Colombia Government Corruption

Colombia was one of the three original countries along with Ecuador and Venezuela that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830. Over the last 40 years, there has been a campaign to overthrow the government partially because of the drug trades throughout Colombia. The movement does however lack support from military and support from the necessary influences. In recent years, there have been challenges for control of the territories throughout Colombia and also for the drug trade.

Columbia is historically the most impacted nation of narco-terrorism. Columbia was first declared an independent nation after the fall of Gran Columbia along with Ecuador and Venezuela in 1830. As of July 2011, CIA World Factbook has estimated its population to be about 44,725,543. Columbia has 1,138,910 sq km of land, approximately three times the size of California. However, according to the CIA World Factbook it is estimated that only 2.1% of the land is arable, 1.37% is already used for permanent crops, and the rest of its 96% is used for “other” reasons. According to the 2008 World Drug Report, over 99,000 ha of Columbian land is used for cocaine cultivation. Due to its ongoing civil wars and weak democratic government, Columbia has become a haven for narco-terrorism. Insurgent groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), National Liberation Army (ELN), and United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have been known rely on drug trafficking to carry out bombings, extortion, kidnapping, and assassination.

Drug trafficking reached its height in Colombia around 1982. They were importing foreign exchange estimating to range between $800 million and $2 billion. Colombia reached its highest peak of economic success, allowing for the countries development of communities, parks, etc. However, the cartels were not satisfied and began to set up coca

Located in Colombia, the city of Medellin was one of the biggest drug trafficking organizations in the world since the 1970’s. During the early 1970s the demand for cocaine spreads rapidly in the United States, the limited raw supplies produced in Colombia were build up with coca paste imported from Bolivia and Peru, refined in "kitchen laboratories" in Colombia, and smuggled into the United States. Medellín criminal networks during the mid-1970s transform the cocaine transportation system from petite activities into enormous airlift operations. During the late 1970’s through the earliest 1980’s, Griselda Blanco started incorporate into the drug industry. She was known as the “Cocaine Godmother”, “Black Widow”, and/or “Queen of Narco-trafficking.” While during about the same period time, Pablo Escobar raised himself to become one of the major drug dealers. He was known as “The World’s Greatest Outlaws”, “Sir Pablo”, “the Godfather”, “the Boss”, “the Lord”, “the Magician”, and/or “Little Pablo.” He was the hardest cocaine dealer to catch. Blanco and Escobar were well known for taking advantage of Medellin 's’ (back then) conditions by easily transporting drugs from Colombia to the United States. Some of the things that contributed into those two people to become the biggest drug dealers, are how they were raised in their early childhood to early teenage years, and their natal country (back then) conditions, and how they mold themselves towards their raise to power.

Another dimension to the predicament in Colombia is the drug problem. Colombia is the largest producer and provider of cocaine in the world. This problem, however, is not separate to the armed conflict. In the recent past decades, control over the drug business in Colombia has shifted from drug cartel organizations such as the notorious Medellin Cartel, to both the

In the 19th century, liberalism and conservatism were two very different political parties fighting for their version of what South America should become. These two parties had many different views that would ultimately shape the nations into what they are in the modern day. In this triumphant battle between the two parties, South America was at a turning point. Many countries were on the forefront of independence and this meant a chance to make a change in the government these countries had. Conservatives and Liberal beliefs appealed to different types of groups such as classes, races, industries and even gender. Although Conservatives and Liberals had many different views, both parties were fighting for what they thought was the better future for the nations of South America. These parties were very important to the advancement of South America and the stride towards independence.

Throughout human history, there has been corruption all over the world and of course different types as well, no doubt that each country has some form of corruption but it is at its worst in Latin America. This dreadful act is at its time high and it's not going down anytime soon, most of these Latin American countries lack of democracy, but instead have a dictator ruler. Corruption among official is abuse of power for their own self gain. According to Americas Market Intelligence “Latin American countries were characterized by having weak democratic institutions and authoritative governments, the perfect combination for the spread of corruption” they also mention the adverse effect corruption has on these countries, the high levels of corruption experience lower acceptance of established institutions, defaulted court system that cause a political instability,lower quality of public infrastructure and expenditures on education and health.There website also mentions that there is a direct correlation between corruption growth of the informal economy and the spread of illicit activity in the form of organized crime and illegal cartels.

The U.S decided to work with the Colombian government to establish an extradition treaty between the countries in 1979 (United States Congress ). This treaty would allow the U.S to extradite the cartel traffickers for a trial in the U.S. This caused Pablo to attack the government and this ultimately caused the Medellin cartel’s downfall. In the early 1990’s the cartel’s leaders were apprehended and the leader Pablo Escobar was killed in a firefight after having to run for his life. (PBS2).

During the early 1990’s Colombia being one of the biggest exporters of narcotics in history, led by Pablo Escobar, who had a wide range of organized crime affiliations throughout Latin America. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and he smuggled narcotics all the way to South Florida as when authorities tried to capture him. One of Pablo Escobar’s most important alliances was that of the Mexican-based traffickers. Escobar knew that this was an important trade route because of its geography and how it would be easier to smuggle the narcotics into the United States. This allowed a smuggling partnership between both countries and Mexico was to eventually lead their own drug based trafficking system with the help of Pablo Escobar. From the distributed drugs, cartels would take a certain amount of profit, and would use that money to bribe Mexican officials. By bribing Mexican officials it was insured that if smugglers were to be arrested they would either be let go, the case would be dropped or taking action against a rival smuggling group by giving away information about the rival’s plan to carry

The drug dealers have captured a great deal of power in Colombia, and have adopted the position of the government in many instances. The drug trade has ruined the image of Colombia, and has caused the world to forget about the other goods produced in Colombia, like coffee, flowers, oil and gas for instance. As the website put out by the Colombian Government Trade Bureau entitled “Colombia Trade News” states,

Drug trafficking is a major issue in Colombia, causing many other issues across the country. Many people involved in the drug trade including civilians are being killed, kidnapped, and injured over this problem. Over the years, the government has started cracking down on the growers, producers, and sellers but so far, they have only caught minor criminals. The government is making agreements with neighboring countries and finding alternative uses for the crops to slow down the production of drugs. Despite all of the efforts being made to stop drug trafficking, violence, and production the cartels are still thriving throughout Colombia.

During this time, the levels of violence were lower than many European and American Countries. Colombia has gained international fame as one of the major centers in the world for drug trafficking. Anytime a country has a problem with drug trafficking, crime is always high.

According to James Painter in his BBC News article “Latin America faces year of change”, Latin America suffers from social violence, kidnapping, drug trafficking, child pornography, lack of women’s rights, and little accountability over the region’s law makers and authorities which can lead to government corruption (para. 12). Government corruption can be defined as political power used by government leaders for private gain and to maintain their power as a government official. Most of the times these corrupt politicians in Latin America say they are accomplishing apprehension of criminals to the best of their abilities when, in reality, they commit the same multitude of crimes. Politicians are able to maintain their power as a result of

For many years in Medellin a civil war had occurred costing many lives between both sides of the parties concerning government and guerilla groups, later to become the Medellin Cartel (Fukuyama and Colby 2011). The war had begun and had been prolonged due to the weakness of Colombia’s national government who only commanded a small army and police all around Colombia (Fukuyama et al. 2011). It was by this that the beginning of The Medellin Cartel was able to start strong and continue a successful business. In the book Kings of Cocaine an Astonishing True Story of Murder, Money, and Corruption, authors Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen (Gugliotta and Leen 1989) name the founders of what can

The King of Cocaine, Pablo Escobar, was a Colombian drug lord who created the Medellin Cartel and was once one of Forbes’ Magazines wealthiest people (Levinthal, 2012). Pablo Escobar was born in 1949 in Colombia to a father was a peasant farmer and mother who was a school teacher (Thompson, 1996). His aspirations for a large life began when he was young and he dreamed of becoming the president of Columbia. However things changed when he realized that being legitimately wealthy would require him to be a criminal. Prior to being involved in drugs and smuggling, Pablo was a petty street thief and would steal cars (Jenish, & Wirpsa, 1993). As his criminal activity grew he would gain a name for himself on the streets that would ultimately prepare