Colombian Liberal Party in the context of "Socialist International"

The Colombian conflict (Spanish: Conflicto armado interno de Colombia, lit. 'Colombian internal armed conflict') began on May 27, 1964, and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups, crime syndicates and far-left guerrilla groups fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Some of the most important international contributors to the Colombian conflict include multinational corporations, the United States, Cuba, and the drug trafficking industry.

The conflict is historically rooted in the conflict known as La Violencia, which was triggered by the 1948 assassination of liberal political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and in the aftermath of the anti-communist repression in rural Colombia in the 1960s that led Liberal and Communist militants to re-organize into the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The Political Constitution of Colombia of 1991 (Spanish: Constitución Política de Colombia de 1991), is the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia. It was promulgated in Constitutional Gazette number 114 on Sunday, July 7, 1991, and is also known as the Constitution of Rights. It replaced the Political Constitution of 1886 and was issued during the presidency of the liberal César Gaviria.

It is divided up into eight sections, under titles.

The Colombian Civil War of 1884–1885 was a conflict that took place in the United States of Colombia (present-day Colombia and Panama). It was the result of the reaction of the Radical faction of the Colombian Liberal Party, which did not agree with the Centralist Regeneration policy of President Rafael Núñez, a moderate Liberal who was supported by the Colombian Conservative Party.

The Thousand Days' War (Spanish: Guerra de los Mil Días) was a civil war fought in Colombia from 17 October 1899 to 21 November 1902, at first between the Liberal Party and the government led by the National Party, and later – after the Conservative Party had ousted the National Party – between the liberals and the conservative government. Caused by the longstanding ideological tug-of-war of federalism versus centralism between the liberals, conservatives, and nationalists of Colombia following the implementation of the Constitution of 1886 and the political process known as the Regeneración, tensions ran high after the presidential election of 1898, and on 17 October 1899, official insurrection against the national government was announced by members of the Liberal Party in the Department of Santander. Hostilities did not begin until 11 November, when liberal factions attempted to take over the city of Bucaramanga, leading to active warfare. It would end three years later with the signing of the Treaty of Neerlandia and the Treaty of Wisconsin. The war resulted in a Conservative victory, and ensured the continued dominance of the Conservative Party in Colombian politics for another 28 years. Colombia's political structure as a unitary state has not been challenged since.

As an international conflict, the war extended into Ecuadorian and Venezuelan territories. Conservative and liberal factions of those two countries, as well as of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, backed their respective parties within Colombia. American interests in the Panama Isthmus led to an American intervention and naval deployment in Panama (then part of Colombia) under the guise of upholding the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty.

La Violencia (Spanish pronunciation: [la βjoˈlensja], The Violence) was a ten-year civil war in Colombia from 1948 to 1958, between the Colombian Conservative Party and the Colombian Liberal Party, mainly fought in the countryside.

La Violencia is considered to have begun with the assassination on 9 April 1948 of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a Liberal Party presidential candidate and frontrunner for the 1949 November election. His murder provoked the Bogotazo rioting, which lasted ten hours and resulted in around 5,000 casualties. An alternative historiography proposes the Conservative Party's return to power following the election of 1946 to be the cause. Rural town police and political leaders encouraged Conservative-supporting peasants to seize the agricultural lands of Liberal-supporting peasants, which provoked peasant-to-peasant violence throughout Colombia.

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala Spanish pronunciation: ['xoɾxe eʎ'eθeɾ gai'tan aʝala] (23 January 1903 – 9 April 1948) was a Colombian politician and statesman who was the leader of the Liberal Party. A nationalist, he served as the mayor of Bogotá from 1936–37, the national Education Minister from 1940–41, and the Labor Minister from 1943–44.

He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off the Bogotazo  and leading to the outbreak of a brutal ten-year civil war in Colombia known as La Violencia (1948–1958). His ideas, known as Gaitanismo, are considered a form of liberal socialism in Colombia.