ABSTRACT
A survey of events from World War II to the present reveals how the Colombian elite have continued to manipulate energy policies to the detriment of the rest of the population. Since all the endeavors encountered bottlenecks because of insufficient electrical capacity, the Colombian elite accepted the creation of Electraguas in 1946 to reduce the lag in electrification. By the mid-1950s Ecopetrol, Electraguas, the steel mill, the shipping and aviation companies, and other enterprises had all grown so rapidly that the mechanisms by which the Colombian elite had ruled a formerly agrarian society were no longer sufficient. Few realized that the precious opportunity to invest Colombia's windfall coffee profits into long-term investments had been lost and that only the morally objectionable drug money could foot the growing fuel bill. Mines were reopened or expanded throughout Colombia by both private and state agencies to reduce their fuel costs.
