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What is going on in Colombia?

20th century in Colombia started with a war between the two unique political parties, conservador and liberal, called "the 1000 days war", and that confrontation lasted throughout most of the century. In 1953 an Army general gave a coup to the State and was president for three years. After that, he handed over the power to a militar junta called "National Front" for one more year. Then conservadores and liberales dealed to alternate the power in four-years periods, which did not allow any other politicas options but allowed the birth of left-wing guerrillas such as ELN and FARC.
In 1970, due to the insatisfaction of some sectors because of the result of that year elections, a new left-wing guerrilla was born as M-19, fact that brought more vilolence and kidnapping to the nation. Narcotraffic showed up in the middle of that decade with moree violence. At the beginning of the 80's the drug dealers decided to fight the guerrillas by creating the self-defences group which eventually became the United Self-defences of Colombia (AUC), called Paramilitars.
After finishing the drugs cartels, in the middle 90's, the war between guerrillas and paramilitars worsened until nowadays when hundred of thousand colombias has died, more of then people who does not belong to any of the parts. This is a kind of a three-parts war since the paramilitar, although they are right-wing, the are not with the Government Armed Forces and even they figth them.
In 2002 the presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe promised to finish this war through a policy that he called "Democatic Security" that he has put into practice for the last seven years, time he has been the president for two periods. Uribe has reduced considerably the guerrillas and paramilitars, improving the living conditions in Colombia. However, there is a lot left to do.
Today Colombia is a country that holds the problems that the third-world ones do: poverty for more of the people and extreme richness for a few, corruption and social problems. In the other hand it is a prosperios country, much better than what the international Media shows, a that has a natural and social wealth that is worth to visit.

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