Colombia

Columbia, a republic in South America, is located in the northwest region of the continent. Its neighbors are Panama and The Caribbean Sea, also Venezuela and Brazil, to the south there’s Peru and Ecuador, and to the west there’s the Pacific Ocean. Did you know that Colombia is the only country in South America that has coasts on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean? The Capital of Colombia is Bogotá, which is also the largest city in the country.

In 1863 Colombia was given its name. The name was chosen in honor of Christopher Columbus, even though Columbus never visited Colombia. Alonso de Ojeda, was the first European to set foot on Colombia in 1499, Alonso de Ojeda explored Sierra Navada de Santa Marie and was very surprised by the wealth of the Indians and their stories. These stories gave birth to the legend of El Dorado.

Colombia History Colombia was one of the three original countries along with Ecuador and Venezuela that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830. Over the last 40 years, there has been a campaign to overthrow the government partially because of the drug trades throughout Colombia. The movement does however lack support from military and support from the necessary influences. In recent years, there have been challenges for control of the territories throughout Colombia and also for the drug trade. Economy

Colombia is a country wrought with poverty, corruption, and violence. It has gained leader for its drug trafficking and scandalous dealing by the military. Five percent of Colombia, which is 1.9million people, 1.1 million that are children, has been disabled due to the fighting in a four decade old civil war.

The future of Colombia is very bright; no country on this earth is in a better position with many rainforest, and strapping coffee reserves. Colombia began as a country under fire. Fighting to gain their independence from Spain, and enduring a civil war .The period of corrupt government and the cartel trying to keep a strong hold over Colombia. The country of cocaine and kidnappings is the best uncharted adventure haven in South America. If you ever get a chance to visit the beautiful country of Colombia do so it would be a great experience.

The republic of Colombia has been fighting an internal war for over 50 years. On April 9th 1948, 1:00P.M. The leader of the Liberal Party Jorger Eliecer Gaitan walked out of his office in the downtown area, got shot 3 times and died once he got to the hospital. This day went down in Colombian history as the Bogotazo. Gaitan was a moderate socialist congressman that gave a voice to the middle and lower classes in Colombia. He gave hope to those that had nothing under the right wing elitist government. In 1948 after his death, the era of the Violencia started. A civil war between the Colombian communist party and the farmers against the right wing military conservative government due to the high inflation and unfair assistance to those that

Colombia’s history has had many episodes of violence ever since it won its independence from Spain in 1819. After independence, the people of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, northern Peru, western Guyana, and northwest Brazil united to form a single nation called Gran Colombia. Simon Bolivar became this new republic’s first president. However, Gran Colombia would not last for long. Its leaders would become divided on how the new republic should be governed. Some of its leaders would favor a strong centralized government whereas others would prefer a federal form of government. Liberal and conservative views would divide the country. Finally, in 1831, Gran Colombia would divide into the nations that originally formed it

Four years after Plan Colombia was proposed, critics such as Wellstone prove to have had it right. Colombia has not ceased to produce drugs, and American objectives have not been met. In fact, many claim that fighting between two leftist guerilla groups, the right-wing paramilitary, and the government has only worsened . In the year 2002, around 4,000 people were murdered and more than 350,000 people were forced from their homes. Estimates show that the conflict now claims the life of 19 civilians per day, as opposed to just 12 civilians per day in 2000 . Drug production has continued to accelerate and the human rights situation has continued to get worse . Needless to say, the “democracy, rule of law, economic stability, and human rights” that the Clinton Administration claimed would improve have not seen much improvement.

As the Medellín Cartel was the largest drug cartel in Colombia at the time, they had controlled 80% of all the cocaine supply that was entering the United States. Despite the fact that Escobar donated millions of dollars to the local people of Medellin and funded the construction of schools and sports centers to help create a good reputation for himself. But even if he did donate millions of dollars to the poor, it was still just a chip into the Medellín Cartel’s wealth. By looking at the statistics of the number of people who were affected by Escobar’s acts of terror it has become evident to me that the negative effects of the Medellín Cartel had heavily outweighed the benefits of how Escobar tried to give back to the local people of Colombia.

Colombia has been immersed in much political and civil strife for most of the twentieth century, even with these unfortunate events, Colombia has upheld its democracy. Early twentieth century, territorial disputes with Peru led to a year long war between the two countries, which then ended through negotiations by political leaders of both countries. Later, Colombia experienced extreme political instability, a period known in Colombian history as “La Violencia;” almost twenty years of civil war, between two of Colombia’s major political parties: the Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party. Eventually the two parties negotiated once Gustavo Rojas successfully disposed the president of Colombia. Some people say that much of Colombia’s miseries can be traced to this violent period. During the period of “La Violencia” many agriculture land owning peasants fled, due to violent encounters during the period and joined guerrilla armies. Most of Colombia’s guerrillas were founded on Marxist Communist ideals; leaders of these groups say that they represent the poor, yet they create civil chaos in the country through kidnapping, distribution of drugs, attacks on civilian, attacks in cities and other violent activities. Colombian elites who were not protected by the Colombian army, were given the opportunity to form private armies, known as “paramilitaries” to defend against guerrilla forces. These “paramilitaries” originally created for use against the guerrilla armies, turned against its objective and later became a nuisance in Colombia, very similar to that of the guerrillas. In a couple of years, the “paramilitaries” which were meant for defense against these “terror groups” entered similar behavior like guerrilla gro...