Archive for 2005
Colombia’s Rural Counterinsurgency Propaganda
Colombia’s rural regions are absolutely central to the state’s economic development model. Colombia’s four largest exports—illicit coca, and licit petroleum, coal and coffee—are all produced in rural areas. The economic importance of Colombia’s rural sector has meant that the countryside has been the frequent site of armed confrontation in the civil war. Much of the violence and most of the displacement in Colombia occurs in small rural towns and villages where the Colombian state has historically had a weak presence, if it was present at all, and where distrust of the central government in distant Bogotá runs deep. The underdevelopment of Colombia’s rural sector has necessitated that the state utilize a hands-on approach to propaganda in these areas. Read more»
Democratic Security Has Not Arrived for Colombia’s Indigenous Communities
At a military roadblock on the outskirts of the town of El Palo, heading south on the road towards Toribio, the crowded chiva in which I was riding was pulled over, its passengers asked to get off to allow for a “little search” of bags and documents. It’s a routine occurrence for the mostly indigenous and peasant residents of the area, except that this time I was on board, a New York-born journalist and researcher who for various reasons, has yet to obtain the proper Colombian documentation of citizenship to which I am entitled. So I discreetly handed over my U.S. passport to the officer in charge, only to be told by Third Captain Espitia Zapata Jamir that I should not go on any further, that there were no guarantees for my security beyond this point, and that as a foreigner I had to accept that I was going to Toribio “of my own volition.” Read more»
Contested Country: An Examination of Current Propaganda Techniques in the Colombian Civil War
Colombia’s civil war has spanned more than four decades and propaganda is an important weapon for all the armed actors in the country’s armed conflict. The conflict’s roots lie in the incomplete project of creating the Colombian state after the 19th Century defeat of Spanish colonialism, and in the 20th Century political rivalries of two elite political parties whose increasingly violent internecine feuds—referred to simply as la Violencia—ignored the backwardness and socioeconomic marginalization of Colombia’s rural poor, for whom the state was largely a distant abstraction only occasionally visited upon them. Colombia’s government has never controlled all of the Colombian territory, in part due to the country’s rugged geography of soaring Andean mountain ranges and dense Amazonian jungles. Read more»
Armed Blockade Illustrates Failure of Plan Colombia
There is perhaps no more graphic an illustration of the failure of Plan Colombia than the current armed blockade of the southern department of Putumayo by leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As the original five-year, $3 billion Plan Colombia nears its end, the FARC continues to implement an almost two-week long armed blockade that has paralyzed Putumayo and forced the government to airlift food to the region’s isolated towns. Putumayo was Plan Colombia’s primary target when the counternarcotics program was launched in December 2000. The objective was to dramatically reduce cocaine production, improve the economy and seriously diminish the FARC’s military capabilities by reducing the rebels’ funding derived from coca. The current rebel blockade raises serious questions about the effectiveness of Plan Colombia at a time when the Bush administration is promising to extend the program. Read more»
ICC Called to Investigate War Crimes in Colombia
In June, Colombia’s Congress passed the Justice and Peace Act, which defined the terms for demobilizing right-wing paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Under the new law, paramilitary leaders responsible for gross violations of human rights, including massacres, could serve less than 22 months of jail time, and that will likely amount to house arrest on ranches rather than confinement in Colombia’s harsh prisons. Shortly after the law was passed, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a French-based NGO representing 141 human rights organizations around the world, claimed that the Justice and Peace Law amounted to virtual impunity for war criminals. The FIDH called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged war crimes committed by paramilitary members participating in the demobilization process. Read more»
Colombian Government Tries to Woo UK Investors
At a conference organized by the British and Colombian Chamber of Commerce in London on June 29, Colombian ministers and leading members of the Colombian private sector presented a rosy picture of their country to foreign investors, pointing to the excellent investment climate in Colombia. Sabas Pretelt, Colombia’s minister of the interior and justice, discussed President Alvaro Uribe’s democratic security and paramilitary demobilization programs, while Jorge Humberto Botero, minister of industry, trade and tourism, explained why Colombia needed to apply more free-market reforms. Read more»
An Unjust Demobilization
Paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo demobilized more than 400 of his fighters in a ceremony in northern Colombia last week. At the ceremony, the man who ordered the killing of a Colombian congressman only two months ago had the nerve to declare: “Only a peaceful and constructive dialogue will make it possible to build a harmonious and prosperous country.” He then returned to the ranch where he is being held “captive” by the government to await the outcome of a congressional debate on a government-sponsored leniency (virtual amnesty) bill. Read more»