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- Pre- European contact
- The Republic and La Violencia
- The National Front and birth of guerrilla movements
- Growth of paramilitary repression
- A slippery slope of U.S. intervention
- More recent developments
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Pre- European contact |
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During the pre-Columbian period, the area now known as Colombia was inhabited by Indigenous hunters and nomadic farmers. In the 1530s, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Giménez de Quesada led forces that decimated Indigenous inhabitants and founded the city of Santafe de Bogotá. In 1717, Bogotá became the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, which included what is now Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama.
The Spanish prioritized extraction of Colombia’s vast mineral wealth, while export-oriented agriculture (coffee, bananas, sugar, cotton and tobacco) replaced traditional crops (potatoes, cassava, corn and medicinal plants). African slaves were brought to work in the mines, as well as on vast plantations and ranches.
The Spanish crown enacted laws to separate the slaves from the Indigenous inhabitants so that the two groups would not unite in resistance. Slaves, however, often revolted against their subhuman living conditions, and many escaped to form palenques (towns) in remote areas where they could maintain their African customs. By the 18th century, slavery as an institution was in crisis but it was not abolished until after independence. There was also significant resistance by Indigenous Peoples and mixed-race mestizos.
In 1810, the citizens of Bogotá created the first representative
council to defy Spanish authority. Full independence was proclaimed
in 1819 and the Republic of Greater Colombia was formed.
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The Republic and La Violencia |
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The new Republic of Greater Colombia included all the territory of the former Viceroyalty, plus Peru and Bolivia. Simón Bolívar, renowned as “the great liberator”, was elected its first president and Francisco de Paula Santander, leader of the conservative oligarchy, vice president. But the Republic soon fell apart. Peru and Bolivia separated almost immediately and in 1830, Venezuela and Ecuador became separate nations. The remaining territory emerged as the Republic of New Granada, later Colombia (Panama separated in 1903, largely as a result of U.S. manoeuvres to gain control of the Canal).
Conflicts between the followers of Bolívar and Santander led to the creation of the Conservative and Liberal Parties, which have dominated Colombian politics ever since. Despite the trappings of democracy, their power struggle has been marked by violence.
In the early 20th century, the penetration of foreign capital and
the beginnings of industrialization led to the emergence of militant
labour and peasant movements in the cities, the banana plantations
and the newly-developed oilfields. These were met with violent repression.
Popular discontent found a powerful voice in dissident Liberal leader,
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and his assassination in April
1948 sparked massive riots and uprising. Responsibility for Gaitán’s
murder has never been clarified but there are suggestions of CIA
involvement. Meanwhile, the Conservatives and establishment Liberals
united to suppress Gaitán’s followers.
What followed was a chaotic period of virtual civil war in which factional strife between Liberals and Conservatives was combined with repression against workers and peasants. It was during this period that the Colombian oligarchy began to use paramilitary death squads and hired assassins, known at the time as pájaros. Caught in the middle, some peasants armed themselves in self-defence. Some 300,000 people were killed over the ten-year period that came to be known as La Violencia.
In 1953, the Colombian oligarchy attempted to restore order through
a military coup led by General Rojas Pinilla, who then sent the
army to crush the rural insurgency and restore land to its owners.
Rojas Pinilla promised moderate measures of land reform. But in
practice, repression and conflict continued and the roots of today’s
guerrilla movements can be traced to this time.
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The National Front and birth of guerrilla movements |
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In 1957, Rojas Pinilla was overthrown following a huge general strike. In order to head off yet another round of political violence, the elites of the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed to a power-sharing arrangement known as the National Front. From 1958 to 1974, Liberal and Conservative candidates took turns holding the four-year presidency, using the office to distribute patronage and favours to their supporters. Like so many other governments, the National Front also failed to address the underlying inequities and lack of political space that had provoked unrest.
In the search for alternatives, peasants in some areas of the country set up independent “republics” where they experimented with various forms of local self-government, free from the control of political and economic elites, based in the capital. But as large landowners expanded their holdings into these peasant-controlled areas, the government took steps to regain control. Armed peasant groups melted deeper into Colombia’s jungles to escape government troops, coalescing into an alliance that demanded radical land reform and an end to political corruption. In 1964-65, some of these groups organized into the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Around the same time, the National Liberation Army (ELN) was formed by activists who had spent time in Cuba and were influenced by the ideas of Che Guevara, as well as what would later be known as Liberation Theology.
Before long, a third guerrilla movement emerged -- the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) -- associated with the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and the Sino-Soviet rift in the international communist movement.
During the 1960s, supporters of the former dictator Rojas Pinilla
established a new party, the National Popular Alliance (ANAPO) to
challenge Liberal-Conservative hegemony. Despite his past, Rojas
Pinilla appealed to many disaffected people, particularly in rural
areas, who felt excluded from the political process. When Rojas
Pinilla narrowly lost the 1970 presidential election, ANAPO supporters
accused the government of fixing the vote. Many renounced electoral
politics and formed the M-19 guerrilla movement in 1972. The M-19
gained wide attention in the ‘80s with a number of dramatic
raids and hostage-takings.
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Growth of paramilitary repression |
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As guerrilla armies grew in strength, the Colombian army, with backing from the United States, intensified its repression. As early as 1962, two years before the emergence of any of the guerrilla organizations, a U.S. military mission to Colombia promoted the creation of civilian militia groups to counter dissent. Although paramilitarism is often portrayed as a reaction to guerrilla insurgency, it was already being used by the oligarchy and legitimized by authorities as a means of suppressing popular movements. Paramilitarism would later grow enormously with support from drug barons and ranchers.
Military repression intensified under Liberal President Turbay Ayala (1978-82), drug trafficking emerged as a serious problem, and popular resistance – both armed and unarmed – increased.
In 1985, Conservative President Belisario Betancur negotiated a deal with the FARC, offering an amnesty for those who would lay down their arms and participate in the political process. The Patriotic Union (UP), a left-wing coalition, was created by demobilised guerrillas to offer an alternative option. But despite achieving important electoral gains, the UP was all but eliminated with the systematic murder by army-backed paramilitary death squads of thousands of its activists, including two presidential candidates. In a similar betrayal, many members of the Democratic Alliance -- a party created in 1989 after the M-19 accepted a government offer of full pardon for laying down its weapons to enter the political process -- were murdered, among them, presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro. History would repeat itself later with a demobilised faction of the EPL.
During the 1990s, Colombia’s violent internal conflict became even more murderous. Paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño united several right-wing death squads into an organization called the United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia (AUC), which coordinated massacres of peasants in various parts of the country. Trade unionists, educators, community activists, radical clerics, left-wing politicians, or anyone deemed sympathetic to the guerrillas were denounced as subversives and many were killed. Paramilitaries also carried out so-called social cleansing killings that targeted marginalized groups like drug addicts, prostitutes, and the homeless. Meanwhile, the FARC and other guerrilla groups stepped up kidnappings for ransom, selected assassinations as well as raids on military outposts and oil pipelines that claimed civilian casualties.
In late 1998, newly elected president Andrés Pastrana negotiated
an agreement with the FARC that granted the guerrillas control over
a large area in the south, as a prelude to full negotiations to
end the conflict. Paramilitary forces responded by stepping up their
campaign against “subversives”, particularly in the
north where their forces were strongest.
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A slippery slope of U.S. intervention |
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Meanwhile, the U.S. administrations of George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton increased military aid to Colombia, ostensibly for the “war on drugs” but also as a way of providing the Colombian government and military more support in its struggle against the guerrillas. Shortly before leaving office, Clinton unveiled his Plan Colombia, a combined military and economic aid package that he claimed would assist in combating drug traffickers and provide incentives for peasant farmers to switch from coca production to other crops. Colombian social organizations opposed the infusion of $1.3 billion of mostly military aid, including combat helicopters, arguing it would be turned against guerrilla bases in the south and cause a lethal escalation of what has already become one of the world’s most violent and bloody internal conflicts.
Interventionism has been extended under George W. Bush by means
of a regional “aid” package called the Andean Initiative,
as well as the so-called War on Terror. The election of Alvaro Uribe
as Colombian president threatens to further aggravate the conflict,
given elevated levels of human rights violations during his term
as governor of Antioquia in the mid-‘90s and his promise to
create a network of a million civilian informants, amongst other
chilling proposals (for more, see next section).
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More recent developments |
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- The peace process collapsed. The fragile peace process between
the Colombian government and the FARC collapsed in February 2002.
Within hours of President Pastrana’s announcement to break
off talks, aerial bombings were initiated to retake the former
demilitarized zone.
- President Pastrana gets guerrilla organizations declared “terrorist”.
In the spring of 2002, President Pastrana traveled to Europe,
where he was successful in pressing European nations to add Colombia’s
guerrilla armies to their list of terrorist organizations. This
makes it more difficult for Europe to support a peace process
with groups it now classifies as “terrorist”.
- Hardliner elected as Colombia’s new President. In May 2002 (with an abstention rate of 56%) hardliner Alvaro Uribe was elected to succeed Andrés Pastrana as Colombia’s next President. Among the measures which Uribe and several key Ministers in his government have announced they will undertake are:
- Create a vigilante network of one million informants to work with state security forces. This will bring more civilians directly into the armed conflict, increasing the death toll.
- Bring back the “state of siege”. Colombians lived under an almost continuous state of siege between 1949 and 1991, during which time human rights were routinely abused by state security forces.
- Enact draconian anti-terrorist legislation which will severely restrict human rights. Similar legislation enacted by President Pastrana in August 2001 was found to violate fundamental human rights by Colombia’s Constitutional Court and revoked.
- Limit the faculties of the Constitutional Court. This will allow abuses to occur with no judicial oversight.
- Increased U.S. military involvement in the wake of 9-11. The
events of September 11 added fuel to a fire that was already raging
in Colombia, providing a pretext for greater U.S. intervention.
In July 2002, a U.S. senate committee voted to approve $88 million
to help Colombia's military protect the Caño Limón
- Coveñas oil pipeline, which ferries oil to the coast
for the Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and other companies.
The bulk of the aid is for the purchase of helicopters and communications
equipment.
- “War on Drugs” turns into “War on Terror”.
Colombian organizations argued since the inception of Plan Colombia
that the real aim of U.S. military aid – ostensibly for
the “war on drugs” – was to combat guerrilla
insurgents. But with the inclusion of 3 Colombian armed groups
(FARC, ELN, AUC) to its list of terrorist organizations, and in
the post 9-11 climate, U.S. rhetoric has changed. In July 2002,
the U.S. Congress voted to allow aid for the “war on drugs”
– including guns, helicopters, intelligence and training
-- to be used to fight Colombia’s insurgent forces, as part
of the global “war on terror”.
- Attacks against trade unionists increase. More than 100 trade
unionists were killed in the first seven months of 2002. Over
90% of the trade unionists killed in the world in the year 2001
were Colombians.
- Escalation, degradation and regionalization of the conflict. The collapse of peace talks has led to an intensification and degradation in the war, with serious violations of international humanitarian law.
- Increasing civilian casualties: Despite repeated warnings about combat between paramilitaries and guerrillas, the government took no measures to protect the civilian population in the village of Boyajá, Chocó. During that clash on May 2, 2002, civilians sought refuge in a local church. At least one gas cylinder bomb fired by the FARC struck the church, killing at least 117 civilians and injuring more than 100 others.
- Paramilitary forces appear in Venezuela: In July 2002, a group calling itself the United Self Defence Forces of Venezuela (AUV) announced it had been formed and named President Hugo Chavez a military target.
- Militarization of Ecuador: There are more checkpoints, more police and army, particularly along the border with Colombia, confrontations between Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary forces, as well as assassinations. Social organizations that have denounced the militarization, U.S. military presence and how Ecuador is being drawn into greater and greater involvement – just as Honduras once was used during the Contra War – are receiving death threats, the contents of which suggest the involvement of military intelligence.
- Chilean army considering intervention in Colombia: A July
2002 report circulated by the Colombian Embassy in Canada claimed
the Chilean army is considering participating in a multinational
military operation to be led by the U.S. against Colombian guerrillas.
According to the report, 30 colonels and lieutenant colonels,
all graduating students at Chile's War Academy, have been developing
strategies since January to deploy tanks, weapons and some 2,600
soldiers in Colombia. The report suggests the proposed operation
would be sponsored by the U.N. and also include troops from
Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay and Peru. President Uribe is said
to be negotiating a "peace-imposition” (rather than
a peacekeeping) force, whose mission would be to find and defeat
enemy forces.
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