ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Colombia. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Colombia. Government control continued to erode through much of Colombia in 2000, as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) went through the motions of seeking settlement of a civil war whose main casualty continued to be a conflict-weary public. Public corruption remains one of the most serious problems facing Colombia. Political violence in Colombia continues to take more lives than in any other country in the western hemisphere, and civilians are prime victims. Human rights workers in Colombia are frequently murdered by a military often lacking in personal and tactical discipline, and by rightist paramilitary forces.
