185,889 (city proper) Other large
cities: Cali, 2,283,200; Medellín, 1,957,800; Barranquilla,
1,330,400; Cartagena, 901,500 Monetary
unit: Colombian Peso
Language:
Spanish
Ethnicity/race:
mestizo 58%, white 20%, mulatto 14%, black 4%,
mixed black-Amerindian 3%, Amerindian 1%
National Holiday:
Independence Day, July 20
Religion:
Roman Catholic 90% Literacy rate: 92.8% (2007 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$319.5 billion; per capita $6,700. Real growth rate: 7%.
Inflation: 5.5%. Unemployment: 11.2%. Arable land:
2%. Agriculture: coffee, cut flowers, bananas, rice,
tobacco, corn, sugarcane, cocoa beans, oilseed, vegetables; forest
products; shrimp. Labor force: 20.81 million (2006);
agriculture 22.7%, industry 18.7%, services 58.5% (2000 est.).
Industries: textiles, food processing, oil, clothing and
footwear, beverages, chemicals, cement; gold, coal, emeralds.
Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore,
nickel, gold, copper, emeralds, hydropower. Exports: $24.86
billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): petroleum, coffee, coal, apparel, bananas,
cut flowers. Imports: $24.33 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.):
industrial equipment, transportation equipment, consumer goods,
chemicals, paper products, fuels, electricity. Major trading
partners: U.S., Venezuela, Ecuador, China, Mexico, Brazil
(2004). Communications: Telephones:
main lines in use: 7,678,800 (2005); mobile cellular: 21.85 million
(2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 454, FM 34, shortwave 27
(1999). Television broadcast stations: 60 (includes seven
low-power stations) (1997). Internet hosts: 581,877 (2006).
Internet users: 4.739 million (2005). Transportation: Railways: total: 3,304 km
(2004). Highways: total: 112,998 km; paved: 26,000 km; unpaved:
84,000 km (2000). Waterways: 9,187 km (2004). Ports and
harbors: Barranquilla, Buenaventura, Cartagena, Muelles El Bosque,
Puerto Bolivar, Santa Marta, Turbo. Airports: 984 (2006
est.). International disputes:
Nicaragua filed a claim against Honduras in 1999 and against Colombia
in 2001 at the ICJ over disputed maritime boundary involving 50,000 sq
km in the Caribbean Sea, including the Archipelago de San Andres y
Providencia and Quita Sueno Bank; dispute with Venezuela over maritime
boundary and Los Monjes Islands near the Gulf of Venezuela;
Colombian-organized illegal narcotics, guerrilla, and paramilitary
activities penetrate all of its neighbors' borders and have created a
serious refugee crisis with over 300,000 persons having fled the
country, mostly into neighboring states.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Colombia is bordered on the northwest by Panama,
on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, and on the southwest by Peru and
Ecuador. Through the western half of the country, three Andean ranges run
north and south. The eastern half is a low, jungle-covered plain, drained
by spurs of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, inhabited mostly by isolated
tropical-forest Indian tribes. The fertile plateau and valley of the
eastern range are the most densely populated parts of the country.
Government
Republic.
History
Little is known about the various Indian tribes
who inhabited Colombia before the Spanish arrived. In 1510 Spaniards
founded Darien, the first permanent European settlement on the American
mainland. In 1538 they established the colony of New Granada, the area's
name until 1861.
After a 14-year struggle, during which time
Simón Bolívar's Venezuelan troops won the battle of Boyacá in Colombia on
Aug. 7, 1819, independence was attained in 1824. Bolívar united Colombia,
Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador in the Republic of Greater Colombia
(1819–1830), but he lost Venezuela and Ecuador to separatists. Two
political parties dominated the region: the Conservatives believed in a
strong central government and a powerful church; the Liberals believed in
a decentralized government, strong regional power, and a less influential
role for the church. Bolívar was himself a Conservative, while his vice
president, Francisco de Paula Santander, was the founder of the Liberal
Party.
Santander served as president between 1832 and
1836, a period of relative stability, but by 1840 civil war erupted. Other
periods of Liberal dominance (1849–1857 and 1861–1880), which sought to
disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, were marked by insurrection. Nine
different governments followed, each rewriting the constitution. In 1861
the country was called the United States of New Granada; in 1863 it became
the United States of Colombia; and in 1885, it was named the Republic of
Colombia.
In 1899 a brutal civil war broke out, the War of
a Thousand Days, that lasted until 1902. The following year, Colombia lost
its claims to Panama because it refused to ratify the lease to the U.S. of
the Canal Zone. Panama declared its independence in 1903.
The Conservatives held power until 1930, when
revolutionary pressure put the Liberals back in power. The Liberal
administrations of Enrique Olaya Herrera and Alfonso López (1930–1938)
were marked by social reforms that failed to solve the country's problems,
and in 1946, a period of insurrection and banditry broke out, referred to
as La Violencia, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives by 1958.
Laureano Gómez (1950–1953); the army chief of staff, Gen. Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla (1953–1956); and a military junta (1956–1957) sought to curb
disorder by repression.
Marxist guerrilla groups organized in the 1960s
and 1970s, most notably the May 19th Movement (M-19), the National
Liberation Army (ELN), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC), plunging the country into violence and instability. In the 1970s
and 1980s, Colombia became one of the international centers for illegal
drug production and trafficking, and at times the drug cartels (the
Medillin and Cali cartels were the most notorious) virtually controlled
the country. Colombia provides 75% of the world's illegal cocaine. In the
1990s, numerous right-wing paramilitary groups also formed, made up of
drug traffickers and landowners. The umbrella group for these
paramilitaries is the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
Belisario Betancur Cuartas, a Conservative who
assumed the presidency in 1982, unsuccessfully attempted to stem the
guerrilla violence. In an official war against drug trafficking, Colombia
became a public battleground with bombs, killings, and kidnappings. By
1989, homicide had become the leading cause of death in the nation.
Elected president in 1990, César Gaviria Trujillo proposed lenient
punishment in exchange for surrender by the leading drug dealers. Ernesto
Samper of the Liberal Party became president in 1994. In 1996 he was
accused of accepting campaign contributions from drug traffickers, but the
House of Representatives absolved him of the charges.
Andrés Pastrana Arango was elected president in
1998, pledging to clean up corruption. In Dec. 1999 the Colombian military
announced that 2,787 people were kidnapped that year—the largest number in
the world—and blamed rebels. The murder rate soared in 1999, with some
23,000 people reported killed by leftist guerrillas, right-wing
paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and common criminals. The violence has
created more than 100,000 refugees, while 2 million Colombians have fled
the country in recent years.
In Aug. 2000, the U.S. government approved “Plan
Colombia,” pledging $1.3 billion to fight drug trafficking. Pastrana used
the plan to undercut drug production and prevent guerrilla groups from
benefiting from drug sales. In Aug. 2001, Pastrana signed “war
legislation,” which expanded the rights of the military in dealing with
rebels.
Alvaro Uribe of the Liberal Party easily won the
presidential election in May 2002. He took office in August, pledging to
get tough on the rebels and drug traffickers by increasing military
spending and seeking U.S. military cooperation. An upsurge in violence
accompanied his inauguration, and Uribe declared a state of emergency
within a week. In his first year, Uribe beefed up Colombia's security
forces with the help of U.S. special forces, launched an aggressive
campaign against the drug trade, and passed several economic reform
bills.
In May 2004, the UN announced that Colombia's
39-year-long drug war had created the worst humanitarian crisis in the
Western Hemisphere. More than 2 million people have been forced to leave
their homes and several Indian tribes are close to extinction. Colombia
now houses the third-largest displaced population in the world, with only
Sudan and the Congo having more. Uribe has produced some impressive
results in fixing his country's ills, however. According to his defense
minister, during 2003 more than 16,000 suspected leftist guerrillas and
right-wing paramilitary vigilantes either surrendered, were apprehended,
or were killed. Since 2003, the right-wing paramilitary group AUC has been
involved in peace talks with the government, but despite demobilizing
4,000 troops, the vigilante group seemed as vigorous as ever in 2005.
Although the two other major armed groups, left-wing FARC and ELN,
continue to finance themselves through kidnapping and drug trafficking,
governmental efforts have been successful in significantly reducing the
kidnapping rate.
By 2006, the United States had invested $4
billion into Plan Colombia, the joint U.S.-Colombia coca antinarcotics
plan begun in 2000. While officials say the program has eradicated more
than a million acres of coca plants, Colombian drug traffickers are still
managing to supply 90% of the cocaine used in the U.S. and 50% of the
heroin—the same percentages supplied five years ago, when the program
began. In 2006, a U.S. government survey acknowledged that coca production
in the country had in fact increased by 26%, and that aerial spraying of
the illegal crops—the primary strategy of Plan Colombia—was failing.
On May 28, 2006, President Uribe was reelected
with 62% of the vote. Economic growth and a reduction in paramilitary
violence were believed to be responsible for his landslide reelection. A
controversy surrounding suspected ties between members of Uribe's
government and paramilitary leaders dogged Uribe in late 2006 and into
2007.
In November 2007, the Colombian army captured
FARC rebels who were carrying videos, photographs, and letters of about 15
hostages, some who have been held in jungle camps by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for nearly ten years. The
Marxist-inspired FARC—the largest rebel group in Latin America—has been
waging guerilla wars against the Colombian government for 40 years.
Hostages included three American military contractors and Ingrid
Betancourt, former Colombian presidential candidate. Also in November,
Uribe withdrew his support of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s attempts
to negotiate with the FARC, escalating tension between the two countries.
Chavez subsequently withdrew the Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia.
Months of negotiations between Chavez and FARC
rebels over the release of three hostages came to an end on December 31,
2007, when the FARC refused to hand them over, saying the promised
security conditions had not been met. The failed mission is Chavez's
second defeat in the last month after the loss of his referendum. On
January 10, 2008, however, FARC rebels freed two hostages, Clara Rojas and
Consuelo Gonzᬥz de Perdomo, in Guaviare, in southern Colombia. Rojas, a
Colombian politician captured in 2002, and Perdomo, a Colombian law-maker
captured in 2001, were escorted out of the jungle by several guerillas.
The release of the hostages was a triumph for Chavez, who coordinated the
operation.
On February 28, 2008, FARC rebels released four
more hostages, all former members of Congress held in captivity for six
years, after negotiations with President Chavez of Venezuela. The freed
prisoners, three men and one woman, include Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando
Beltran, Jorge Gechem, and Gloria Polanco de Losada.
On March 1, 2008, Colombian forces crossed into
Ecuadorean territory and killed FARC rebel leader, Raúl Reyes, and 23
other rebels. In response, Venezuela and Ecuador broke off diplomatic
relations with Colombia and sent troops to the Colombian borders, although
both countries denied any ties to FARC. In an attempt to help cool the
diplomatic tension between the three countries, the Organization of
American States approved a resolution, which declared that the Colombian
raid into Ecuador was a violation of sovereignty. On March 6, Nicaragua
broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia to demonstrate unity with
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
On March 7, 2008, during a summit meeting in the
Dominican Republic, the leaders of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and
Nicaragua ended their diplomatic dispute over Colombia's raid into Ecaudor
that occurred on March 1, 2008.
On May 13, 2008, President Uribe extradited 14
paramilitary leaders to the United States to face drug-trafficking
charges. The extraditions were an attempt to win a trade deal with the
U.S. Congress, which has not consented to an agreement in the past due to
a rise of union member deaths suspected to have been orchestrated by
paramilitary members.
On July 2, 2008, after being held for six years
by FARC rebels, 15 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors and
French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, are freed by commandos who
infiltrated FARC's leadership.
See also Encyclopedia: Colombia.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Colombia
National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE)
(In Spanish only) www.dane.gov.co/ .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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