I’m curious how they pulled it off. Did the drug war work? What about the re-intensification of hostilities with FARC? Was Colombia’s drop in violence just the flip side of Mexico’s explosion in it?
This is a very rich country agriculturally speaking. Biodiversity is extraordinary, only rivalled by Brazil.
Imagine you have lots of taxes, travel is restricted, and you have enough people with good work ethic that adapt to those conditions.
When those taxes disappear (plain extortion by paramilitary and guerrillas) and travel between cities is possible again (again roadblocks by paramilitary and guerrillas), then the good work ethic goes a long way.
Right now the paramilitary is no more, FARC is becoming a political party, we are getting immigrants from neighborhood countries and we are fixing more issues than we did before.
Now, there's something that bothers me and it is the science budget was cut by this government. No immediate repercussions, but very bad for long term development.
There are 2 parts to it. Firstly, the guerrillas and narcos were heavily combated, thanks in part to Plan Colombia which was a collaboration with the US government to fight the criminal/drug dealing structures. This led to the narcos migrating to other regions and changing strategies (raw cocaine output wasn't reduced though) and to the guerrilla being weakened since most if it's long time leaders where killed, which in turn led them to peace negotiations and finally a very strange peace agreement (which the country voted against). All in all, we were very lucky to have two very successful executive administrations in a row. Secondly, the underlying problems leading to social conflict which are extreme rural poverty and inequality, have significantly diminished since 2002, with a close to 75% reduction in extreme poverty, thanks to economic growth. So as they say: growth solves nearly anything.
Is crack still a big business, the way it was e.g. in the 90s? Cocaine and its derivatives were never especially common in my region, but all of the news, and reports I've heard from friends in law enforcement seem to center on opiods, meth, and synthetic drugs like bath salts in recent years.
I took the bus to centro medellin yesterday with my dad and we saw 3 people smoking crack in the open.. If you are really poor and can't afford crack you are going to be sniffing glue all day. most tourist places you can buy low quality coke from nearly anyone for about 5 dollars a gram or so.
It is easily the most widely available drug in most big cities. I mean to say that there is almost always a large open air drug market particularly for crack.
The article attributes it partially to the force against FARC used during Uribe’s presidency which was backed by US money (Plan Colombia) and labelled as the war on drugs. So I’d say it had some effect.
