I was a stranger in a foreign country and I was surrounded by numerous people known to have killed in the past. This is how I spent many afternoons during the summer of 2014. That year, I traveled to a city called Cartagena in the South American country of Colombia. At this time, I had big plans of studying law and getting involved in politics. I was involved in a joint program between my undergraduate university and the University of Cartagena, which is where I was introduced to Professor Germán Ruiz. Professor Ruiz worked in the university’s global and public policy office and I was offered an internship with him. I assumed I would be learning about Colombia’s political system and policies but I was surprisingly mistaken. The first day of my internship was the day Professor Ruiz told me about Bonché. Bonché was a social project aimed at combating urban youth violence by using sports to help generate a sustained dialogue between rival street gangs. The project would engage youth gang members in certain outlets that would eventually lead toward open conversations between enemies in an effort to better their communities as a team. I had the opportunity to be involved in the beginning stages of this project. Professor Ruiz, one social worker, one former gang member, and I would travel to the outlying neighborhoods in Cartagena and convince known violent gang members to take part in our project and figure out how best to implement it. The first day of fieldwork we went to a
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.
Most of us are familiar with these global terms “American dream” and “drugs cartels”. These thoughts exemplify one the differences between United States of America and Colombia. Despite United States of America and Colombia are located in the same hemisphere significant differences in food, natural resources and tourist attractions make each country quite distinct from the other.
Colombia, republic in South America, situated in the northwestern part of the continent, and bounded on the north by Panama and the Caribbean Sea, on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, on the south by Peru and Ecuador, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia is the only country of South America with coasts on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The total land area of the country is 1,141,748 sq km (440,831 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Bogotá.
The Colombian culture is formed from the inheritance of the indigenous peoples present in the territory since ancient times, the Spanish traditions adopted during the colonial period and the African Customs incorporated by the slaves that led the conquistadors. This mixture of cultures constitutes a society with traits common to the rest of Latin American countries but, at the same time, very different also. Indeed, even within Colombia's own territory there are many differences between regions and others. Geographic diversity-can be found from tropical beaches to mountains of more than 5,000 meters in height with perpetual snows-and the natural isolation of some areas has led to this diversity. Some of the most important cultural groups according to their location are the so-called cops, located in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense; the countries, settled in Antioquia; The foresters, Settlers of the eastern plains; the Vallunos, settled in the area of Valle del Cauca; the coastal, inhabitants of the Caribbean coast, and the Santander, residents of the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander. All these groups are characterized by showing great cultural differences among themselves, which makes Colombia a fascinating country to know and enter into the day to day of its inhabitants.
I have almost 18 of working with at-risk youth to provide intervention, diversion or employment services and program referrals starting in 1998 with the Mayor’s Gang Intervention Project Pride Program as a Youth Outreach Worker I. My population target was at risk a high-risk, gang-impacted 12 to 18 year old participants at the Gardner Community Center located in a highly gang-impacted neighborhood where there is a multi-generational Norteno gang influence from one of the oldest gangs in the city of San Jose, Varrio Horse Shoe. I was in charged of implementing pro-social activities like educational and recreational field trips, which included college campus visits and teamwork oriented recreational activities like white water rafting and camping
Plan Colombia is a long-prevailing foreign aid package bestowed to the country of Colombia from the United States. This foreign aid package grants substantial financial assistance to Colombia, intending to fight the “War on Drugs” and to reduce the trafficking of narcoleptics, but there is a multitude of other factors and implications, both unintentional or indirect and intentional due to ulterior motives. To accomplish the goals of Plan Colombia, most of the aid has been provided in the form of armed forces. This situation is complicated because of the ongoing civil war between the government of Colombia and the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People’s Army (FARC). Additionally making matters difficult has
Latin America is a continent that is constantly struggling between governmental abuse and oppression of its citizens. In Latin America, it is very common for non –democratic systems to be enforced. During recent years, the continent has experienced a governmental shift from an absolute to a more democratic system. This era is called the democratic third wave, which brought about democratic like tendencies to Latin America. Many factors such as corruption, poverty, and inequality pushed the people to favor this new democratic system. The abuse of power is also very common, and the citizen’s unrest is highly noted. Most citizens are in favor of doing away with the old system of government, and establishing a new efficient political system.
As Charles Bergquist observes, "Crises in Colombia tend to generate cycles of violence instead of mutations in the political regime." The reason is simple: regime changes in Colombia tend to produce very little change in anything other than nominal rule. Since Colombia's independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Colombia has seen a series of civil wars and secessions (Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama the last coming rather conveniently at a time when the U.S. was prepared to pay millions for a canal through its nation preparation that later resulted in a multi-million dollar redress to Columbia). Colombia's political history, therefore, has been colored by outside influences pulling on the two dominant liberal and conservative parties, with violent exchanges, and long periods of instability being the consequences. While regime changes have occurred, they have not produced significant improvements. Rather, Colombia in the 20th century has become a nesting ground for paramilitary forces and drug traffickers, with U.S. Central Intelligence operatives contributing heavily to the violent conflict that has risen between regimes. This paper will examine the regime types that preceded the Rojas Pinilla regime in mid-20th century Colombia, analyze their similarities and differences, and discuss the extent to which Rojas Pinilla reached his goals and objectives.
Under the government of the President James Monroe in 1822, U.S opened up relations with Colombia; with a strategical interest for both nations. The agreements were based in expanding commercial relations and strengthen amity. However, U.S relations with Colombia took a different turn as a result of a new era Colombia’s civil war and drug trafficking . The interest of improve the foreign policy and the security of both countries; In order to maintain the U.S relations with Colombia, an analysis of the conflict in Colombia has to be made to protect the U.S national interest.
Colombia is a Latin American country located in South America that has been ravaged by violence, starvation, and large-scale inequality between higher and lower classes. The chaos in Colombia has been between rebel forces and the government and has lasted for over fifty years. These rebel forces have fought to achieve their Liberalist lead goals of overthrowing the current democratic government of Colombia and replacing it with a communist government. La Violencia was the main contributor to the conflict between the resistance fighters of Colombia and the Colombian government that has brought on violence and terror from the violent actions between the Liberal and Conservative parties in the 1950’s. , which has directly brought on the violence and terror from the guerrilla groups.
In 1863 Colombia was given its name. The name was chosen in honor of Christopher Columbus, even though Columbus never visited Colombia. Alonso de Ojeda, was the first European to set foot on Colombia in 1499, Alonso de Ojeda explored Sierra Navada de Santa Marie and was very surprised by the wealth of the Indians and their stories. These stories gave birth to the legend of El Dorado.
Now days democracy has been establish in every Latin America country except Cuba, which is still a socialist state. It seemed that every other alternative form of government such as Marxism or Leninism has failed and been replaced by democracy. Furthermore it looks like people in Latin American really enjoy democracy and its’ benefits, as they also consider it to be the best form of government. After the failure of authoritarian leaders and the military intervene their lives, Latin American citizens wanted to change their system into a more fair and honest system, democracy. Democracy is usually defined as a system of honesty, equality, freedom of rights, though for Latin America countries it means gains, welfare and patronage. Latin
Marxist theory dictates that the accumulation of wealth at one side is the accumulation of misery and agony on the opposite side. The theory also claims that society is systematically prone to conflict between classes and the more economic freedom there is the more economic inequalities there are in society. The country of Colombia is a country that is known to have a significant socioeconomic inequality between its citizens. The guerrilla military units involved in the Colombian conflict believed there should be a revolution in the country in order to get rid of the capitalist government and both the FARC and ENL were strongly against the privatization of the country’s natural resources. Marxism believes capitalism nurtures a never-ending
Perhaps looking to Colombian peace communities can help further explore this answer. For example, the San Jose Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia, is a community embodying exactly what its titular name stands for – building peace. Even amongst militia and government forces attempting to displace the people, the San Jose Peace Community has built itself upon commemorating generations of fallen victims rather than generations of violence. By utilizing “spatial embodied” practices – such as honoring and mourning the fallen through painting stones with victims’ names, or partaking in pilgrimages – the peace community have been able to construct their identities quite differently than individuals trapped within urban poor communities, albeit both
Bogotá: a city full of exciting secrets and interesting attractions. It is located in the Andes Mountain Range in the Altiplano Cundiboyasesnse. It has mountains on the east with three main peaks. It is a city that has a colonial style neighborhood that is called “La Calendaria.”