Yearbook 2008
Colombia. According to
Countryaah reports, the guerrilla movement FARC (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia), which fought the government
for over 40 years, was subjected to great political and
military pressure during the year. The most spectacular
defeat was the release of 15 people held hostage by the
FARC, the most well-known being the French-Colombian
politician and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who
had been held captive for six years after being kidnapped
during a presidential campaign and now able to reunite with
his family. Exactly how the exemption went to was not
clarified. According to the official version, it was the
result of a clever plan by the security forces, while others
claimed that a ransom of half a million dollars was paid.
Another hard hit for FARC was that Manuel "Tirofijo"
Marulanda, FARC's founder and leader, died in a heart attack
at the end of March. The effects of his death were perhaps
more symbolic than concrete, since he had been ill for a
long time and others had already taken over his position.
More decisive was that two more FARC leaders were killed the
same month, Raúl Reyes and Iván Rios, who were the first
ever from the FARC Secretariat, its highest command, which
government forces managed to kill in battle. Marulanda
himself was succeeded by FARC's ideologue, the 59-year-old
university educated Alfonso Cano, who by some analysts is
considered more pragmatic but also less charismatic than the
peasant leader Marulanda. However, in one of its first
communications, Cano announced that FARC intended to step up
its military activities. On the other hand, another
guerrilla group,
The strike against Raúl Reyes led to a serious foreign
policy crisis as the attack took place in neighboring
Ecuador's territory. Ecuador expelled Colombia's ambassador
and President Rafael Correa sent troops to the border, as
did President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. For a few weeks the
risk of war seemed imminent. However, after one of Reye's
seized computers was found to contain compromising
information about the links between both Ecuador's and the
Venezuelan government and the FARC, the rattle dropped.
The success of the fight against FARC has given President
Álvaro Uribe increased support. On February 4, millions of
people in 40 Colombian cities and abroad also demonstrated
against the FARC's treatment of their prisoners, and on July
20 a similar demonstration was held. Although the organizers
wanted to avoid a political manifesto in support of
President Uribe, the effect was just that; polls showed that
he could easily win another presidential election.
However, President Uribe also had hardships. At the end
of August, for example, it was revealed that two of his
advisers had received visits to the presidential palace in
Bogota by leaders of the illegal paramilitary groups. Rumors
of such contacts had been circulating for a long time.
Colombia's contemporary history
Since the year 2000, community development in Colombia
has been marked by attempts to stop the extensive violence
in the country, both from right-wing paramilitary
organizations such as the AUC, as well as the leftist
radical guerrillas FARC and ELN. President Álvaro Uribe came
in as a consequence of the failed peace attempts in the
1990s, and his military offensive succeeded in weakening the
guerrillas significantly militarily, but also entailed an
escalation of the conflict and widespread human rights
violations.
The successor Juan Manuel Santos, former minister of
defense of the Uribe government, used the opportunity to
enter into peace talks with a militarily weakened FARC.
Norway and Cuba contributed to negotiations as facilitators.
A historic peace agreement was signed in 2016, after over 50
years of armed conflict. Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize that year, but the peace process has faced many
challenges when it has been tried and put into practice. In
2018, Iván Duque, who is critical of the peace agreement,
was elected president, and in the wake followed some of the
biggest civil mass demonstrations the country has seen in a
long time. These were met with violence from the
authorities. At the same time, cocaine production reached in
the country new heights.
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