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<h1 id="reader-title">Sabotaging Peace <br>
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<p><font size="+1"><b>Colombia’s peace deal is being
threatened by a surge of right-wing violence</b></font>.</p>
<p>By: Tobías Franz / Source: Jacobin Mag / The Dawn News
/ March 9, 2017</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Not only did <a
href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/colombia-peace-santos-uribe-farc/">voters
reject the original peace agreement</a>, 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 <a
href="http://pacifista.co/estos-son-los-22-los-lideres-sociales-asesinados-desde-el-inicio-de-la-implementacion/">have
assassinated</a> 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 <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39023341">protesters
and the police force</a> try to undermine the
legitimacy and validity of the peace process.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://news.vice.com/article/false-positives-how-colombias-army-executed-civilians-and-called-them-guerrillas">with
his past as a minister of defense</a> (or “<a
href="http://www.las2orillas.co/juan-manuel-santos-un-hombre-de-contrastes/">s<em>eñor
de la guerra</em></a>”) 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://cienciashumanasyeconomicas.medellin.unal.edu.co/boletin/Peace_in_Colombia_A_New_Growth_Strategy.pdf">race
for cheap and resource-rich land</a> and in the
country’s multi-billion-dollar drug trade.</p>
<p>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 (<a
href="http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/procesos-y-conversaciones/Documentos%20compartidos/24-11-2016NuevoAcuerdoFinal.pdf">as
the peace deal envisages</a>). 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.pares.com.co/paz-y-posconflicto/la-pelea-de-los-ilegales-por-los-vacios-que-dejaron-las-farc/">at
least three hundred new paramilitary fighters</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.pares.com.co/paz-y-posconflicto/la-pelea-de-los-ilegales-por-los-vacios-que-dejaron-las-farc/">monthly
salaries of 1.8 million pesos (US $620)</a>.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/dae/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe1030.pdf">flexibilized
and highly growth-elastic labor market</a> means an
insecure and low-paid job in the service industry — that
is, if there <em>is</em> a job in the formal sector.</p>
<p>Colombia has the <a
href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---americas/---ro-lima/---sro-santiago/documents/publication/wcms_480311.pdf">second-highest
unemployment rate of Latin America</a>, only surpassed
by Costa Rica. Furthermore, the minimum wage in Colombia
is <a
href="http://salariominimo.com.mx/comparativa-salario-minimo-latinoamerica/">one
of the lowest in Latin America, with living costs
higher than the regional average</a>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Without that, any attempts to break out of the vicious
cycle of underdevelopment, drugs, and violence are
likely to remain unsuccessful.</p>
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