[News] Colombia’s peace deal is being threatened by a surge of right-wing violence

[Anti-Imperialist News]

thedawn-news.org <http://www.thedawn-news.org/2017/03/13/sabotaging-peace/>


  Sabotaging Peace

*Colombia’s peace deal is being threatened by a surge of right-wing 
violence*.

By: Tobías Franz / Source: Jacobin Mag / The Dawn News / March 9, 2017

The implementation of the peace deal between the Colombian government 
and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been 
everything but a success for the country.

Not only did voters reject the original peace agreement 
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/colombia-peace-santos-uribe-farc/>, there 
has also been a significant increase in violence targeting left-wing 
activists and community leaders. Since the ratification of the final 
accord on November 29-30, 2016, right-wing paramilitaries and local drug 
gangs have assassinated 
<http://pacifista.co/estos-son-los-22-los-lideres-sociales-asesinados-desde-el-inicio-de-la-implementacion/> 
twenty-four social leaders, and sixteen since the beginning of this year 
alone. A new wave of violence has even reached the streets of the 
country’s capital Bogotá, where recent bomb attacks targeting protesters 
and the police force 
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39023341> try to undermine 
the legitimacy and validity of the peace process.

Colombia is a country with a long history of systematically oppressing 
and violently killing left-wing campaigners, feminist activists, racial 
minorities, and members of the LGBT+ community. And while President 
Santos has broken ties with his past as a minister of defense 
<https://news.vice.com/article/false-positives-how-colombias-army-executed-civilians-and-called-them-guerrillas> 
(or “s/eñor de la guerra/ 
<http://www.las2orillas.co/juan-manuel-santos-un-hombre-de-contrastes/>”) 
under the notoriously hard-right Alvaro Uribe presidency and is seeking 
to shape a postwar Colombia, the increased killings of social leaders in 
zones formerly under FARC’s control puts the state’s capacity and 
willingness to protect its most marginalized citizens into question.

The right-wing political camp, led by former president Uribe, and the 
paramilitary groups are actively attempting to fill the power and 
security vacuum left behind in areas formerly controlled by the 
now-demobilized and disarmed FARC rebels. At the heart of the killings 
are the interests of Uribe and his narco-capitalist friends of large 
landowners and cattle ranchers to not only undermine the peace treaty as 
such, but also to expand their territorial reach in the race for cheap 
and resource-rich land 
<http://cienciashumanasyeconomicas.medellin.unal.edu.co/boletin/Peace_in_Colombia_A_New_Growth_Strategy.pdf> 
and in the country’s multi-billion-dollar drug trade.

The narco-capitalists as well as landed and agro-industrial factions of 
Colombia’s elite fear that many of the displaced peasants might return 
to claim back their land (as the peace deal envisages 
<http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/procesos-y-conversaciones/Documentos%20compartidos/24-11-2016NuevoAcuerdoFinal.pdf>). 
During the five decades of war, the Colombian state, in cooperation with 
paramilitary groups, forcefully and violently dispossessed rural land in 
protection of class interests to benefit landed oligarchs, 
agro-industrialists, and extractive multinational companies. Elite 
dependence on the drug incomes, on a further militarization of the 
country, and on the expansion of Colombia’s extractive-based economic 
growth model are the main drivers behind the continuous cycle of 
primitive accumulation in rural parts of the country.

In the face of this, many grassroots activists, peasant organizers, 
social workers, and left-wing politicians who actively work towards a 
real and durable peace to achieve political representation, economic 
reparations, justice, and social reconciliation for the victims of war 
face the highest threat of violence in years.

As the FARC rebels disarm and demobilize, this new wave of violence is 
particularly spreading in formerly FARC-held areas, which includes over 
240 towns and municipalities across Colombia. Most of these are in zones 
where indigenous groups, Afro-Colombian communities, and peasants have 
largely shouldered the burden of the fifty-three-year-long war. For 
example, along the Cacarica river basin in the geo-economically 
strategic Urabá and the Chocó regions in northwestern Colombia, 
observers have denounced the arrival of at least three hundred new 
paramilitary fighters 
<http://www.pares.com.co/paz-y-posconflicto/la-pelea-de-los-ilegales-por-los-vacios-que-dejaron-las-farc/>.

The public forces face the great challenge of going from fighting an 
enemy to actually controlling the territory. The state’s incapacity or 
unwillingness to do so is one of the reasons why the war lasted for over 
five decades. However, to overcome the incapability of the state and to 
bring an end to the tensions goes beyond the agreed peace treaty. Much 
of it depends on winning the political battle for socio-economic changes 
in Colombia.

For example, many FARC rebels (and farmers) relied and continue to rely 
on the militarized incomes of the drug industry. They fear life in 
economic marginalization. While the demobilized fighters have the right 
to claim a monthly stipend of approximately US $200, many of them prefer 
to continue working in the illicit industries. The paramilitary groups 
that are now seeking to fill the power gap and to largely control the 
lucrative drug trade have already started to recruit former FARC rebels 
and peasants, offering monthly salaries of 1.8 million pesos (US $620) 
<http://www.pares.com.co/paz-y-posconflicto/la-pelea-de-los-ilegales-por-los-vacios-que-dejaron-las-farc/>.

This sum, which is more than double the size of the minimum wage, 
reveals some of the weaknesses of Colombia’s licit economy. For an 
under- or uneducated worker, entering Colombia’s flexibilized and highly 
growth-elastic labor market 
<http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/dae/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe1030.pdf> means an 
insecure and low-paid job in the service industry — that is, if there 
/is/ a job in the formal sector.

Colombia has the second-highest unemployment rate of Latin America 
<http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/---sro-santiago/documents/publication/wcms_480311.pdf>, 
only surpassed by Costa Rica. Furthermore, the minimum wage in Colombia 
is one of the lowest in Latin America, with living costs higher than the 
regional average 
<http://salariominimo.com.mx/comparativa-salario-minimo-latinoamerica/>. 
Much of this is a result of the traditionally neoliberal-minded 
Colombian governments, incapable and unwilling to create economic 
policies for a sustainable and inclusive industrial growth.

To overcome the cycle of poverty, dependence on drug income, and 
violence, there is little time left to pressure the government to 
swiftly and thoroughly implement the peace agreement. Grassroots 
activists’ calls for real peace, including reconciliation, justice, and 
truth need to be supported.

Social leaders in the marginalized zones — the true actors fighting for 
such a conclusive process — need to be protected, or anything that might 
be put into practice will be too little, too late. Especially for 
regions where right-wing paramilitary violence is on the rise.

But the current peace treaty is not enough. Colombia needs a complete 
and thorough revision of its neoliberal economic growth model. This 
includes an active state policy to increase economic activities in 
manufacturing sectors, the creation of decent and well-paid jobs in the 
licit economy, and a significant increase of the minimum wage.

Without that, any attempts to break out of the vicious cycle of 
underdevelopment, drugs, and violence are likely to remain unsuccessful.

-- 
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