History

Early History and Colonial Era

Colombia’s pre-Columbian history began more than 20,000 years ago, according to the earliest evidence of human occupation. The Chibcha, sub-Andean (Arawak), and Caribbean (Carib) peoples, most of whom lived in a patchwork of separate but organized, agriculturally based communities, inhabited the area now called Colombia. By the early colonial period in the 1500s, the Chibcha had become the most advanced of the indigenous peoples.

In 1499 a Spanish expedition first visited the Guajira Peninsula of what is now Colombia. Following the Caribbean coast southwest, colonists founded the first important mainland settlement, Santa María la Antigua de Darién (what is now Acandí), on the Gulf of Urabá in 1510. The Spanish founded Santa Fe de Bogotá (present-day Bogotá) far inland—located on an eastern high plateau in the center of the country at an elevation of approximately 2,650 meters and bordered to the east by the Eastern Cordillera—in 1538, and it became the capital of the Viceroyalty of the New Kingdom of Granada in 1719. The Viceroyalty included present-day Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. The outbreak of war in Europe pushed Spain to increase taxation of the colonists in 1778 in order to fund the war. In 1781 anger over taxation led to New Granada’s Revolt of the Comuneros (citizens organized to defend their rights against the arbitrary encroachment of government), an historic uprising that foreshadowed the revolution.

Independence

On July 20, 1810, revolutionary leaders took part in an uprising in Santa Fe de Bogotá that deposed the Spanish viceroy and created a governing council made up of criollos (persons of Spanish descent born in the New World). With the formation of their own governing body, the people of the region began favoring a complete break with Spain. On August 7, 1819, General Simón Bolívar (president, 1819–30) defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Boyacá, allowing the colonists to sever ties with Spain and form the Republic of Great Colombia (Gran Colombia), which included all territories under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (present-day Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela). Bolívar headed the government of Gran Colombia as president, with fellow liberator General Francisco de Paula Santander as his vice president. Although Gran Colombia became even greater in 1822, when Ecuador joined, the union would be short-lived. The followers of both leaders soon divided over conflicting political goals, setting the stage for the country’s long history of political violence. Bolívar’s supporters favored an authoritarian and centralized government, an alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, continuing slavery (despite his personal opposition to slavery), and a limited franchise. In contrast, the followers of Santander came to advocate a decentralized and federalist government, anticlericalism, and eventually broadened suffrage. When Ecuador and Venezuela seceded in 1830, Gran Colombia dissolved; what was left emerged as the Republic of New Granada, with Santander as its first president (1832–37). After their official establishment in about 1850, the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador Colombiano—PCC) and the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal—PL) solidified the early ideological split between the Conservatives and Liberals. These two traditional political parties dominated Colombian politics for the next 150 years. From 1849 until 1886, Colombia oscillated between a liberal republic and a highly centralized, authoritarian government under several different constitutions and three different names. During two periods of Liberal dominance (1849–54 and 1861–80), the governments sought to reduce the power of the Roman Catholic Church, but those efforts were met with insurrection.

The Republic of Colombia

The 1886 constitution gave the country yet another name, the Republic of Colombia, reversed the federalist trend, and inaugurated 45 years of Conservative Party rule, during which time power was again centralized and church influence restored. Factionalism within the two main political parties and political and economic instability characterized the inaptly named Regeneration period from 1878 to 1900. These events led to the War of a Thousand Days (La Guerra de los Mil Días, 1899–1902) between the Liberals and the Conservatives, a war that devastated the country and cost at least 100,000 lives. Panama seceded from the Republic of Colombia and, on November 3, 1903, declared independence.

In 1946 fighting again broke out following a change of parties in power, and in April 1948 the assassination of the popular Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán led to a major outburst of rioting in Bogotá itself. The countrywide violence known as “La Violencia,” in which as many as 300,000 people were killed, raged for more than 10 years. In 1958 the Conservatives and Liberals banded together to form the National Front, which helped to greatly reduce the violence in the early 1960s. Although the National Front arrangement ended in 1974, the tradition of presidents inviting opposition figures to hold cabinet positions continued through the 1990s.

The Era of Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, and Narcotrafficking

By excluding dissident political forces, the National Front pact contributed to the emergence of guerrilla groups in the mid-1960s. In 1965 the pro-Cuban National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional—ELN) and the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Popular—EPL) were founded; the next year, the pro-Soviet Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—FARC) was founded and quickly became the largest guerrilla group. They were joined in 1974 by another left-wing insurgent group, the Nineteenth of April Movement (Movimiento 19 de April—M–19). Although the M–19 and EPL later demobilized and formed political parties (the former in 1989 and the latter in 1991), the ELN and FARC, as well as a dissident element of the EPL, have continued insurgent activities to the present day.

As Colombia became a world leader in the production and trafficking of illegal drugs in the 1970s and 1980s, the large drug syndicates such as the Medellín and Cali cartels gained wide power through terror and corruption. During the narco-terrorist era (1983–93), narcotics traffickers sponsored assassinations of numerous government officials, justices, and politicians, particularly those who favored an extradition treaty with the United States. The government broke up the Medellín Cartel in 1993 and later the Cali Cartel by arresting key leaders. Despite the setbacks, drug traffickers continued to fuel the civil conflict during the 1990s, as the illegal armed groups became increasingly dependent on the drug trade for financing their insurgent operations. Colombia’s present constitution, adopted on July 5, 1991, replacing the 1886 charter, initially prohibited the extradition of Colombians wanted for trial in other countries. But drug traffickers have again faced extradition to the United States since 1997, when Colombia’s Congress reinstated, by constitutional amendment, the extradition of Colombian nationals. Although the last of the big cartels, Norte del Valle, disintegrated in 2004, they have been replaced by hundreds of smaller, lower-profile cartels, many of which operate in association with the paramilitary and guerrilla groups. These smaller networks have continued to wield significant power, although they adopted discreet bribery and intimidation rather than the political assassinations that had resulted in government crackdowns and dismantlement of the larger drug cartels.

Strengthened by income from the illegal drug trade during the 1990s, the ELN and FARC extended their territorial presence in Colombia in 1996–98. The administration of Andrés Pastrana Arango (president, 1998–2002) was marked by high unemployment, increased countrywide attacks by the guerrilla groups, widespread drug production, and expansion of paramilitary groups. As a concession in exchange for beginning peace talks, Pastrana granted the FARC a 51,000-square-kilometer demilitarized zone (DMZ) in south-central Colombia in November 1998. However, the FARC used the DMZ as a haven to increase illicit drug crops, transport military equipment and provisions, and negotiate kidnappings and extortions. Since the collapse of this arrangement along with the peace talks in early 2002, both the FARC and ELN have continued their insurgencies.

Stepped-up government actions against the guerrillas during the first administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (president, 2002–6, 2006– ), with the help of significant U.S. military aid, kept the guerrillas mostly withdrawn into the countryside, while government efforts to improve the economy and reduce cocaine production were showing results. Accordingly, the FARC devoted its efforts to making windfall profits from the trade in illegal drugs and maintaining its territorial control in its traditional, mostly rural areas of operation, which constitute at least 30 percent of the national territory. The FARC has used its huge revenue from drug trafficking to purchase a formidable guerrilla arsenal.

Paramilitary Partial Demobilization

The paramilitary groups that emerged in the early 1990s, including the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia—AUC), the country’s largest paramilitary organization, have fought the guerrilla groups and terrorized campesinos and human rights workers suspected of supporting or sympathizing with them. Members of these paramilitary groups are sometimes in the pay of drug cartels and landowners and backed by elements in the army and the police. After being formed in 1997, the AUC began operating as a loose confederation of disparate paramilitary groups, the largest of which is the Self-Defense Campesino Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá—ACCU). Other important paramilitary organizations include the Cacique Nutibara Bloc (Bloque Cacique Nutibara—BCN), the Central Bolívar Bloc (Bloque Central Bolívar—BCB), and the Middle Magdalena Bloc (Bloque del Magdalena Medio—BMM).

In July 2003, seven months after the AUC announced a unilateral cease-fire, the Uribe administration opened formal negotiations with the AUC with the goal of demobilizing it. On April 18, 2006, the government announced that the dismantlement process had been completed, with the formal demobilization, since 2003, of 30,150 paramilitaries, who surrendered about 17,000 weapons, 117 vehicles, three helicopters, 59 urban properties, and 24,000 hectares of land as part of the process mandated by the controversial Law of Justice and Peace of July 22, 2005. The Uribe government accepted most of the AUC’s demands, which included minimal or complete absence of prison time to be served; no requirement to provide details of economic, political, or drug-trafficking structures; and a shield, but not total immunity, against extradition. Moreover, in addition to allowing the demobilized paramilitaries to retain substantial financial assets, the government gave political status to the AUC. An Organization of American States observer has monitored the government’s peace process with the paramilitaries, lending the negotiations much-needed international credibility, although critics have complained about the leniency of the terms of surrender.

Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Colombia, February 2007