Álvaro Uribe Vélez – President of the Republic of Colombia

(2002 – 2010)

On the 7th of August 2010, Álvaro Uribe Vélez handed the keys of the casa de narino to his successor, President Juan Manuel Santos. The cloudy Bogotá day was in all aspects a burst of sunshine on Colombia’s troubled past. From Uribe’s inauguration for his first term in 2002 where the domestic terrorist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fired rocket launchers on the event, killing 15 people, Colombia had taken monumental strides on the road to peace, stability and prosperity. Described as a “failed state” and “South America’s Bosnia”, where the government’s hold on power was tenuous, Uribe’s government had achieved what was unthinkable less than a decade before. Colombia’s major guerrilla groups, the FARC, ELN and EPL had been pushed deep into the Colombian jungle, the economy was...