Civilizations pre-Colombians

One finds the first traces of establishments sedentary on the Colombian territory dating from the O C. These relics, of an almost unknown civilization, were discovered in San Augustín in the Colombian Andes. Before the arrival of Christophe Colomb in America, current the Colombia was occupied mainly by wandering hunters and farmers. The Chibcha S, which lived in the area of Bogotá, dominated the various indigenous groups.

Spanish colonization

Christophe Colomb discovered the Colombian coasts in 1502, in his wake arrived of the Spanish adventurers (conquistadores) who had sold their good in Spain in order to finance their forwarding. They were with research d´or. Quickly Spanish founded cities: Darien (1510), Santa Marta (1525), Santa Fe of Bogota (1538).

The Amerindian were tiny room in slavery to extract from l´or and emeralds exchanged then against of the manufactured goods and cereals come d´Espagne. The Indian tribes which resisted militarily were massacred. The Amerindians were decreased by the imported diseases d´ Europe (Rougeole) and l´esclavage. The Spanish colonists had recourse to the draft négrière dice 1511. The Blacks, exchanged in Africa against rifle, gunpowder, small glassware or clothes were renamed and christianized. Their fertility rate will be lowest because of the living conditions, the number d´esclave n´augmenta that by l importation of new slaves. The Masters supervise their mines by the means d´armées private. The systematic rape of the Indian or African women gives place to an intense interbreeding. The mongrels of White and d´Amérindiens constitute the majority of the population.

Bogotá became the capital of the viceroyalty of the Nouvelle Grenade, which included/understood also current the Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. Bogotá, just like Lima and Mexico City, became one of main cities on the American continent for the Spanish administration.

The July 10th 1810, the inhabitants of Bogotá founded the first representative assembly to defy the Spanish authority. Independence was proclaimed only in 1813 and the January 17th 1819, the Republic of Large Colombia was created.

The Republic

The Republic of the Grande Colombia gathered the territories of the viceroyalty. Simón Bolívar was elected president and Francisco of Paula Santander, vice-president. Each one of these two men is at the origin of a political party. Thus the partisans of Bolívar will form the conservative party while those of Santander will constitute the liberal. These two parties dominate the history of Colombia. The conservatives wished a very centralized State, and the support of the Catholic church while the liberals wanted a State decentralized and the preeminence of the State in the civil case and curricular area, and wished also a vote more widened.

The two parties alternated with the capacity throughout. They occupied the capacity lasting about the same duration. Contrary, with the majority of the countries of Latin America, in Colombia, there were relatively few military dictatorships and the elections were organized regularly and were free. The soldiers seized the capacity in 1830 - when Ecuador and Venezuela left the Republic -, in 1853 and 1854. The military dictatorship lasted less than one year in 1830 and 1854, in the last case, it was maintained during 4 years between 1853 and 1857. L´esclavage was abolished in 1851.

In spite of the low number of military blows, compared to the other countries of Latin America, Colombia remains a country whose history is marked out episodes violent one. Indeed, of many civil wars opposed Libéraux and Preserving, of which two appeared particularly violent. The first, called “Thousand Days” (1899 - 1902), cost the life approximately 100.000 people, the second, known under the name of “Violencia” (end of the year 1940 and the Fifties) would have caused the death of 300.000 people.

January 1st 1880, the French Ferdinand de Lesseps, begins work of the Panama Canal, still integral part of Colombia.

Panama is separated from Colombia in 1903, yielding to perpetuity this area with the the United States, following a rebellion by the independence group Amador Guerrero supported by warships of the United States.

In 1953, the general Gustavo Rojas Pinilla organized a coup d'etat. He profited at the beginning from an important popular support, because of his success to be alleviated to a certain extent “Violencia”. In 1957, the soldiers supported by the two parties reversed it because it had not restored the democracy. A provisional government was set up

The national front

Violencia

See also: Violencia

Appearance of the modern guerillas

It is in this particularly hostile context that developed the Marxist Guérilla S which were the only ones not to deposit the weapons after the elections of 1958 and which counted 912 members at that time. Colombia, faithful allied of the the United States of America, engages in the Guerre of Korea and fights as much as possible the Soviet influence, Chinese then Cuba innate which prevails on its territory. The victory of the Communists in China in 1949, rise to power over the international scene of the Soviet Union as well as the victory castrist in Cuba in 1959 support the transformation of a certain number of guerillas liberal moving openly communist which does not have as objective only to more fight the conservatives but who are carrying a radical ideology of change of the company and the Colombian policy. The first phase of insurrection of the Fifties remains limited and relates to only scattered, isolated and badly armed elements which prevail only in the most moved back zones of the central Cordillère. The Sixties on the contrary see it fast development of guerillas of communist origin, like consequence of the cuban revolution and the conversion of Fidel Castro to the Marxisme-léninisme which consequently decides to promote in the Latin-American sub-continent its policy of extension of the world Révolution.

In 1957 is created the agrarian Mouvement of Marquetalia (Huila) which is transformed gradually into an independent republic. The Sixties see multiplying this kind of small “enclaves of country colonization, controlled by the guerilla and directed by the Communist party”, lost in the mountains in the south of the Tolima populated and defended by peasants armed who refuse any interference of a State that they consider predatory and with the boot with the capitalist Oligarchie . The Colombian State puts all then works to fight subversion and attacks the communist guerillas violently about it. Besides the armed forces destroy in 1964 transitory the République of Marquetalia without to manage to eliminate the rebels who defended it. The combat of Marquetalia, which last several months, give an exceptional visibility to a guerilla group however unimportant: the FARC, taken along by Manuel Marulanda Calve, alias Tirofijo (precise car), were born. Whereas the FARCS are claimed of a Soviet line (and want the armed wing of the PCC besides), the Armée with national release (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional, or ELN) follows a line castrist. Founded in 1964 in the department of Santander by Fabio Vasquez Castano, the ELN is also a guerilla country-woman deeply marked by the Théologie of the release. The father Camilo Torres, large speaker and radical man of the church, was the major and charismatic figure of the ELN at his beginnings and largely directed the movement in his anti-oligarchical orientations and of denunciation of the social inequalities. He was however not major help from the military point of view since he died in his very first combat in February 1966, hardly six months after his rallying.

The EPL (Ejército Popular de Liberacion, Armed popular with release) is as for him resulting from an ideological rupture within Communist party in 1963 (following the rupture of the axis Moscow-Beijing) and is constituted as a guerilla foquist (resulting from the cuban model of guerilla who seeks to create " focos" , of the nucleuses of revolt in the most moved back zones of the country where the State is weakest) of influence Maoist. The EPL begins its military operations in 1967 and is established in the north of the department of Antioquia, in the Cordoba and the Cauca. In spite of the will of the EPL to find in the China of Mao a powerful and generous ally, only the Albania of Enver Hoxha will seek to too often support indeed a guerilla victim of internal conflicts and competitions with the FARCS to be able at that time to claim with becoming other thing that a minority ultra movement.

The Seventies

At all events, the guerillas country-women never have and at any time have the possibility of threatening the capacity in place and of being in strong position. On the contrary, the Seventies are one time of very Net retreat of their influence and their offensive capacities. The Colombian Armée is perfectly able to reduce to the maximum the capacity of harmful effect of the guerillas and to confine them at completely marginal zones of the territory. Proper consent of the FARCS, the end of the year sixty and the beginning of the year seventy is one time of serious attack where the organization loses 70% of its manpower, following the engagements with the regular army. The estimates of the number of combatants in the middle of the Seventies are rather revealing difficulties of these guerillas rural: About thirty soldiers for the EPL, a hundred for the ELN and 400 for the FARCS. In addition, the guerillas are quickly limed in many internal quarrels which paralyze their action and explode the little of organization that they had developed since the beginning of the Fifties.

If the Seventies are not a time ostentation for the FARCS, the ELN or the EPL, they saw the birth of the one of the movements the most powerful guerillas of Latin America: The M-19. In an international context which sees the Vietnam managing after three decades of guerilla to overcome the Western Impérialisme, the the Middle East and the Europe to undergo the innovation which are the terrorist attacks, and the Latin-American southern Cone in prey with the preserving dictatorships and anticommunists. The urban guerilla warfare who seeks to strike, with few men and from the limited means, from the significant places or people obtains a visibility much more important than the rural movements often judged like retrograde. Colombian M-19, with the image of Chilean MIR or the Argentinian Montoneros , is representative of this change of tactic.

In 1973, the Mouvement of April 19th is created following the elections supposément fraudulent of the April 19th 1970 which see the defeat of the general Rojas Pinilla. Its partisans of the party of the popular National alliance (ANAPO, Alianza NAcional POpular), frustrated by the defeat, combined with Marxist university circles, nationalists of left and a certain number of urban intellectuals found M-19 under the crook of Jaime Bateman. It is mainly at the end of the Seventies and with the beginning of the year eighty that M-19 makes speak about him by a series of blows of glare which all the more easily makes it popular and legitimate in its dispute of the capacity as the liberal president of the time, Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978 - 1982) is made the cantor of the doctrines of the National security and regularly ridicules the human rights in his anti-subversive fight. That is by the flight of 7000 weapons in a deposit of the army in full Bogota in 1978, by the taking of hostage of and diplomat about fifty (of which ambassadors American Israeli in Colombia) within the embassy of Dominican Republic for 4 months or with the tragedy taken of the Law courts of Bogota where 95 people (including 9 judges of the supreme court) perished, M-19 becomes the rebellious actor number one of Colombia and deeply modifies the methods of insurrection (urban actions, terrorism, more effective organization, regular financing by removals, modernization of military equipment, union between rebellious groups…). It is with the beginning of the year eighty that the guerillas rural take again strength grace in particular to better funding sources which come mainly from the production of sheets of Coke, of the control of production zones of hydrocarbons and removals of heads of undertaking or political personalities. Whereas these guerillas were badly in point during all the decade spent, the appearance of the narcotrafic changes completely gives it.

Drug in Colombia

Colombia enjoys an exceptional geographical location. It is with cross of two international commercial main roads: one leaves the the United States, crosses the Central America and plunges towards under American southern continent; the other connects the Pacifique to the Atlantique by the Panama Canal and makes it possible to join by sea the west coast American the the Caribbean, the American east and the Europe. Besides it is a question of the only country of South America to have a double maritime frontage.

Colombia thus establishes the link between the countries under developed South producers of drug and the developed countries of North consumers of narcotics, while being an economic power under regional, having of strong entrepreneurial capacities, a diaspora in network and average techniques necessary for the development and the synthesis of drugs. The diversity of its relief as well as the existence of completely moved back and inaccessible zones where the State is only far from present, support the production of all types of drugs, which that is Marijuana, Coca or Pavot. It is obvious that endemic violence in which the country lives since a half century contributed to the development of various smugglings: chemical alcohol, tobacco, emeralds, precursors, manufactured goods, narcotics…) and provided economic opportunities and financial resources without common measurement to several million Colombians. The history of the production of drugs in Colombia rests for much on the market evolutions international and the blows and by-effects made with the producer countries. Between 1974 and 1982, Colombia is one of the very first producers of marijuana in the world and benefits from the eradication campaigns successful with the Mexico and in Jamaica to become the supplier number one of the United States of America.

The Cocaïne then is primarily produced with the Peru and in Bolivia and does nothing but be transformed and convoyed into Colombia for then taking the road of the the Caribbean or Mexico. In spite of that, the receipts of this smuggling are evaluated to almost 2000 million dollars (either the equivalent of the profits resulting from the production of coffee). The money of drug allows the appearance at the political level of the narco-traffickers to the beginning of the year eighty, that is by assassinations targeted (such as that of the Minister for justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla) or by the presence on the institutional level of the barons of drug such Pablo Escobar. This time sees narco-terrorism devastating the country and the attacks to multiply with Bogota, Medellin and Cali. The primary reason of this fight to the death is to be sought in the question of the extradition towards the United States of America of the drug traffickers who prove to be ready with very to make fold the government, that is by corruption, the intimidation or the recourse to violence. They in addition seek to make recognize at the institutional level the political character of their fight with an aim of obtaining, like the guerillas, a favorable statute to negotiate and see themselves legalizing. Pablo Escobar, leader of the Cartel of Medellin is stopped in 1991 and, after a rocambolesque escape of almost fifteen months, finally shot down in December 1993. This death puts a term at one decade of open conflict. Pablo Escobar died, the trust of Medellin collapses and that of Cali takes again the control of the drug trafficking. The president Ernesto Samper sees himself in 1994 marked to have received six million dollars on behalf of the trust of Cali to finance his countryside, which causes a political crisis interns and a diplomatic serious incident with the United States of America which manage to make vote the law authorizing the extradition of Colombian nationals in 1997.

Until 1994, Colombia produced relatively little Coke and was used especially as laboratory to transform the paste bases in cocaine which was then to export towards North. The policy étasunienne of eradication of the coke to the Peru and in Bolivia having met a certain success and the production of marijuana in Colombia having fallen, the production zones of Coke moved towards the north of under continent, all the more easily as a mushroom devastates the Peruvian production of Coke to the beginning of the year eighty ten and that is developed a new variety of Coke pushing in the Amazonian lowlands. Since 1997, Colombia becomes the first world producer of Coke, of paste bases and cocaine. In addition, although the figures are difficult to calculate, Colombia launched out in the Eighties ten in the poppy cultivation and is today the leading vendor of Héroïne of the United States of America.

the alarm clock of the guerillas rural

The appearance of drug thus gave to the armed actors powerful, regular and quasi unlimited means of financing. To that is added the patient and long construction of zones of strong establishment of the guerillas, in particular in the zones of Amazonian Piedmont (departments of Caqueta, Putumayo, Meta and Guaviare) without the Colombian State not really seeking to disenclose (by a policy of public investment, construction of roads or social programs) these isolated regions and badly controlled. It is besides there that the FARCS (main actor in this zone) concentrated the essence of their production of drugs and pass to an offensive tactic vis-a-vis the regular army.

A second factor responsible for the alarm clock of the guerillas rural is without question the policy followed by preserving president Belisario Betancur (1982-1986). Indeed, after the mandate of Turbay Ayala which had answered M-19 by the militarization of the country, Betancur seeks the dialog and preaches a policy of peace which is concretized by a generous law of amnesty, the legalization of a political body of the FARCS, the FARC-UP (Popular union), a will of opening and transparency, and reforms social. It negotiates then mainly with the FARCS and M-19 and multiplies the truces and the cease-fires. Betancur then seems in phase to succeed in changing completely gives it but the peace agreements remain too vague to prevent the actors armed to take again the hostilities.

The bankruptcy of the negotiations is total in 1985 when M-19 attacks the law courts of Bogota. Final, these three years of to and from made it possible to the guerillas to be more strongly established, to extend their offensive capacities and to become actors of foreground. It is during this time that are created the militia of self-defense (in particular the FARMHOUSE, Muerte has los Secuestradores) and the groups paramilitary who fights in margin of the law against the guerillas and whom the State does not control in any manner. It is about the beginning of what one calls in Colombia " the war sale" who concretizes himself, inter alia, by the assassination of 165 members of the FARC-UP between his creation (February 1985) and October of the same year, political experiment which will traumatisera the FARCS and will vaccinate them against all new temptation legalist.

The election of Virgilio Barco (liberal president of 1986 to 1990) changes only few things to the conflict which worsens because of presence of the narco-terrorists. However, M-19, convinced of the dead end of the military option in which it is limed since the massacre of the Law courts, starts peace talks and ends up massively demobilizing on March 9th, 1990 to enter in policy under name AD/M-19 (Democratic Alliance). It is during the mandate of Barco that is launched the idea to elect a constituent assembly as solution with the problem of the guerillas. Indeed, many which is those charge to the Front National and the old constitution of 1886 a share of responsibility in the appearance of rebel movements, by advancing the assumption that their formation would be a reaction to the institutionalized two-party system, the lack of opening and dialog spaces of the political system, with the clientelism and generalized corruption. It is allocated to the successor of Barco, the liberal Cesar Gaviria Trujillo (1990-1994), to conclude this new constitution project.

July 4th, 1991 is adopted a new Constitution particularly progressist and modern: Colombia is declared “Social state of right, organized in Republic unit, decentralized, democratic, participative and pluralist, based on the respect of human dignity”. (art1) It guarantees the primacy of the inalienable rights of the man (art5), the protection of the ethnic and cultural diversity of the country (art7), the inviolability of the right to the life (art11), the principle of nondiscrimination for some reason that is (art13), the women's rights (art43) and of the child (art44) like those of the workers (art53-57). The Constitution removes the concept of State of siege and replaces it by that of State de Commotion Internal, much more restrictive and guard of the human rights. Colombia becomes by this text largely decentralized, the departments acquiring a certain degree of autonomy and the Central state delegating the administrative responsibilities to them and ratifies the direct elections of the mayors and governors of departments. In addition, she recognizes the linguistic, cultural rights and policies of the Amerindian minorities and afro Colombian and finally opens the political game with all the political parties.

This generous and carrying project is adopted massively by plebiscite and allows the demobilization and the political entry of the EPL and other movements minority guerillas (Quintin Lame, PRT…). It is interesting to note that the party created following the entry in policy of M-19 gains 26% of the votes at the time of the election for the Constituent one (and thus largely contributed to its drafting) and its principal representative, Antonio Navarro, arrives at the third place of the presidential election of May 1990 (who see the victory of Gaviria) in front of the conservative candidate.

The efforts of peace of president Gaviria lead to a round of negotiations in Caracas (June 1991) then with Tlaxcala, Mexico (March 1992) with the FARCS and the ELN but the guerillas remain in a posture openly quarrelsome and multiply the attacks in the current of the year 1992. The situation becomes so chaotic that Gaviria must declare the State of Commotion Internal lasting nearly nine months (90 days renewable twice) and reinforce the capacities of the soldiers while Re-centralizing the capacity. The guerillas are then in phase to become simple illegitimate criminal organizations with whom any political negotiation is dedicated to the failure taking into account the fact that their only interest is precisely the continuation of the war.

The mandate of new liberal president Ernesto Samper which begins in 1994 does not modify the conflict radically. Indeed, as it is the case since Betancur, Samper starts by wanting to negotiate with the guerillas with an aim " to humanize the guerre" and a social program launches, seeing in the poverty and the lack of social and economic opportunities one of the roots of the conflict. But the cycle of violence cannot be stopped and reciprocal mistrust between government and guerillas does not grow blurred. The year 1995 is tragic (nearly 20.000 died in 8 months, 700 removals…) and Samper is radicalized by declaring the State of Commotion Internal and by taking again the militarist way. The FARCS are then with their apogee, doped by the few a hundred and fifty thousand hectares of Coke produced in Colombia, and pass clearly to an offensive strategy in the south is country. Between 1996 and 1998, they tackle all military bases of the Amazonian departments with an unquestionable success. August 30th, 1996, the base of Mow Delicias is taken with heavy artillery by 400 guerillas; March 2nd, 1998, in El Bilar, the FARCS crush a counter insurgency unit of the army and kill 62 soldiers (and make captive 43 soldiers): the rout of the Colombian army is heavy and the FARCS were never shown also powerful. Of the extreme concessions to the all-out war

The name of Andres Pastrana Arango remains associated still today with the most hazardous policy and most utopian with the Colombian modern history. As much Gaviria was the man of the new Constitution and Samper that of the narco-policy, as much Pastrana will remain the promoter of Farclandia. This conservative, elected official of accuracy in June 1998, and which met the leader of the FARCS personally, Tirofijo, before his taking of as president, seek at the beginning of his mandate to reconcile the favors of old the communist guerilla. October 9th of the same year, Pastrana decides to concede with the FARCS a demilitarized zone in the area of Caguan (departments of Meta/Caqueta) of 42.000 km ², that is to say roughly the size of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon joined together. This enclave in the middle of the virgin forest must be a pledge of good will on behalf of the government but will be never anything else but the official country of the FARCS which make use of it like cutting off useful for the culture of the coke and its transformation into cocaine, with the storage of weapons and the training of soldiers. Like precisely writes it Rafael Pardo, " the main result which was not obtained the peace plan of Pastrana was the paix." It should be recognized however that Farclandia made it possible to make visible with the international level what are truly the FARCS, a guerilla financed by drug and removals and who does not have any interest with peace. N the other hand, the FARCS acquired thanks to that a vertiginous military power and the Colombian State officially and voluntarily lost its sovereignty on approximately 4% of its territory. The policy of hard negotiation until 2001 at intervals imposed by the FARCS and leads to the release of 300 hostages of the guerilla. The mandate of Pastrana also corresponds to a serious period of economic recession and the considerable development of the paramilitary phenomenon.

Whereas Samper was the sworn enemy of Washington (the business of the 6 million dollars of its countryside had made it suspect to the eyes of the Clinton administration), Pastrana joins again diplomatically with the United States of America and launches in August 2000 the famous Colombia plan with the active support of president Clinton. It is about a help of 1,3 billion dollar intended for the fight against drugs, the reinforcement of the military capacities of the Colombian army and for social reforms.

The end of the mandate of Pastrana is marked by the removal in February 2002 of the candidate Ingrid Betancourt ecologist whereas that Ci, in full presidential campaign, left in Caguan to negotiate for its own account with the persons in charge guerillas.

It is an independent candidate, resulting from the liberal party, which gains very largely with the first turn (with 53% of the voices) the elections of 2002. Alvaro Uribe Calve, former governor of the department of Antioquia (Medellin), does not return in the traditional diagram of the Colombian political life which consisted in starting the presidential mandate by one period of peace negotiation. On the contrary, convinced that it is initially necessary to militarily crush the guerillas for then negotiating, Uribe launches out in an offensive policy (“of democratic safety”) with an aim of reducing the territorial influence of the guerillas. The control of the country and the transportation routes is a priority which is in fact obtained quickly by an increase in manpower military and police and by an heightened surveillance in the provinces. Authoritative and warlike methods of the president (militarization of peasants, encouragement to the denouncement, violations of the human rights, massive implication of civilians in the conflict…), its bonds supposed with the trust of Medellin and Pablo Escobar, its appetite of crusade against subversion narco-terroristo-Communist pointing out curiously that carried out by the paramilitaries with whom it maintains the doubtful relations, are as many elements denounced by ONG of Colombian human rights and the left. Nevertheless Uribe is by far the most popular president of the Colombian modern history (regularly credited of more than 70% of favorable opinions) and that he works without slackening with the pacification of the country. The fact is that the Colombians are wearied multiple unfruitful attempts at peace and that Uribe, populist and demagogic, a program follows which allures the population and which manages indeed to reduce criminality, violence and the presence will guérillera in the country (the FARCS passed by again in a defensive dynamics). It in addition succeeded in 2005 making demobilize several thousands of paramilitaries without that meaning the end of the activities of this terrorist group. Uribe was made the cantor of the fight against the production of drug (within the framework of the Colombia plan then Patriote plan), becoming of this fact the support number one in South America of the United States of America of the president Bush junior and the personal enemy of Hugo Chavez.

By legislative act 02 of the year 2004, article 197 of the Constitution of 1991 was modified to allow the re-election of the president in progress. It is by a crushing victory (62% of the voices to the first turn) that on May 28th, 2006 president Uribe was re-elected for four years.

See too

• Presidents de Colombie

External bonds

Implication of Uribe in the traffic of cocaine.

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