Country profilesColombia

Humanitarian profile

Decades of conflict have turned Colombia into one of the world's worst humanitarian hotspots. More than 3 million people have been forced from their homes and tens of thousands have been killed. The main players are government troops, leftist rebels, right-wing militias and cocaine cartels.

Country snapshot

Colombia's armed conflict and drug-related violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and displaced up to four million over the last four decades.

A weak government and a lucrative drug trade has provided a fertile breeding ground for three illegal armies to flourish, the guerrilla groups, The National Liberation Army (ELN) along with The Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia (FARC), one of the oldest insurgent forces in the world, and the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a loose confederation of private armies, also known as the paramilitaries, formed to combat the leftist rebels.

At the peak of the conflict during the 1990's, Colombia was one of the most violent places on earth with a dire human rights record to match. During this period, the world's two most powerful drug organisations, the Cali and Medellin cartels, waged a war against the government and police. Some 3,500 people were abducted a year, earning Colombia the title of kidnap capital of the world.

Fighting between government forces and guerrilla groups, periodically causes tensions with neighbouring Ecuador and Venezuela; both countries mobilised their forces in 2008 after Colombia raided a guerrilla base in Ecuador. 

Colombia's conflict has led to a close alliance with the U.S. Since 2000, Washington has pumped billions of dollars in aid to fight drug gangs and stem coca production, making Colombia one of the world's largest recipients of U.S. aid. But Colombia still remains the world's largest producer of cocaine. Some 430 tonnes of pure cocaine were produced in the Andean nation in 2008, around half of world output.

Government

Colombia prides itself on a long democratic tradition and has only undergone one brief period of dictatorship in 1953. It has a presidential system of government. The Congress consists of a 102 member Senate and a 166 member House of Representatives; members of both bodies are elected by popular vote for four year terms. The president, who is the head of state, is elected for a four term and may serve two consecutive terms.

A new constitution in 1991 marked the creation of a Human Rights Ombudsman and a Constitutional Court, which reviews the legality of legislative acts, and new laws protecting indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups.

Economy

Economic growth reached seven percent in 2007 on the back of high commodity prices but grew only modestly in 2009 due to the global recession.  Coffee is by far the biggest agricultural crop - Colombia is the world's third largest exporter of coffee. Crude oil replaced coffee as the leading legal export in 1991. Colombia is the fourth biggest oil producer in Latin America, churning out around 600,000 barrels per day. It is home to the world's largest export open pit coal mining operation, EL Cerrejon, in north-eastern Colombia, ranking it the world's tenth largest producer of coal.

Colombia is also the world's second largest exporter of cut flowers, while bananas, nickel, emeralds and textiles make up its other main exports, of which a large chunk are exported to the U.S., Colombia's main trading partner. Cocaine is the country's biggest illegal export and accounts for about 25 percent of foreign exchange earnings.

History

After independence from Spain in 1819, Gran Colombia fractured into what became Ecuador, Venezuela and modern Colombia. Panama seceded in 1903. 

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Colombia's political landscape has been dominated by two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. A civil war between these parties erupted in 1948, sparked by the assassination of a popular Liberal presidential candidate, Jorge Gaitan. Known as La Violencia, it claimed around 200,000 lives until it subsided in the late 1950s. 

The guerrillas' power peaked in 1998 when President Andres Pastrana ceded an area the size of Switzerland to the FARC as a goodwill gesture to kick start peace talks. The peace process was a failure. During peace talks, the rebels continued to mount attacks, seized towns, re-grouped, and tried to establish a parallel government in the areas it controlled.

The arrival of hardliner Alvaro Uribe to power in 2002 marked a change in the war against the rebels and a decline in violence. Uribe deployed tens of thousands of government troops to outposts, and along with an intensified military offensive against the guerrillas, inflicted a series of heavy defeats against the rebels, pushing them further away from urban areas and deeper into the jungle.

Crime and kidnapping rates fell, bringing economic growth and attracting record numbers of tourists along with foreign investors keen to tap into Colombia's largely unexplored oil and mineral reserves. But far less progress was made in tackling poverty and unemployment. Around half of Colombia's population of 44 million, the third largest in Latin America, still live in poverty.

Over 30,000 paramilitary fighters, responsible for widespread human rights abuses and causing widespread displacement, laid down their arms during a controversial peace process with the Uribe government in 2003.

But new paramilitary groups linked to drug gangs have emerged and some rural and jungle areas, particularly in the country's south and along its borders, remain under the control of criminal gangs and rebel groups. Nearly 16,000 Colombians were murdered in 2009.

Legal snapshot

Corruption affects nearly all aspects and all levels of public life and bribery scandals involving public officials are commonplace. Dozens of lawmakers are under investigation by the Supreme Court for conspiring with paramilitary groups in election fraud and other crimes, while several are serving jail sentences.

U.S. State Department reports have linked the country's security forces with paramilitary death squads. Drug money has been used to exert social and political influence in local affairs, and the Cali drug cartel bankrolled a presidential election campaign during the 1990's. The World Economic Forum found corruption to be the second most significant factor after taxes hampering business in Colombia