LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Colombia: World
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Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world, a business that helps sustain local farmers throughout the republics. The lives of these local farmers have found such profound dependence on cocaine that coco (cocaine in its earlier stages) replaces the peso as a form of payment for everyday transactions in regions with a heavy concentration of cocaine farms. The cocaine base is weighed accordingly and the excess amount is given back as change.
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Colombia is the largest producer of coca in the world. It is why the U.S. has for decades been busy in the country to stem its growth. The U.S. policy has largely been to eradicate it through spraying and military force, threatening farmers if they do not switch crops.
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Marc Chernick writes: "Today Colombia has the highest homicide rate in the world, surpassed only in exceptional circumstances, such as the mass bloodletting in Rwanda in 1994. The escalation of violence has been extraordinary and seems to be accelerating. In 1980 there were 10,000 homicides. By 1988 this figure had risen to 20,000. In 1992 the number of homicides had risen to almost 30,000. Political violence represents about 13 percent of these figures.
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Colombia is rich in minerals, including petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, copper, emeralds, and platinum. The saltworks at Zipaquirá, near Bogotá, are world famous. Hydroelectric potential was developed during the 1970s and 80s. The manufacturing sector of the economy has expanded greatly in recent decades, although it is heavily dependent on imported materials. Beverages and processed foods, textiles, clothing and footwear, and chemicals are the chief products. Tourism is ... a sizable source of income.
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For more than four decades, Colombia has been locked in an armed conflict featuring a bewildering array of left-wing guerillas, right-wing "self-defense" paramilitaries and drug traffickers. The war has taken an enormous human and financial toll. According to the World Bank, if the country had achieved peace 20 years ago, the income of the average Colombian would be 50% higher than today's $3,000.
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Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist. In the last 15 years over 3,000 people have been killed as a result of their involvement in trade union activity - more than in the rest of world combined.
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