Andrés Pastrana
Andrés Pastrana Arango (born August 17, 1954 in Bogotá ) is a Colombian politician . From 1998 to 2002 he was President of Colombia. He is President of the Christian Democratic International .
Life
Andrés Pastrana Arango was born in 1954, the son of former President Misael Pastrana Borrero , who ruled the country between 1970 and 1974. He studied law at the University of del Rosario in Bogotá and completed a postgraduate course in international law at Harvard University in Boston , USA . During his father's tenure, he was portrayed as a hippie by the Colombian media .
He founded Guión magazine (1978) and the news channel Noticiero TV Hoy (1979), where he became known as a speaker. In 1982 he got a seat on the city council of Bogotá and began his career as a politician. As a journalist, he knew how to write articles about drug trafficking , for which he received awards.
On January 18, 1988, he was kidnapped in Antioquia by the Medellín cartel . Pablo Escobar tried to put pressure on the government not to extradite him to the USA. A week later, Pastrana was liberated by the police and was elected mayor of Bogotá in March. His term of office was characterized by the improved security situation in the capital and ended in 1990.
In 1994, Pastrana stood as a presidential candidate against Ernesto Samper with his newly founded party Nueva Fuerza Democrática . He lost this election with only two percentage points missing, whereupon he accused his opponent of having financed the campaign with drug money . In the election that followed in June 1998 , he was elected Colombian President in the second ballot with 51% of the vote against Horacio Serpa Uribe .
As president, he drew attention to himself primarily through the peace talks he initiated with the guerrilla groups FARC and ELN , during which he agreed to the establishment of a “demilitarized zone” that served as a refuge for the FARC. The project failed due to several circumstances, including further attacks and kidnappings that the FARC carried out shortly after the start of the peace talks in response to an attack by the ELN on the civilian population in an area controlled by the FARC. In the meantime, the "demilitarized zone" is largely under the control of the state army again.
After the peace negotiations were broken off, Pastrana's government began implementing the controversial Plan Colombia .
After Álvaro Uribe Vélez took office in 2002, massive financial shortfalls in the millions came to light. But these could not be traced back to Pastrana.
On August 1, 2005, Pastrana was sent to the United States as Colombian ambassador , despite having had clear differences of opinion in the past with the government of then President Álvaro Uribe Vélez regarding the reintegration of the paramilitary . He replaced Luis Alberto Moreno in this post. At the beginning of July 2006 he resigned in protest against the planned appointment of his longstanding political opponent Ernesto Samper to the post of Colombian ambassador in Paris.
See also
literature
- Andrés Pastrana Arango , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 35/2002 from August 19, 2002, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Ernesto Samper |
President of Colombia 1998–2002 |
Álvaro Uribe Vélez |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pastrana, Andrés |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pastrana Arango, Andrés |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Colombian politician and President of the Republic of Colombia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th August 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bogotá |