In the late 1700s a separatist was developed and in July 20,1810 independence was declared but not official until August 7, 1819 when Simón Bolivar won the Battle of Boyacá. Bolívar then overthrew the viceroyalty and created the Republic of Gran Colombia and it originally included Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador,and Panama but, lost Venezuela and Ecuador to separatists and it was then named the State of New Granada. Fransico de Paula Santander served as vice president but then served as president between 1832 and 1836 and there was some problems over power between the church and government and in 1840 a civil war broke out. In between 1861 and 1885 the country's name was changed three times and it stayed with the Republic of Colombia. A brutal civil war broke out claming more than 100,000 deaths was known as the War of a Thousand Deaths (1899-1902). In 1903, Panama declared independance.
The Conservative presidents held power from 1909 'til 1930, then revolutionary pressure put the Liberals back in power until 1942, during that time, the WWII intensified the political divisions within the country. The postwar period caused growing social unrest and riots in the capital, politics became more violent after the assassination of the populist leader of the liberal party, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, that led to a riot called "El Bogotazo", 1,500 peolple died and 20,000 were injured. A civil war broke out between the Conservative and Liberal parties (consequence of Gaitán's assassination) called La Violencia. It expanded over 10 years and an estimate of 200,000 people died. It convinced Colombians, at that time, that the ongoing rivalry beteen the two parties needs to be brought under control. In 1953, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla took over the government but as a dictator.
Rojas could not conquer the ongoing violence in the country, so he gave up power in May 1957 to a millitary junta, which provided free elections. Over the years the Conservative and Liberal Parties have made a pact in which there would be free elections and taking turns in presidency. In 1983, there was an estimated of 6,000 leftist guerrillas were active in Colombia. In July 5,1991 a new constitution was created by César Gaviria Trujillo in which included a number of reforms that aimed to increase the democratization of the political system. By 1996, there was guerrilla presence in over half the country and an estimated 1,000,000 Colombians fled their homes between 1987 and 1996 because there was no apperant prospect of which guerrilla groups that would take over the country. In 1980s Colombian drug traffickers controlled 80% of the wold's cocaine trade.
In 2000, a multimillion dollar initiative that was funded by the US government, Plan Colombia, aimed to combat drug production and loosen its heavy focus on the military and put that focus on economic incentives that could lead peasants to abandon the coca leaf plantation.Former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos handily won the second round of presidential elections in June 2010. He promised to maintain the policies of former president Uribe, including the campaign against FARC guerrillas and forging a close relationship with the United States. Santos was largely responsible for planning and carrying out the government's successful assault on FARC.
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