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The elections and the different trajectories of violence in Colombia

2022-01-27T18:04:39.547Z


In the attacks against social leaders as a result of the Peace Agreement, political and criminal explanations are mixed that may intensify due to the proximity of the May elections


In the same way that happened with the previous stage of the electoral calendar, the proximity of a new election in Colombia, on May 29, has intensified the scene of political violence.

Recent events make us anticipate that the next electoral cycle will be accompanied by a visible increase in violence.

Precisely breaking this intersection between violence and politics, particularly in “deep Colombia”, was one of the aspirations of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian Government and the FARC in 2016.

Initially there were some indications that Colombia might indeed enter a new stage of its political development.

The country lived off some of the lowest rates of violence, for example, in homicides and in the number of massacres.

But, as in past experiences of peace, there were also signs that the country had not overcome the tragic conjunction of politics and violence.

The growing number of social leaders killed since the signing of the agreement is one of the biggest concerns.

As has been common in other post-conflict scenarios around the world, many of the explanations for this violence have focused on the proliferation of criminal organizations that compete for control of illicit markets and thrive in the “power vacuums” resulting from demobilization. of rebel groups in territories characterized by persistent state weakness. It is common to think of this violence as something purely "criminal" without any political logic.

These explanations undoubtedly represent a realistic scenario, but incomplete when it comes to explaining the interpretations associated with the new forms of violence that exist in the country, especially in a context of fragmentation of armed actors and strong regional variations.

Reality requires making an extra effort, forcing us to understand that this type of situation is usually the result of multiple simultaneous explanations of an intricate nature that show the complexity that characterizes social problems.

Based on these premises, together with Inge Valencia (Icesi University), Jonas Wolff (Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt) and Juan Corredor (CUNY) we explore different types of explanations for the violence against social leaders since 2016. There we identify two types of trajectories that may explain the increase in these murders. Each of them can be characterized as an ideal type in the Weberian sense; that is, as a theoretical reference, based —although not observable in a “pure” way— in reality.

The first trajectory is the most frequent narrative around post-agreement violence and emphasizes a transformation of the armed conflict to a more “criminal” violence. In the case of contemporary Colombia, the demobilization of the FARC and the state's inability to fill the resulting territorial power vacuum has been exploited by non-state armed actors, which include both pre-existing organizations (guerrillas and neo-paramilitaries) and new groups ( for example, the FARC dissidents). Social activists are killed for standing in the way of the aforementioned armed groups, which dispute territorial control, especially of strategic corridors for coca cultivation and the production and trade of drugs or illegal mining.

In contrast to the aforementioned "criminal" trajectory, there is a political explanation. According to this, the 2016 Peace Agreement contributed to challenging

subnational

de facto

authoritarian orders. These are sustained as a consequence of the formation of alliances between local political elites, state institutions and armed actors. Seeing the

status quo

threatened by the mobilization of previously marginalized actors, these alliances react with violence, often lethal against social activists. Thus, the agreement can represent, in multiple territories, a fundamental threat to elites that promote exclusionary political orders, using formally democratic procedures that hide systematic violence as

modus operandi

.

It is worth clarifying that also in these cases, non-state armed actors can play an important role in the exercise of violence;

however, they do not do so autonomously, but as part of local power networks that seek to maintain authoritarian orders built within the framework of the armed conflict.

Thus, as might be expected from the “criminal” logic, the assassination of social leaders is more frequent and likely in municipalities with a high density of coca crops, with a strong presence of the FARC before its demobilization, and with low state capacity.

Meanwhile, according to the “political” logic, the evidence suggests that this specific type of violence tends to occur in municipalities characterized by restricted competition and electoral participation, and intensifies when there are actors capable of constituting themselves as challenges “from below” , as relatively successful left-wing social movements from the electoral point of view.

The criminal trajectory is not exempt from political components. Even when there are primary motivations linked to the use of illicit markets, criminal groups also seek to control territories and often populations, that is, political activities. In the same way, the political trajectory has, indisputably, criminal-type ingredients. It is not so much the absolute absence of "criminal" or "political" elements in each of the trajectories, but rather the preponderance of a logic behind the violence.

It will be necessary—perhaps more than in previous waves of violence in Colombia—to understand the strong regional and local variation in its manifestations and causes.

In this sense, elections can exacerbate violence in different parts of the country.

To try to stop the increase in violence and its concatenation with electoral politics, a single recipe will not be enough (for example, the presence of the Armed Forces in very violent areas), but rather a determined effort by different state and social actors that effectively transforms the ways in which local political and social orders are constituted.

Juan Guillermo Albarracín

and

Juan Pablo Milanese

are professors of Political Science at the Icesi University (Colombia) and collaborators of Agenda Pública.

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Source: elparis

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