Last Updated on: 9th August 2021, 11:03 pm
A Colombia without coca and without conflict was an impossible dream just a few years or decades ago, and today I can tell you it is a real possibility. Just imagine it. We have already begun discussion of the last two substantive points: victims and the end of the conflict. -Juan Manuel Santos
A majority of my blind students at the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs in Trivandrum, India, a branch of Braille Without Borders, came from the developing world: Madagascar, Colombia, Tibet, Liberia, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal and India. -Rosemary Mahoney
Although Colombia is known for its violence and corruption, it remains one of the most beautiful places in the world and possesses a beauty that is not subject to the will or violence of man. -David Robbins
And the art was in every corner and wall… a Mural of the Century of Progress in Colombia South America is rich in detail, painted by a student of the Fine Arts Academy of Chicago named Santiago Martinez; a name to remember. -Santiago Martinez Delgado
Anybody who lives in Colombia knows that if you don’t have any money -I tell you what -you don’t have many options. -Diane Guerrero
At one point, we were stuck at the border of Peru and Colombia and met this large Haitian population that was stranded there without passports and couldn’t move. We had this revelation that, as tourists, we were so free to move, and here was this other population who couldn’t cross borders. -Sam Pressman
Between 1831 and 1891, US armed forces -usually the Marines -invaded Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, and Chile a total of thirty-one times, a fact not many of us are informed about in school. The Marines intermittently occupied Nicaragua form 1909 to 1933, Mexico from 1914 to 1919, and Panama from 1903 to 1914. To ‘restore order’ the Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted ‘pacification.’ -Michael Parenti
But I felt as though I still didn’t know the Columbia,— where it goes when it’s out of sight; who benefits from its power and size; why we think we can pollute the carotid artery of this land; and what we have done to preserve the river’s soul after two hundred years of use and abuse. -John Roskelley
Bye, bye! I’m from Colombia! I’m Sofia Vergara! -Giuliana Rancic
Colombia has a big market that is growing because we are elevating people out of poverty and into the middle class. -Juan Manuel Santos
Colombia has a huge variety of plant and animal species, and we have enormous potential. Small and mid-sized companies should come to Colombia. From here, they have access to the entire Latin American market. -Juan Manuel Santos
Colombia has been the leading western recipient of U.S. arms and training as violence has grown through the ’90s. -Noam Chomsky
Colombia is a country of celebration and queens. We have festivities for almost every occasion you can think of, both religious and not. -Patricia McCausland-Gallo
Colombia is a different country today. The state is now present in every single corner, the drug lords are in jail or dead. So we have the means to guarantee the security of FARC politicians. -Juan Manuel Santos
Colombia is applauded for the efforts that we continue to make to combat drug trafficking. -Juan Manuel Santos
Colombia is in a risky position. They’ve got a peace process that’s going nowhere, and a drug production problem that’s skyrocketing. -Barry McCaffrey
Colombia is not how people think it is. We used to eat fish every Sunday at the beach. In the town where I grew up, people did not tell lies.—Shakira
Colombia is potentially a very wealthy country. It has tremendous resources, but its wealth is highly concentrated. Most of the population lives in misery, which has led to violent confrontation throughout the century. -Noam Chomsky
Colombia is so different to what I know, and every aspect of the country is different to England, and I loved it. I loved the culture and the food, and the coffee was amazing. The place that we were was stunning, and it really was quite an amazing experience to film out there. -Tom Holland
Colombia was a big wheat producer in the 1950’s. That was eliminated by what sounds like a nice plan, called “Food for Peace. ” It’s a plan by which US taxpayers subsidized US agribusiness to send food to poor countries. This, of course, destroyed the domestic agricultural markets of these countries, opening these markets to US agribusiness. -Noam Chomsky
Colombia’s heritage has made it one of the world’s most linguistically diverse nations and a variety of ethnicities are represented in the country. -David Robbins
Colombian humor is very black, very sarcastic. -Barbet Schroeder
Colombian Spanish is often touted as being the most ‘neutral’ version of the language in the world. -Peter Low
Colombians have no restrictions on coffee drinking for children— I remember as a young child drinking a cup of cafe con leche (coffee with milk) with eggs and fruit as breakfast before going to school.—Patricia McCausland-Gallo
Columbia, child of Britain,— noblest child! / I praise the growing lustre of thy worth,/ And fain would see thy great heart reconciled / To love a mother of so blest a birth:/ For we are one, Columbia! still the same / In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame,/ The natural nobility of earth. -Martin Farquhar Tupper
Corn and cacao beans are staples throughout the basic Colombian diet. -Patricia McCausland-Gallo
Democracy is like three oxen pulling a plough. The oxen are the independent powers, but you have to walk in the same direction; otherwise, you cannot plough and that is what was happening in Colombia. One ox was walking in one direction, the other in another direction, so the democracy was not working. -Juan Manuel Santos
During the 1990’s, Colombia was the leading recipient of US military aid and training in the hemisphere. Approximately half of all US aid in the hemisphere went to Colombia. Colombia was also far and away the leading human rights violator in the hemisphere. -Noam Chomsky
Einstein said if somebody time and again does something, or tries to do something, with the same negative results, and continues to insist on doing so, then he’s a fool. This strategy carried out, applied by the United States in Colombia, has been a total failure. -Rafael Correa
Europe is a very different place from my native country of Colombia and my children are growing up in a very urban setting which is nothing like when I was growing up and would be able to play barefoot in the street. But we have a very good life. -Shakira
Europe would be well advised to pay more attention to Latin America. The emerging economies are the engines of the global economy. Colombia has done too little to improve its reputation in Europe. -Juan Manuel Santos
Every night I get many letters, and after every talk I get many questions from people who say, “I want to change things. What can I do?” I never hear these questions from peasants in southern Colombia or Kurds in southeastern Turkey under miserable repression or anybody who is suffering. They don’t ask what they can do; they tell you what they’re doing. -Noam Chomsky
Fly, swift winged fame, the news proclaim. From shore to shore let cannons roar. and joyful voices shout Columbia’s name. Shout Columbia’s name. -Daniel George
For many years, they said the drug lords in Colombia were unbeatable, but all the same, we’ve eliminated all the big capos (as the drug lords are called in Colombia). The homicide rate is as low as it was 40 years ago and the kidnapping rate has dropped to the level of 1964. Now we’ll be able to bring down the street criminals specializing in extortion and robbery. -Juan Manuel Santos
Free trade with Colombia is something that’s a no-brainer. -John McCain
Hallucinatory -that’s just the way everyday life is, in Colombia. All the time, you say to yourself, did I just see that? -Barbet Schroeder
I am trying to make my accent so it won’t bother anyone, but I am not going to drive myself crazy trying to pretend I am an American girl when I am from Colombia. -Shakira
I don’t think anyone would look at Colombia today and say that it is failing. This positive outcome is an example of the effective application of smart power -it is succeeding. -James G. Stavridis
I felt the calling to serve my country. My parents came to the United States from Mexico and Colombia, and this country treated them well. It gave my sisters and me the opportunity to get an education and succeed. I wanted to repay my country for how they treated my family and ensure that our values and freedom are intact for future generations. -Ruben Gallego
I grew up in Barranquila, Colombia, and I spent most of my childhood dreaming about becoming a singer. -Shakira
I just want to serve Colombia. -Alvaro Uribe
I left Colombia because Univision brought me to the United States. -Sofia Vergara
I miss Colombia. It’s a great place. -Camilo Villegas
I never wanted to get into high end in Colombia -the percentage of people who can afford it is very small, and they can shop abroad anyway. It’s just not what I had in mind. I wanted to bring international fashion to as many people here as possible, who don’t usually get exposed to such styles. -Esteban Cortazar
I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States. -Pablo Escobar
I realized that I hated politics. I mean that is you know… I realized being in the jungle that what I had thought I could do, I mean changing the way politics were being done in Colombia, was not possible the way I wanted to do it -by confronting, by denouncing. -Ingrid Betancourt
I remember in 2000, when President Clinton came to Cartagena just before Plan Colombia started, the country was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Today, we are one of the most solid democracies, where institutions are working, where the scandals such as false positives have come to light because of those functioning institutions. -Juan Manuel Santos
I returned to Kabul after a 27-year absence. I came away with some optimism but not as much as I had hoped for. The two major issues in Afghanistan are a lack of security outside Kabul (particularly in the south and east) and the powerful warlords ruling over the provinces with little or no allegiance to the central government. The other rapidly rising concern is the narcotic trade which, if not dealt with, may turn Afghanistan into another Bolivia or Colombia. -Khaled Hosseini
I started the 1998 World Cup with Teddy Sheringham up front but always planned for Michael Owen to face Colombia in our final group game because they defended square and a quick striker would be able to exploit the space behind them. -Glenn Hoddle
I started the Pies Descalzos foundation in Colombia when I was 18, and since then I have been very involved in the crusade for education. -Shakira
I think [Pablo Escobar] wasted an incredibly opportunity which was when he stayed at the prison he made, La Catedral. It was the one chance that the government and the people of Colombia gave him to confess his illicit activities and to remain in one place with very favorable conditions. -Juan Pablo Escobar
I would argue with my father [Pablo Escobar] about his violent attitude and I would tell him to stop his violent ways and to think about peace as an alternative, especially given the many problems he was having. However, he would reply almost immediately by telling me “you are forgetting that the first bomb that exploded in Colombia was an attempt against you, your sister, and your mother -I did not invent narcoterrorism, narcoterrorism was first used against my family. -Juan Pablo Escobar
I’ve been following what’s happening in Colombia because it’s the country of my childhood. -Barbet Schroeder
I’ve not lived one single day of peace in Colombia, and 90 percent of people here say the same thing. We have gotten used to living in a war -we don’t even react to massacres. -Juan Manuel Santos
If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways -I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what’s happening and it’s not easy because many people don’t want to see what’s happening. -Ingrid Betancourt
If you analyze the production of coca in Colombia, you will realize that it is like economic cycles. It goes up and down, it goes up and down depending on the circumstances. -Juan Manuel Santos
If you liked El Salvador, you’re going to love Colombia. It’s the same death squads, the same military aid, and the same whitewash from Washington. -Carlos Salinas de Gortari
In Colombia maybe 95% of the population follow Formula One. It’s crazy. -Juan Pablo Montoya
In Colombia today we have 16% of the population, which is a very small amount of the population owning 90% of the land and 20 years ago it wasn’t like that. -Ingrid Betancourt
In Colombia, education is sometimes considered a luxury, not a human right. And it’s not a priority in the agendas of many leaders. -Shakira
In Colombia, education is sometimes considered a luxury, not a human right. And it’s not a priority in the agendas of many leaders.—Shakira
In Colombia, we have a lot of passion.—Maluma
In Colombia, where I was born and raised, women like my mother considered their appearance and personal grooming a matter of principle. There was never an occasion where she didn’t show up looking picture-perfect. -Nina Garcia
It was shameful that, after Haiti, Colombia was the second most unequal country in Latin America. But we’ve achieved some things; the inequality is coming down, and coming down fast. The growing economy has provided us with the funds to finance a very progressive social policy that has reduced extreme poverty. We have the lowest inflation rate of all Latin-America countries and the highest growth rate. -Juan Manuel Santos
It’s in the interest of the U.S. to maintain a strong democracy in Colombia. -Juan Manuel Santos
Like Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay and others, Mexico believes that we should evaluate internationally agreed upon policies and search for a more effective and comprehensive response -Jose Antonio Meade Kuribrena
Listen, I didn’t know how to make coffee when I came to the United States. Because in Colombia the maids do it. -Sofia Vergara
May God fill this beautiful land of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador with his peace and love. -Juan Luis Guerra
No one can feel as the owner of the country and no one can feel excluded from the right of property. We must all suffer Colombia. -Alvaro Uribe
O, Columbia the gem of the ocean. The home of the brave and the free. The shrine of each patriot’s devotion. A world offers homage to thee. -David T. Shaw
Plan Colombia was supposed to reduce Colombia’s cultivation and distribution of drugs by 50 percent, but 6 years and $4.7 billion later, the drug control results are meager at best. -Jan Schakowsky
Political events are part of everyday life [in Colombia], so art and politics came to me as a natural thing, something that has been very much present in my life from the start. -Doris Salcedo
Rich and intense, yet soft and mild, perfection is reached in every grain of Colombian coffee. -Patricia McCausland-Gallo
Since the advent of the atomic bomb, the United States has always needed two kinds of enemies. On one level, it has needed a tactical enemy that it can go out and fight in the field in a shooting war. Since 1945, these enemies have been created and appeared as North Korea, North Vietnam, Grenada, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq and now Colombia. On another level, however, the US needs a strategic enemy that will justify outrageous expenditures of capital for strategic weapon systems like ICBMs, Trident submarines and “Star Wars” missile defence systems. -Michael Ruppert
Stability means you do what we say, and what we say is that Colombia and the resources of the Andean region shall be freely available to the rich and powerful of the world, particularly US-based multinational corporations. -Noam Chomsky
The actual consequences of Plan Colombia are to devastate peasant communities, which have been driven to drug production. These peasants have no particular desire to grow coca, but their other means of livelihood have been wiped out. -Noam Chomsky
The Colombian economy is very strong. We have one of the highest rates of growth in Latin America. -Juan Manuel Santos
The Colombians are good-tempered people. They are used to waiting for buses that are late, used to riding buses and trains that do not arrive.—Paul -Theroux
The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it’s cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia. -Bill Vaughan
The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it’s cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia. -Martin Cruz Smith
The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere. Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea. -Antonio Guterres
The left is being funded primarily by the drug traffickers who provide this tax money and that’s why the guerrillas in Colombia, unlike the guerrillas anywhere else in Latin America, have been able to survive for 40 years because they have a hard, solid source of income. -Alma Guillermoprieto
The problem was that Panama technically belonged to Colombia, which refused to sign a treaty leasing it to the United States. So Roosevelt sent a gunboat filled with marines down to Panama, just on the off chance that a revolution might suddenly break out, and darned if one didn’t, two days later. Not only that, but the leaders of the new nation of Panama-talk about lucky breaks!-were absolutely thrilled to have the United States build a canal there. ‘Really, it’s our pleasure,’ they told the marines, adding, ‘Don’t shoot.’ -Dave Barry
The rich and powerful countries are trying to wreck as much as possible. You know, go off the cliff as soon as you can. Extract every drop of hydrocarbons off the ground and destroy the environment. At the opposite extreme are countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, indigenous people around the world, and first nations in Canada and tribal people in India, campesinos in Colombia… They’re trying to save the commons. -Noam Chomsky
The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States’ independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti. -Jean-Bertrand Aristide
The whole basis for the US intervention in Colombia is outrageously racist and arrogant. -Noam Chomsky
There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana. $7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven’t even included the harm to young people. It’s absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes. -Milton Friedman
There was a hemispheric conference in Colombia. It couldn’t reach a consensus, so there was no declaration that came out, [but] on the crucial issues, Canada and the US were totally isolated. The rest of the hemisphere voted one way, and the US and Canada rejected it. So there couldn’t be a consensus. -Noam Chomsky
There’s so much more to Colombia than drug trafficking, you have no idea. They’re a bit worn out by the association. -Pedro Pascal
To be quite honest my country [Colombia] still shows that it can be intolerant. -Juan Pablo Escobar
Today, aid to Colombia is given under the pretext of a drug war. That’s pretty hard to take seriously. Ten years ago, Amnesty International flatly called it a myth. -Noam Chomsky
Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good -like rabbit. -Jonathan Dimbleby
We have a bad image in the world, I’ve got to admit. I just want people to think twice about Colombia. Don’t go by the first impression. -Camilo Villegas
We have had this happen in the past, right in Colombia: there were amnesties for everybody, guerrilla members were elected mayors, senators. Today there are senators who are -who were previously guerrillas. -Juan Manuel Santos
We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. -Martin Luther King, Jr.
We live again, Columbia! yea once more / Unto a thousand generations live,/ The mother in the child; to all the West / Through thee shall we earth’s choicest blessings give,/ Even as our Orient world in us is blessed. -Martin Farquhar Tupper
We must rebuild Colombia, starting with ourselves, our hearts, put resentment aside, put hatred aside, put envy aside. The only thing that those attitudes accomplish is to sow violence and sow death and suffering. -Juan Manuel Santos
Well, in Colombia everybody’s very voluptuous, and you’re supposed to be. You don’t want to be skinny when all of your cousins are mermaids. You grow up thinking that’s how beauty is. -Sofia Vergara
What right does the US have to do anything in Colombia? Does Colombia have the right to bomb North Carolina? There are more Colombians dying from tobacco than Americans dying from heroin. -Noam Chomsky
What we experience in Colombia is fratricide, we fight ourselves and it demonstrates the priority of hatred over peace and reconciliation. -Juan Pablo Escobar
What we have in Colombia is a war against the poor and the guerillas from the left side are against the poor. -Ingrid Betancourt
When Harvard University opened its doors in 1636, there were already well-established universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. -Oscar Arias
When I was growing up, Forest Park was full of integrated families. It was amazing. One my best friends was Vietnamese. Another one was half-Mexican, half-black. Another one was from Colombia. Another one was born in the U.S., but his mom was from Germany and spoke with a German accent. So we all had multiple identities. -Dinaw Mengestu
Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it’s rough out there. But the bottom line is you’ve got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I’m totally addicted to traveling. -Quincy Jones
Yes, of course my father harmed and caused a lot of damage but both stories are true. He did things to help and destroy Colombia, both are true. -Juan Pablo Escobar