Juan Manuel Santos Calderón GColIH GCB GColL ODB (Spanish: [ˈxwam maˈnwel ˈsantos kaldeˈɾon]; born 10 August 1951) is a Colombian politician who was the President of Colombia from 2010 to 2018.

His time at the Ministry of Defense was tarnished by the "False positives" scandal, the executions of thousands of civilians that the army passed off as guerrillas killed in combat.

[4][5] This rivalry determined both Santos' unpopularity and his near-missed defeat during the 2014 Colombian presidential election against Uribe's protégé Óscar Iván Zuluaga.

During his tenure as Defence Minister, the administration dealt a series of blows against the FARC guerrilla group, including the rescue of Fernando Araújo Perdomo, the death of FARC Secretariat member Raúl Reyes (a controversial military raid on Ecuador's border),[34] and the non-violent rescue of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt held captive since 2002, along with fourteen other hostages, including three Americans.

[35][36] In 2008 the 'false positives' scandal was uncovered, referring to revelations concerning extrajudicial executions carried out by members of the military in order to artificially increase the number of guerrillas killed by the Army and claim rewards from the government.

[38] Twenty-seven military officers, including three generals and eleven colonels, were sacked after an internal army investigation concluded that they were responsible for administrative failures and irregularities in reporting enemy casualties and operational results.

[41][42] According to the Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos NGO coalition and the Fundación para la Educación y el Desarrollo, an estimated 3,756 extrajudicial executions occurred between 1994 and 2009, of which 3,084 cases would have taken place after 2002.

[43][44] Families of the victims and non-governmental organisations have held the Uribe administration and Santos, as Defence Minister, responsible for the extrajudicial killings because they consider that the government's reward policies motivated the crimes.

[43][44] Directive 029 of 2005 issued under Defence Minister Camilo Ospina Bernal and presidential decree 1400 of May 2006 have been questioned for offering incentives and benefits in exchange for capturing or killing members of illegal armed groups.

[42][44] In June 2009, United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston declared that extrajudicial executions had been carried out in a "more or less systematic manner" by numerous Colombian military personnel and found the number of trials for those implicated to be lacking, but stated that he had found no evidence of the executions being an official government policy and acknowledged a decrease in the number of reported cases.

[45] In March 2010, Santos publicly stated these executions had stopped since October 2008 and that this had been confirmed by the CINEP, one of Colombia's foremost human rights defence institutions.

When the Constitutional Court ruled out the possibility of Uribe's participation in the upcoming elections, Santos officially launched his campaign for the presidency of the Republic of Colombia.

One source of contention is the usage of glyphosate to eradicate coca crops, which Colombia had halted in favor of other methods due to health concerns.

Consumer countries' authorities have a fundamental responsibility to their fellow citizens and the world to reduce consumption and to attack trafficking and distribution organizations in their own countries.In July 2018, Santos called on Trump to urge Russian president Vladimir Putin to stop supporting Venezuela's authoritarian government.

[62] Santos has acknowledged that, in 2017, Trump raised the idea of a military invasion of Venezuela to drive out President Nicolas Maduro, which he and other Latin American leaders rejected at the time.

[71] On 24 February, Santos announced that the running mate for his 2014 reelection campaign would be is Germán Vargas Lleras, a veteran politician from one of Colombia's most powerful political dynasties, and his former Minister of Housing, City and Territory.

In the second round, Santos received the backing and support of his former electoral rival: Clara López Obregón of the Alternative Democratic Pole,[72] as well from dissident members of the Conservative and Green parties.

President Santos addressed supporters and volunteers gathered at the campaign's headquarters in the Claustro de La Enseñanza after his reelection and said: "This is the end of 50 years of conflict in this country, and it is the beginning of a new Colombia".

Through his father's brother, Hernando, and his mother's sister, Elena, Juan Manuel is also first cousin on both sides to Francisco Santos Calderón, former Vice President of Colombia during the previous administration from 2002 to 2010.

[79][80] He then married María Clemencia Rodríguez Múnera, or "Tutina" as she is known to those close to her, an industrial designer he had met while she worked as a private secretary at the Ministry of Communications and he was Deputy Director of El Tiempo.

[81][82] A new plant species from Northeastern Colombia has been named Espeletia praesidentis, in honour of efforts made by President Santos to build peace.