Colombia - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 484

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1830 Ecuador and Venezuela secede from Gran Colombia.
Bolívar dies in self-imposed exile in Santa Marta.
1853 Colombia adopts a constitution that includes a
prohibition against slavery.
1886 Nueva Granada becomes the Republic of Colombia,
after Christopher Columbus.
1899-1902 The War of a Thousand Days, the bloody
three-year-long civil war born of escalated antagonism
between the Conservative and Liberal political parties.
1903 With the support of the US Navy, Panama secedes
from Colombia.
1948 The assassination of the working class's greatest
advocate, Bogotá's populist mayor, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán,
begins the massive rioting known as El Bogotazo , which
catalyzes a decade of partisan bloodletting, La Violencia ,
leaving 200,000 dead.
1953 General Rojas Pinilla leads a military coup and begins
negotiations to demobilize armed groups and restore peace
and order.
1954 The group that would develop into Communist-
linked Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios Colombianos
(FARC) forms among the countryside peasants as a
response to the violence and repression suffered by the
rural population at the hands of the military.
1958 The Conservative and Liberal parties become a
united National Front, agreeing to share power, with each
party holding o ce alternately for four years.
1964 US-backed military attacks lead to violent clashes
between the government and armed guerrilla groups. The
leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) and Maoist People's
Liberation Army (EPL) are founded and civil war erupts.
1982 Gabriel García Márquez wins the Nobel Prize in
Literature. Pablo Escobar is elected as a Congress member.
1984 The government intensifies efforts to do away with
drug cartels, as violence by narco-tra cker death squads
and left-wing terrorists escalates.
1985 Members of radical leftist guerrilla group Movimiento
19 de Abril (M-19) take over the Palace of Justice, killing
eleven judges and nearly a hundred civilians.
1986 Pope John Paul II visits Colombia. A grandiose
cathedral is built in preparation in Chiquinquirá.
1990 Drug cartels declare war on the government after it
signs an extradition treaty with the US.
1993 Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar is shot dead evading
arrest.
1995 San Agustin and Tierradentro are recognized as
UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
1999 Plan Colombia, aimed at tackling the country's
cocaine production, is launched, with backing from the US.
Spraying destroys coca fields and food crops alike.
2002 Álvaro Uribe Vélez is elected president on a platform
of law and order.
2006 Around 20,000 AUC paramilitaries claim to disarm
in return for lenient sentences for massacres and other

human rights abuses. In practice, they reform as neo-
paramilitary groups such as Los Rastrojos and the drug
tra cking, murders and land grabbing continues.
2008 The US and Venezuela assist in a government-
orchestrated operation to free high-profile kidnapping
victims. French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid
Betancourt, held hostage for six years, and fifteen other
captives are liberated. FARC founder Manuel Marulanda
dies.
2010 Following Uribe's failed attempt to run for a third
term, former Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos is
elected president.
2011 Former leader of the M-19 guerrillas, Gustavo Petro,
becomes mayor of Bogotá.
2012 The FARC announce that they shall no longer kidnap
people. Negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian
government commence in Cuba.
2013 FARC ceasefire ends in January, and some hostilities
against the Colombian government resume.

ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE
Colombia's biggest international airport
is Bogatá's Aeropuerto Internacional
El Dorado ( W www.elnuevodorado.com).
Direct services from Europe to Bogotá are
offered by Iberia (Madrid and Barcelona),
Air France/KLM (Paris), Avianca
(Barcelona and Paris) and Lufthansa
(Frankfurt). Avianca also operates flights
from Madrid to Cali and Medellín.
In North America , Air Canada connects
Toronto to Bogotá, Lan and American
Airlines connect Bogotá with Miami,
while Delta links Bogotá with New York,
Chicago and Atlanta, and Jet Blue flies
to Bogotá from Orlando and Fort
Lauderdale. It's also possible to fly from
Miami directly to Santa Marta, Cartagena
and Medellín.
In South and Central America , Lan links
Bogotá with Lima, Santiago and Quito;
Copa offers regular flights from the
capital to Panama City, and Tam links the
capital to São Paulo. Avianca also flies to
Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guayaquil, Lima,
Mexico City, Panama City, Quito, Rio de
Janeiro, Santiago (Chile) and São Paulo.

OVERLAND FROM ECUADOR AND
VENEZUELA
Frequent bus services cross Colombia's
borders into neighbouring Venezuela and
Ecuador, though there can be security