Ending violence and drug trafficking
The 2016 peace accords were only signed with the FARC. The ELN - the other historical guerrilla group - is still very active in 9 of the country's 32 departments, with ambitions that are more criminal than ideological, for a long time. Far from taking joint action, the ELN and FARC dissidents (ex-guerrillas who did not accept the peace accords, plus new recruits, 5,200 fighters in total by 2022) clash with each other in lawless areas for control of the territories left vacant by the demobilized FARC. Both the guerrillas and the paramilitaries manage multiple criminal activities: extortion, kidnapping, illegal mining, gasoline smuggling, drug production and trafficking, control of the border paths(trochas) used by Venezuelan migrants to enter Colombia, etc. The main victims are, as always, the civilian population, caught between the guerrillas and the regular army, and who must also face the threats of right-wing paramilitaries and other drug traffickers. Ex-FARC combatants who have laid down their arms are particularly targeted for assassination (300 between 2016 and 2021), as were the demobilized members of the M-19 and the FARC in the 1980s and 1990s. This is also the case of social lideres, representatives of social, human rights, environmental, Afro-Colombian and indigenous organizations. In total, at least 145 human rights defenders were murdered in 2021. Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for activists, and the most dangerous for environmental activists (65 deaths in 2020). One of the main reasons is the non-implementation of the peace agreements by the state, which has not taken over the areas abandoned by the FARC. Few reintegration programs for ex-combatants have been set up, and the return of land to displaced persons is difficult because of the threats they face when they return. As for the fight against drug trafficking, the replacement of coca plantations with legal crops has been a failure. Colombia remains by far the world's largest producer of cocaine. Production is still more profitable than any other agricultural crop and is constantly increasing. The bulk of coca cultivation is concentrated in the departments of Norte de Santander, Putumayo, Cauca and Nariño, close to the porous borders of Venezuela and Ecuador. Approximately 230,000 families live from the harvesting of coca leaves and the manufacture of the base paste, which is then used to produce cocaine in clandestine laboratories.
Reducing poverty and inequality
Colombia has been hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis. At the height of the containment, red rags were displayed in the windows of poor neighborhoods. Residents were reporting that they had no food to eat and were asking for urgent help. In Latin America'sfourth largest economy, 42.5 per cent of the population lives on less than $3 a day, and 15.1 per cent live in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day). The middle class represented only 25% of the population in 2020, compared to 30% the year before... The shock of the pandemic has particularly affected small businesses and informal workers (56% of total employment excluding agriculture), which has accentuated the already high inequalities between rich and poor. Colombia is among the ten most unequal countries in the world and the first of the 37 OECD countries. In addition, the Colombian peso has depreciated against the U.S. dollar (by 14.4 per cent in 2021), making basic foodstuffs more expensive.
Managing migration flows
Colombia has long been a country of emigration. Over the past decade, it has also become one of the world's largest recipients of refugees and migrants. There will be nearly 1.8 million Venezuelans in Colombia by the end of 2021, representing 3.2% of the Colombian population. The country, which already has to deal with the complex problem of its internal refugees - tens of thousands of Colombians displaced in their own country every year because of violence and threats from armed groups - must deal with this massive influx of people from the neighboring country. These Venezuelan families, who often arrive after weeks of walking, survive at first by begging or doing underpaid work while waiting to receive a visa. They often fall under the influence of mafias (trafficking, prostitution, robbery, etc.) and suffer more and more from xenophobia. To allow them to work legally and receive health care, Colombia implemented a temporary permit in February 2021 that offers protective legal status to Venezuelan migrants for ten years. Colombia is also subject to the passage of thousands of Haitian, Cuban, Asian or African migrants (55,000 people in 2021) wishing to go to Panama, and then to the United States. They often remain stranded for weeks at the border or in the nearby port of Necoclí, waiting to cross the dreaded Darién jungle.
Fighting corruption
Corruption is one of the country's main scourges. Present in the justice system and the police as well as in political life, it represents 4% of the annual GDP and mainly affects social policies, especially in health and education. In 1995, the Samper affair shook the country. The president's election campaign was financed by the Cali cartel. More recently, it was Odebrecht that paid $27 million in bribes for the awarding of public contracts in Colombia. The Brazilian construction giant allegedly financed several political parties during the 2014 campaign, including that of President Santos. In 2017, a new case: the No. 1 in the fight against corruption, Luis Gustavo Moreno, was captured by his own department, for an envelope of 10,000 dollars received by a former governor accused of corruption... Scandals make the headlines every day. A popular consultation, a citizens' initiative provided for in the 1991 constitution, was even organized in 2018 to force parliamentarians to take more effective measures against corruption. It failed to obtain (by a small margin), the required quorum of voters. Politicians have "taken note" of this citizen expectation, without any notable change apparently...
Reforming the police
This is one of the main demands of the major social mobilizations of 2019, 2020 and 2021. The police forces are under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense and are not trained to deal with peaceful demonstrations. Faced with mostly artistic and festive marches (by students, mothers, the elderly, etc.), the government often sees only "vandals" and "terrorists. The Anti-Riot Unit(Esmad) uses water cannons and tear gas, but sometimes also lethal weapons, as if they were confronting guerrillas or narcos in the jungle. Violence calls for violence, and it escalates to the tragedies seen during the Paro Nacional, with dozens of deaths and disappearances, and hundreds of injured, many with irreversible eye damage. The United Nations, among others, has denounced the excessive and disproportionate use of force by the police. There is also a recurring problem of impunity for police and military personnel, who are subject to military justice rather than ordinary courts.
Getting out of polarization
The political polarization has been felt especially since the referendum organized by President Santos in October 2016 to have the peace accords validated by the Colombian population. Supporters of the "no" vote (which won by a narrow margin) were led by former president Álvaro Uribe of the Centro Democrático (very much to the right), who has always shown his hostility to any form of reconciliation with the guerrillas. They put forward the threat that Colombia could fall under the yoke of communism and sink into "castro-chavism", in reference to the political situation in Venezuela and Cuba. The social networks, with the help of fake news, and certain major media, will stir up the fears and resentments of an increasingly divided public opinion. In a very unequal society, the 2018 elections confirmed the appeal of two very distant candidates in the second round, Iván Duque " el que diga Uribe " ("the candidate chosen by Uribe" who remains the strong man of the hard right), and Gustavo Petro, ex-guerrilla of the M-19, who was a senator and mayor of Bogotá, representing the social democratic left. The 2022 elections still show a real right-left polarization. The new president had not yet been elected as of the publication of this guide, but in the second round of voting, Gustavo Petro and the right-wing populist Rodolfo Hernández will face off.
Making tourism the new engine of the economy
The number of visitors has exploded in recent years (4.5 million international tourists in 2019, compared to 2.6 million in 2010), becoming the country's second largest source of foreign currency after oil (40% of exports). The pandemic has brought the sector to a halt, but tourism stakeholders remain optimistic that activity will pick up again in early 2022. The potential is enormous and successive governments have understood this, betting on this sector which generates jobs, investments and opportunities, at a time when oil resources should dry up in a few years, even if fracking projects (hydraulic fracturing) are regularly put on the table, to the great displeasure of environmentalists.
