Colombia its Reality or a Steroetype?

Colombia is a country full of colors, flavors, places, diversity and charm. This is the best
way someone could possibly find to start talking about a country like this one. The Republic of
Colombia is located in South America, bordered to the northwest by Panama, to the north by the
Caribbean Sea, to the east by Venezuela and Brazil, to the south by Ecuador and Peru and to the
west by the Pacific Ocean. It is the only country of Latin America that has coasts in two
different oceans. Colombias form of government is a unitary constitutional republic divided into
32 departments, and its capital is Bogot. Besides being divided into 32 departments Colombia
also has five different natural regions which make the country have a variety of different
cultures, and climates. The first region is the Caribbean region in which the most important port
cities Barranquilla and Cartagena are located. Santa Marta is a city that is also located in this
region and it is wonderful because of it has all possible climates and landscapes, it is a place in
which both warm and cold whether are presented all the time. The Andes region which is the
biggest part of the territory and it is made up of high mountains, the Pacific Coast region which
is all the west part of the territory from north to south and has another important port in
Buenaventura. The Orinoquia region which covers 20% of the country and has an immense
biodiversity, and the Amazon region which as it is known is considered the lungs of the Earth.
This region is also important because it is inhabited by various Indian communities.
Colombia is a country rich in natural resources like petroleum, natural gas, coal, nickel,
gold, copper, and emeralds among others. It is the fifth leading coal producer in the world and
the largest exporter of thermal coal. Its topography which is basically full of elevations is of
great importance since it is due to it that agricultural development has been achieved. According
to the World Fact book, in 2003, the agricultural sector contributed to 14% of the national GDP.
Colombia is a country known for different things, the production of coffee, which is worth
almost $ 11 billion dollars and it is globally recognized because of how good it is; the production
of flowers, bananas, sugar cane, and emeralds; Colombia is also the number one producer of
emeralds of the world.
Colombia is the 26th largest nation in the world and the fourth largest country in South
America after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. It has a total population of 45,239,079 (July 2011 est.)
citizens; this makes Colombia the third most populous country in Latin America. 51.4 % of the
population is female and 48.6 % male. 26.7% of those citizens are 0 to 14 years old, 67.2% are
15 to 64 years old, and 6.1% are 65 years and over old. The country has a population growth rate
of 1.128% (2011 est.) with a birth rate of 17.23 births/1,000 population (2011 est.), death rate of
5.29 deaths/1,000 population (July 2011 est.), and a life expectancy of 74.79 years. The net
migration rate of the county is of -0.66 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2011 est.). Colombia is a
country full of diversity, its population is made up of 58% mestizo, 20% white, 14% mulatto, 4%
black, 3% mixed black-American Indian, and 1% American Indian.
The nation has five major cities. Bogot which is the capital and has a population of
8.262 million people (2009 est.). Besides being the economic center of the country it was
declared World Book Capital by UNESCO in 2007 and Iberoamerican Capital of Culture by the
UCCI in 2007. Medellin, a city that is recognized as the main producer of textiles and apparel of
the country, has a population of 3.497 million people (2009 est.), Cali with 2.352 million people
(2009 est.), Barranquilla which population is of 1.836 million people (2009 est.), and finally
Bucaramanga with a population of 1.065 million people (2009 est.). Even though Colombias
official language is Spanish there are also 88 other dialects that are spoken by the different
Indian communities and which are also official. Also, Colombia is a country in which 90% of the
population is Catholic and the other 10% represents other religions.
Colombia is a country with many more interesting and exciting things. It is the number
one producer of flowers, with over 3,500 types of orchids. It is the third richest country in
biodiversity with over 14,000 species of butterflies and 456 species of mammals which make of
this country something worth visiting. The kindness of its people and their willingness to help
others is a basic trait of the Colombian culture. According to the French Lara Gaultier who was
thrilled with her trip to Colombia, "I was delighted to discover the cultural variety of this country
with beautiful music, dance, and delicious gastronomic options." It is a country that has a feast or
festival every day of the year all year long. Even though it is also affected by the several
conflicts, it is a society that never stops dreaming and trying to be happy and to achieve their
goals and dreams no matter what is going on.
In terms of economic traits, Colombia can be identified as a third world country with the
Colombian Peso as its currency. It has a free market economy which big part of it depends on
natural resources. Its main exports include emeralds, flowers, textiles, coffee, and petroleum
products, among other things. Sean Geary, who is a Georgetown graduate and who currently is
earning his Masters in International Relations at the University of Florida, states, Colombia
continues to benefit from an increase in foreign investment in sectors like tourism, oil and gas,
and mining. With the passing OFA landmark free-trade agreement with the United States last
October, foreign direct investment should continue to rise. (Geary) In general, the countys
economy has improved since free trade agreements were established in the past years. According
the CIA Fact Book, Real GDP has grown more than 4% per year for the past three years,
continuing almost a decade of strong economic performance. Everything tends to show that the
economy of this country is relatively stable and that its government is trying to everything to
make it stronger and better. However, this does not mean that investors are willing to go to
Colombia. Security issues still are a big concern and many investors prefer to stay away from the
country due to fear.
The government is built up by a national territory divided into 32 departments and 1
capital district. Colombia gained its independence from Spain on July 20, 1810, and the last time
its constitution was revised and amended was on July 5, 1991. Division of power exists between
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The chief of state is Juan Manuel Santos, who
first took office in August 7, 2010 and will be there for a period of 4 years. He can be reelected
again after his term in completed if that is what society wants. Decisions are made by popular
vote of people who are 18 years old and over. In the case of the legislative branch, the Congress
and Senate are of great importance as well as the Chamber of Representatives. Finally the
judicial branch is made up of four supreme judicial organs: the Supreme Court of Justice which
is the highest court of criminal law, the Council of State which is the highest court of
administrative law, the Constitutional Court which is in charge of protecting the integrity and
supremacy of the constitution, and the Superior Judicial Council which is in charge of the
administration and discipline of the civilian judiciary and it resolves jurisdictional problems
between courts. In the case of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Council of State members
are selected from the nominees of the Superior Judicial Council for eight-year long terms, while
in the case of the Constitutional Courts members are elected by other three courts and Congress
for eight-year long terms as well.
Sadly, even though Colombia has so many wonderful things it also has a never ending
conflict. Colombia is known as a place where dangerous groups of armed people like the
guerillas live, where drug smugglers such as Pablo Escobar reside, and the famous cartels did
and still do whatever they want because no one can stop them. For more than 50 years
Colombians have been living in a country full of violence and terror, and even though things
have change and security has significantly increased in recent years, the conflict still exists. To
fully understand the crime and violence presented in Colombia it is necessary to know where
they came from and when were they originated. Briefly the new era of violence in Colombia
started after the death of Jorge Elicer Gaitn, a popular leader, on April 9, 1948. After the
murder of this important leader, the people, especially in the rural places, started to create their
own armies against the government. At this point the problem in the rural areas was due to the
land. Later in 1965 the guerillas group, the FARC, was created. Many other guerrillas groups
like the Anapo and the M-19 were also created during this period of time, but the only one that
still exists besides the Paramilitares is the FARC. The Paramilitares were created by the
landowners as a way of protection from the FARC around 1968. At the beginning, the FARC
had a clear goal, they were fighting against the government because of the ownership of the land,
but as time passed by that goal started to loose importance to where they became involved in
several different national and transnational crimes. Besides of this conflict that was going on in
the rural places, the cities are in chaos too. Urban crime was already present but the fact that
what the FARC were doing and some of the urban crimes were interrelated was something
completely new. By the ends of the XX century, the FARC, who had already joined different
types of illegal businesses, started attacking the cities, and Colombian society was seen as their
new target. The beginnings of the XXI century are remembered by Colombians as a period of
time in which violence was everywhere and at all times. As Messner and Rosenfeld explain in
their book Crime and The American Dream, to fully appreciate a nations crime problem, you
must consider not only the level and form of illegal activity but also the social response to
crime. (Messner and Rosenfeld 2008, 23) People were completely afraid of going out of their
houses because no one could know what was going to happen that day; even going to the malls
was scary because bombs were exploding anywhere. The conflicts lasted so long that society
began to get use to them and violence started to be something they had to deal with. Jaime
Garzon another important leader who was also murdered in Bogota on August 13, 1999 used to
say that Colombians were lacking identity and nationalism. People just cared about their personal
interests and stopped thinking about Colombia as a whole. He said that people were so unhappy
about all that was going on that they stopped feeling they were Colombians, and he said that the
only way of changing what was going on was by understanding that things had to be done
differently. Everyone needed to become a leader and young people needed to start doing
something because if they were not the ones fighting for their own country no one else was going
to do it for them.
After analyzing the root cause of crime and violence in Colombia and the social response
to it, one can now talk about Colombias current situation. Semana Magazine has analyzed
Colombia's current criminal situation and revealed what they believe to be a new "map of
crime" in Colombia that is paradoxically the result of a relentless line of drug kingpins and neo-
paramilitary leaders being arrested, ultimately causing fragmentation and a vacuum for up and
coming law-breakers to prove themselves, fight for local dominance and wreak havoc in their
wake. Studies made by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia have demonstrated that
Colombia is a country with a very complex criminal and violence situation which can be
approached from three different perspectives: the social, the economical, and the political one.
As Reichel says in his book Comparative Criminal Justice Systems that, to understand a
countrys criminal justice system, we must understand its political one. Political and legal
philosophies explain how and why a country treats and processes those citizens characterized as
deviant. (Reichel, 2013,13) In terms of a social perspective the major problems right now are
the educational levels than Colombians have and the way teenagers are seeing life and what they
expect from it. It is very common to see that teenagers approach life in a very pessimistic way,
this is precisely why they do not care about the repercussions that their actions could possibly
have. Other social issues that should also be taken into account are the alcohol and drug
consumption. The economic perspective has several issues, all that comes from the poverty rates
which approximate 45% of Colombias society lives in poverty, and the lack of legal work
opportunities and network connections. These three issues join with the political ones such as the
corruption that exists in Colombia which can be seen by some as the biggest problem the country
has. Violence is also important because it usually makes reference to the paramilitary groups and
the FARC. All these perspectives can be seen as clear explanations of the crime patters in
Colombia.
Some concepts have to be clear in order to be able to compare different crime patterns.
Reiche describes domestic crimes as crimes that take place in a specific country, International
crime is explained as acts that may put in risk world order and security like crimes against
humanity, war crimes, or genocide. He also describes transnational crimes as criminal activity
that takes place between two or more countries and he says that some transnational crimes are
cybercrime, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering, maritime piracy, theft of art and
cultural objects, trade in human body parts, trafficking in persons, and terrorism. (Reiche, 2013,
25)
In the case of Colombia several crime patters are presented. In the case of domestic crime
according to the newspaper El Tiempo, theft is the most common crime. 24.322 Out of 66.846
prisoners are in jail because of this. Homicide also has a high rate, 24.181 out of 66.846
prisoners are in jail because of this, and finally Possession of weapons which 18.343 out of
66.846 prisoners are in jail because of this. International crimes are also present in this country
and are all the violent acts linked with the FARC and the Paramilitares. Some of these acts are
having child soldiers, and antipersonnel landmines. Another problem is the fact that gender
violence has been employed as a weapon of war. Regarding this, The Constitutional Court,
decided in 2008 to accept that sexual violence against women was a habitual, extended,
systematic and invisible practice in the context of the Colombian armed conflict [perpetrated]
by all illegal armed groups, and, in some isolated cases, by individual agents of the public
security forces. The Supreme Court of Justice reported in its 2012 Annual Report, that some of
the war crimes committed by armed groups in Colombia are: killing, enforced disappearances,
rape, sexual slavery, torture, forced pregnancy and other gender crimes. A recent report made by
the Coordinacin Colombia Europa Estados Unidos, titled Colombia: The war measured in
liters of blood False-positives, crimes against humanity: the impunity of the most
responsible, concluded that the false positives which are extrajudicial executions are considered
crimes against humanity.
Transnational crimes are also part of the Colombian crime patters. In this case, the most
known one is corruption which is described by Reiche as the abuse of entrusted power for
private gain. Often the power abused is that attached to a public office that one holds as a result
of election or assignment. (Reiche, 2013, 36) the most known types of crimes that are
committed through corruption in Colombia are extortion, bribery, and influence peddling. Other
transnational crimes that happened in Colombia are drug trafficking which is well known
because of people like Pablo Escobar or the current drug cartels, money laundering which is the
process by which illegal money is clean, human trafficking which lately has become one of the
most recognized types of transnational crime, and of course terrorism. According to the
newspaper El Colombiano La lucha contra el crimen transnacional es uno de los principales
retos del Estado colombiano en 2013, ya que las ganancias conseguidas afuera ilegalmente llegan
a Colombia para patrocinar las bandas. This means that the government has as a future goal to
fight against the transnational crime and to implement strategies to make it stop.
Even though it seems as if Colombia is extremely dangerous country, its governments is
constantly working in the reduction and prevention of all the crime patters that are presented
there. According to the Guidelines for the Prevention of Crime ECOSOC Resolution 2002/13,
Annex "Crime Prevention comprises strategies and measures that seek to reduce the risk of
crimes occurring, and their potential harmful effects on individuals and society, including fear of
crime, by intervening to influence their multiple causes." Some of the basic principles in the
prevention of adult and juvenile crime are government leadership, socio-economic development
and inclusion, cooperation and partnerships, sustainability and accountability, knowledge base,
human rights/rule of law/culture of lawfulness and interdependency. Colombia has clear
examples of this like the city of Medellin, in which the local government has reduce high levels
of violent crime and increase social equality by a program called "SOCIAL URBANISM" in
which new metro lines were created in the most conflictive parts of the city as a way of including
this part of the society to the rest of the city. In the case of Bogot, studies made by the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, show that different programs have also been applied in this
city. Examples of these are; civil society mobilization, police training and family police stations,
better transport for everyone, recovery of public space, building of public libraries, and
restrictions on alcohol consumption and gun circulation. All these programs were designed with
the specific goal of include instead of exclude citizens.
If a comparison between the way the U.S. addresses its crime problems and the way
Colombia does it. According to Reiche, in the case of the United States it is a country that has a
federal judicial system that works in harmony with 50 separate state systems. Besides this it also
has bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico and it help several other countries to fight
against their domestic, international, and transnational crimes. One characteristic of the U.S. is
that it is a system that actually deprives poor defendants of a measure of protection against
being unfairly arrested. (Ingraham.) Reiche also states in the chapter tittle An international
perspective on policing of his book that The American model of policing is more unusual than
common. A basic principle of the American republic was the notion that the states and federal
government would share power. (Reiche, 2013, 151)
After analyzing the crime patters and the crime prevention and reduction programs of
Colombia and of the United States it is clear that Colombia is a country with a really big and
difficult to solve problem. Its society has been living with crime and violence for more than 50
years and even though the government is constantly trying to solve the problem they have not
been able to accomplish this. Colombias crime pattern is a mix of domestically, international,
and transnational crimes which affect the entire population in a direct or indirect way. In the
case of the United States even though crime is also presented it is not as bad as it is in Colombia.
Another important issue that has to be remember is the way society deals with the different
crimes; in the case of Colombia its population is started to be used to it and even though on one
is happy with what is going on the amount of people trying to make a change is very low. There
are many politicians like Jaime Garzon or Jorge Elicer Gaitn who once tried to do something
about the situation that was going on and unfortunately ended up being murder by one of the
guerrillas groups that are presented in the country. Acts like those have made society to stop
feeling identified with their country and to stop carrying about the general will. Even though this
is going on, there are still people that do believe something can be done and that still have hope.
Several programs have been used in different cities and they have had positive outcomes. If a
comparison is made between the United States and Colombia it would have as a conclusion that
the way in which the U.S. deals with crime and with its punishment is way more organized and it
has better long term effects than the way Colombia does it. Sadly, even though Colombia has so
many wonderful things is an it can be described as a country full of colors, flavors, places,
diversity and charm it also has a never ending conflict that affects all its society.