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HISTORY OF COLOMBIA

New Granada: AD 1740-1810

The modern nations of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador are grouped together, from 1740, as the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada with its capital at Bogot?.

The second half of the 18th century is a time of considerable progress in the region. Spain relaxes the long-standing mercantilist restrictions on trade with its colonies, resulting in a rapid increase in prosperity. An educated and professional class of Creoles begins to emerge, self-confident and increasingly resentful of the privileges of the peninsulares. In these circumstances New Granada is a natural region for the first resistance to imperial rule. There is a brief uprising in Ecuador as early as 1809. But sustained opposition begins elsewhere a year later.

Caracas, the capital of the province of Venezuela, gives the lead in April 1810. But Bogot?, capital of the entire viceroyalty of New Granada is not far behind. On July 20 citizens throw out the Spanish officials who are operating by now on behalf of Napoleon's puppet king in Spain. A local administration is established, declaring its loyalty to the deposed king Ferdinand VII.

A year later Bogot? goes one step further, claiming independence, but in 1815 Spanish forces recapture the city. By this time the independence movement in Colombia is intimately connected with the campaign of BolÃvar to liberate the whole of New Granada and establish Gran Colombia.

BolÃvar and Gran Colombia: AD 1810-1822

Sim€n BolÃvar, Venezuelan by birth and the central figure in the story of the independence movements of Latin America, is a young officer in Caracas in 1810. He is part of the conspiracy by which a junta expels the Spanish governor of the province of Venezuela, on April 19, and takes control. For the next twelve years BolÃvar's efforts are directed single-mindedly towards liberating the whole of New Granada from Spanish rule. There are many reverses on the way.

The optimism of July 1811, when a national assembly in Caracas formally declares Venezuela's independence, is followed by a complete reversal a year later. The Spanish authorities rally, recover a military initiative, and by July 1812 regain control of the entire province.

BolÃvar escapes to Cartagena, the main seaport of neighbouring Colombia. The city is in rebel hands, and here he pens a powerful political pamphlet, the Manifesto de Cartagena, addressed to the citizens of New Granada. In it he offers the inspiring vision of a united effort to expel the Spaniards.

He soon proves his own abilities in this great enterprise. In 1813, at the head of an army of liberation, he returns to Venezuela and wins six successive engagements against Spanish forces. On 6 August 1813 he enters Caracas. Welcomed as the Liberator, he takes political control with dictatorial powers.

Again success is short-lived. By July 1814 BolÃvar has once more lost Caracas. He marches instead to Bogot?, which he succeeds in recapturing from the Spanish. He makes this capital city his base for a while, but soon the Spanish recover it yet again. BolÃvar flees into exile, in Jamaica and Haiti. But by the end of 1817 he is back in Venezuela, building up a new army in an inaccessible region on the Orinoco river.

Here he conceives a bold plan. He will not make another attempt on Caracas. Instead he will strike at the capital city of New Granada by a route which is considered impossible - along the waterlogged plain of the Orinoco and then over the Andes for a surprise attack on Bogot?.

In 1819 BolÃvar's small force, of only about 2500 men, uses cowhide boats to cross a succession of flooded tributaries of the Orinoco (one of his men claims later that for seven days they marched in water up to their waists). This ordeal is followed by one even worse, a mountain crossing during which a considerable number of the rebel band die of cold.

But the surprise holds. They descend from the high passes upon an unsuspecting enemy. In an engagement at Boyac?, on 7 August 1819, the Spanish army surrenders. Three days later BolÃvar enters Bogot?. On December 17 the Republica de Colombia is proclaimed. It covers the entire region of modern Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

As yet the republic is little more than a notion, for Venezuela and Ecuador are still securely in Spanish hands. But the Liberator soon puts this right. In Venezuela on 24 June 1821 he wins a battle at Carabobo which yields to him once again his native city of Caracas. And in Ecuador on 24 May 1822 BolÃvar's favourite general, the young Antonio Jos» de Sucre, wins a victory at Pichincha and brings the patriots into Quito.

With this liberation of Ecuador, the Republica de Colombia becomes a reality as a free republic. (To avoid confusion with later republics of Colombia, BolÃvar's pioneering state has subsequently been given the name Gran Colombia by historians, and this now common anachronism is followed here.)

Gran Colombia: AD 1822-1830

Gran Colombia only has eight years as a functioning state, and they are increasingly turbulent. BolÃvar technically remains president even during the period (1823-6) when he is away controlling the campaign in Peru. In his absence the acting president is one of his trusted commanders, Francisco de Paula Santander, a native of Colombia.

Unfortunately another close colleague of BolÃvar's is increasingly discontent with the attempted rule of the entire region of Gran Colombia from the capital at Bogot?. The Venezuelan patriot Jos» Antonio P?ez leads a rebellion in 1826 demanding independence for Venezuela.

The crisis of 1826 brings BolÃvar back from Peru to Gran Colombia. He appeases P?ez, allowing him a degree of autonomy in Venezuela, but in doing so he provokes opposition in Colombia - where he assumes dictatorial powers in 1828 (and later in the same year is lucky to survive an assassination attempt).

Meanwhile Ecuador, the third part of Gran Colombia, has been in political turmoil since independence was first achieved in 1823; and its valuable southern port of Guayaquil has remained a bone of contention with Peru. The Peruvians invade in 1829. They are only driven back when Sucre emerges from his recent retirement and defeats them, against heavy odds, on the plain of Tarqui.

By 1830 BolÃvar is isolated, ineffective and increasingly ill. Santander has been exiled after the 1828 attempt on BolÃvar's life (in which he was not directly implicated). And in 1829 P?ez has launched a renewed separatist movement demanding Venezuelan independence.

In May 1830 BolÃvar decides to leave Bogot?, resigning as president and planning to retire to Europe. He only gets as far as Santa Marta, on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, where he dies of tuberculosis - but not before hearing of two final blows. In September both Ecuador and Venezuela secede formally from Gran Colombia. And June has brought news of a more personal loss.

Of his many devoted followers BolÃvar has always favoured the talented but unassuming Antonio Jos» de Sucre, treating him almost as a son and seeing him as his likely successor. Early in 1830 BolÃvar asks Sucre to preside over a congress in Bogot?, in a final attempt to hold Gran Colombia together. When the congress fails, Sucre sets off to ride home to Quito. He is assassinated on his journey, probably by agents of a political rival.

BolÃvar and his associates have won independence for the nations of Spanish America. But the republics begin their separate histories in a lethal atmosphere of mistrust and political gangsterism.

Irreconcilable factions: AD 1830-1948

In Colombia, more than in any other Latin American republic, political life consists of an unending clash between liberal and conservative interests. The two Colombian factions far transcend the usual levels of disagreement over issues such as the power of the church. Here liberal and conservative become more like banners of local allegiance in a dispute which sometimes escalates into civil war.

Things start relatively peacefully when Santander returns from exile and becomes (from 1833 to 1837) president of the new state - which goes through a bewildering variety of names (the republic of New Granada 1831-58, the Granadine Confederation 1858-61, the United States of Colombia 1861-66, the republic of Colombia from 1866).

Santander's presidency is followed by many decades of violent liberal-conservative hostility. A civil war in 1899-1903 (known as the War of a Thousand Days) causes some 100,000 deaths and has a disastrous side-effect in the loss of the northern part of the country - which becomes, with US assistance, the independent republic of Panama.

The most extreme period of liberal-conservative conflict in Colombian history, lasting from 1948 to 1957, is believed to have resulted in at least 200,000 deaths and has become known as la violencia. Violence erupts throughout the whole country in April 1948 after Jorge Eli»cer Gait?n, a liberal leader, is assassinated in broad daylight on a street of the capital, Bogot?.

The violence continues to escalate, with extreme brutality perpetrated by both sides, during the regimes of two successive dictators (Laureano G€mez 1950-53, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla 1953-57), until a military junta takes power on an interim basis in 1957.

This disastrous period is followed by one in which conservatives and liberals agree at last to collaborate in a form of coalition government. Known as the National Front government, it operates from 1958 on the principle that the presidency and all other government and civil service positions are shared in turn and on an exactly equal basis.

The National Front government holds firm for a period of sixteen years (four successive presidencies). It brings economic advantages to Colombia but also increasing resentment that the two halves of a long-established oligarchy are apparently using the recent crisis to hold on to power.

From 1974 elections become once again genuine contests between the two national parties. They have since remained so, with the Liberal party prevailing slightly more often (the most recent Liberal president is Andr»s Pastrana Arango, elected in 1998). But if violence in Colombia has receded from the political scene, it has featured recently to a tragic degree both in nature and in crime.

Natural and man-made disasters: AD 1985-1999

In the last two decades of the 20th century Colombia suffers more than its share of natural disasters. In November 1985 a dormant volcano erupts in the region west of Bogot?, burying under a deep layer of silt the town of Armero and its surrounding district. As many as 20,000 die. In January 1999, about 100 miles to the southwest, a volcano demolishes the town of Armenia - again with a large loss of life.

In the meantime Colombians themselves do much to make life in the country dangerous, through the combined terrorist activities of Marxist guerrillas and drug cartels, based mainly in Medellin.

In 1985 guerrillas enter the Palace of Justice in Bogot? and hold a number of hostages, until the building is raided by Colombian troops with the loss of about 100 lives including several Supreme Court judges.

In 1984 the Minister of Justice is assassinated at the instigation of drugs barons, ruthless in their use of murder to protect their immensely profitable trade. Their power is reduced somewhat when Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin drugs cartel, is captured. In July 1992 he escapes from prison, but in 1993 he is cornered on the roof of a house and is shot. Power shifts to the Cali cartel, believed to control 80% of the drugs smuggled into the USA. The battle continues.

Meanwhile the Marxist guerrillas gain in strength, in partnership with the drug cartels which provide them with weapons. The main group, known as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), is calculated to number about 20,000.

The guerrillas occupy their own territory, a jungle region in the south of the country, from which they sally forth to attack military and police posts and to protect cocaine plantations. By 1999 FARC has captured some 350 military personnel, who are being held hostage in secret jungle camps. And the number of Colombian deaths from the conflict during the 1990s is estimated to be at least 35,000.