According to ehistorylib, in 2005, the population of Colombia was estimated to be around 44 million people. The majority of the population were of mestizo or mixed race descent, with a large minority of Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples. The economy was largely dependent on exports, with coffee being the main export product. Foreign relations were strained due to Colombia’s long-running civil war. The US had invested heavily in providing assistance to the Colombian government in their fight against drug traffickers and guerrillas. Politically, Colombia was a republic with a strong executive branch at the helm. President Alvaro Uribe had been elected in 2002 and had launched an initiative known as Plan Colombia which aimed to end the civil war through military action and social reform. Uribe’s policies were generally well received by most Colombians but there were concerns about human rights abuses committed by both sides during the conflict.
Yearbook 2005
Colombia. The civil war in Colombia continues. On February 1, 16 soldiers were killed and 25 injured in an attack by the left-wing guerrilla FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) against a military base in Iscuandé in southwest Nariño province. It was the biggest attack by the FARC since President Álvaro Uribe came to power in August 2002, and quite embarrassing for the president who claimed that the military controls Nariño. The Plan Patriots, launched in May 2004 and aimed to defeat the FARC militarily, have largely been a failure. Thus, in July, the FARC struck the Putumayo province against oil installations and electricity supply, blasting a bridge across the Villalobos River to completely isolate the province from the rest of the country.
According to countryaah, Bogota is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of Colombia. The disarmament of the 20,000 strong paramilitary militias continued during the year, but at a slow pace; only a quarter of militias have been disarmed so far. Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt’s proposal for a legal basis for the peace process was approved by Congress in June after an 18-month debate. But the bill has been criticized for being both too generous and too strict; inter alia This means that no paramilitaries can be extradited to the United States as Washington has requested. The proposal also created disagreement in the government when its chief peace negotiator Luís Carlos Restrepo called for a resignation in February but was denied his request by President Uribe.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym CO stands for the country of Colombia and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
In May, the former Attorney General and Speaker of the Liberal Party’s Alberto Santofimio Botero House of Representatives were arrested on suspicion of lying behind the assassination of Presidential candidate Luís Carlos Galán in 1989. Santofimio is believed to have stood close to the infamous leader of the Medellín cartel in the 1980s, Pablo Escobar and eliminated Galán, who during the election campaign promised to extradite Escobar to the United States.
1993 Open war against the Medillink cartel
In November, the government put the country in a state of emergency. Since mid-92, the leader of the powerful Medillin drug cartel, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, had been on the run, and he was now resuming the cartel’s armed actions. In January 93, the group PEPES (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, Pursued by Pablo Escobar) emerged. Over the following two months, it killed 30 members of the cartel, destroyed several of Escobar’s properties and pursued members of his family. The clashes reached alarming heights with several car bombs costing dozens of people their lives.
At a fire fight in the center of Medillin on December 2 of that year, Escobar was killed by police forces. Although his death caused a severe setback to the political and social influence the Medillin cartel had achieved, the drug addiction remained strong. This was particularly true of the rival Calik cartel, which was strengthened by the government’s attack on the Medillin cartel.
The Supreme Court made the use of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs legal, despite widespread protests from political and religious sectors led by President Gaviria.
The crisis in the international coffee market, the drought and the EU’s imposition of a high tariff on bananas greatly affected Colombia’s exports in 1993. But with annual revenues of $ 2 billion from the drug trade and the discovery of oil in Casanare province, the country could still show economic growth of 2.8% resident. Construction increased by 8% in 1993, trade and transport by 5%, unemployment fell to below 9% in the country’s 7 most important cities, and wages showed a positive trend. Despite this, 45% of the country’s population still lived in deep poverty.
President Gaviria, with the support of the United States, was appointed Secretary General of the Organization of American States. At the 1994 presidential election, his liberal colleague, Ernesto Samper, won the presidential post with 50% of the vote closely followed by conservative Andrés Pastrana with 48.6%. Backing for ADM-19 had then fallen to 4% and the electoral boycott fell slightly to 65%.
The country bearing the name of Columbus, Colombia, is named after Christopher Columbus. The country’s history is marked by many unrest and internal strife. Today’s media usually remembers drug cartels first when writing about Colombia. However, the magnificent nature offers a varied and varied experience to the tourist visiting the country. There are stunning palm beaches along both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts – Colombia is the only country in South America with a coast on either side of the sea.
The plains, forests and mountains of the Andes branch here into three, the western, central and eastern Cordillera, and to their east spreads the grass plain (Llanos). To the north, this huge plain is under the influence of the Orinoco and to the south, the Amazon River. The forest is grown in the southern parts of the country (selvas). The Caribbean coast receives its share of hurricane rains, even though it is otherwise a relatively dry area. Instead, in the Amazon and Pacific spheres of influence, it is raining harder. In the mountains, the climate varies greatly in altitude. The islands of San Andrés and Providencia are administratively part of Colombia. On its west coast, they are about 700 kilometers away and geographically closer to Nicaragua.
The melting pot of peoples and nationalities
Colombia has been the melting pot of peoples: mestizos, mulattoes, zambos, but also white, black, and purebred Indians about a percent of the population. The Indians live east in the Amazon region and northeast on the Guajira Peninsula. The majority of Colombians have settled in the valleys and estuaries between the Andean mountain ranges on the Caribbean coast.
