Pres. Pastrana and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frías visited Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro in an effort to improve relations with the Communist nation.
Over five million people in 700 towns and cities protested the persistent violence and human rights abuses in Colombia. In Dec. 1999 the Colombian military reported 2,787 people kidnapped for that year, the most of any country in the world. The murder rate was also very high in 1999; right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas, drug traffickers, and other criminals were blamed for the abductions and violence that claimed some 23,000 lives and created over 100,000 refugees. In two years, approximately two million people had fled the country.
