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(Social)
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The Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was assassinated in 1948 and this created tension between the Liberal and Conservative Parties.There was a revolt against the Conservative Party government, killing 1,500 and injuring 20,000 others.
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In 1949, Laureano Gomez became the archconservative dictator and soon after, Gomez’s government was declared illegal because it was taking away the people’s civil liberties.
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The Conservative Party proposed a new constitution that would have imposed a totalitarian regime. Liberals and moderate conservatives balked and joined in support of a military coup in June that brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to power.
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In 1964, both FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) were founded.
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To try to reduce the economy’s dependence on drug production, the government provided financial encouragements for farmers to start producing legitimate crops and this was partially successful. Coffee became Colombia’s most important crop, especially between 1964 and 1986.
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The EPL (Ejército Popular de Liberación) was formed in 1965 and the FARC, the ELN, and the EPL took up arms against the government in the mid-1960s.
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In 1967, the Trade Development Bureau’s PROEXPO Fund was established to increase the amount of untraditional exports.
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Former Conservative President Gomez made an alliance with Conservative President Camargo, creating the National Front (Liberal-Conservative coalition), which won the 1970 elections.
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The Dominican Embassy siege was the 1980 siege of the embassy of the Dominican Republic by M-19 guerrillas in Bogotá, Colombia. The guerrillas held nearly 60 people, including 14 ambassadors, hostage for 61 days.
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In the 1980s, private paramilitary groups fought with the guerrilla groups and caused civilian massacres. In 1985, rebels connected to a drug cartel killed 95 people, which included 11 Supreme Court justices. Tens of thousands of lives were taken within the next few years because of the violence in Colombia.
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The drug trading was getting out of hand in 1989 so the government arrested over 10,000 people who were connected to the drug trade and took away the property of suspected drug lords.
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President Cesar Gaviria finally established apertura, which was a plan to restructure the economy in 1990.
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Gaviria enacted the 1991 Constitution, which protects human rights and enshrines social security and health care benefits. He also offered amnesty to drug traffickers who turned themselves in, and some did so. The drug trade, however, continued to foment violence and disrupt the country until Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel, was killed in a gunfight with government security forces in December 1993.
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In June 1994, Liberal Ernesto Samper was elected president and began working toward peace with the FARC. However, other guerrilla groups refused to disarm and intensified their terrorist activities. Samper's government was undermined by allegations that he accepted millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the Cali drug cartel in 1994.
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In June 1998, voters ended the PL's 12-year hold on presidential power with the election of Andres Pastrana of the PCC. High on Pastrana's agenda was the organization of peace negotiations to end decades of civil conflict.
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In February 2000, Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Maluranda signed a peace agreement that negotiated a cease-fire in the then-36-year internal conflict. However, Colombia continued to be plagued by violence and civil unrest.
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In May 2002, the right-wing Alvaro Uribe Velez was elected president by a landslide on his promises to eliminate crime, violence, and drug trafficking. When he took office, his plans were to double defense spending, and he looked to the allied U.S government for funding. About one year after Uribe began his first term as the country's president, he began calling for an amendment to the Colombian Constitution that would allow presidents to run for a second four-year term.
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In July 2004, Uribe's administration began peace talks with right-wing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia - AUC). The negotiations focused on the disarmament of AUC segments in exchange for members avoiding extradition to the United States, reducing prison sentences for terrorist and narcotics crimes, and reintegrating the troops into the Colombian armed forces. By early 2006, more than 26,000 right-wing paramilitaries disarmed.
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Uribe's successor, his former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, took office in August 2010.
(Political)
