Colombia

Abstract

Colombia has the most consistent record of democracy in Latin America, yet she has had — and still has — a higher level of violence than any of her neighbours, and since the late 1960s has been the centre of the world’s cocaine trade. Colombia is prosperous, with rich agricultural and mineral resources; she is the world’s largest producer of coffee, which accounts for 51 per cent of her legal exports; she is the fourth largest gold producer and a major producer of oil.¹ She is one of the few Latin American countries which has not had to reschedule her foreign debt, though this is partly due to the billions of dollars entering the country from the cocaine trade.