State authorities have been unable to provide basic services in Arauca, a province in the northeast of Colombia that has lived under guerrilla rule for years.

The province on the border with Venezuela has been submerged in violence after dissident FARC guerrillas began disputing the control of guerrilla group ELN on January 1.

The subsequent state collapse became painfully visible on Monday when municipal ombudsmen from Arauca took to social media to demand that authorities pick up the remains of two adults and two children who were murdered in a massacre.

According to think tank Indepaz, the massacre in Tame was the second this year. Authorities have no idea how many people were killed in the first massacre that allegedly left at least 27 people dead on the first two days of the year.

In fact, national authorities don’t seem to how many lives were lost in the most recent war on Arauca.

According to the National Police database, 88 people have been murdered in Arauca so far this year. The prosecution has registered 136 victims.

The war has displaced more than 3,860 people so far this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report that was published in late March.

The NGO blasted the government’s lack of response and its attempts to make the humanitarian crisis invisible.

Human Rights Watch analyst Juan Pappier

Defense Minister Diego Molano responded by promoting the alleged progress of the government’s “Arauca Stabilization Plan.”

Defense Minister Diego Molano

Monday’s massacre highlighted how the government of President Ivan Duque was blowing smoke. The security forces have been unable to challenge the ELN’s power for years.

Guerrilla marketing

Guerrillas have been regularly making fools of Molano and President Ivan Duque as part of their strategy to undermine government authority.

On January 6, the defense minister vowed to send more than 600 troops to Arauca to reinforce the 7,000 policemen and soldiers that were already in the province.

When President Ivan Duque visited Arauca to inspect the progress of the Stabilization Plan the next week, the ELN published images of guerrillas patrolling roads just a few miles from where the president was meeting with military commanders.

Two days later, FARC dissidents carried out a terrorist attack that targeted human rights organizations in the town of Saravena.

Molano again promised to send 600 more soldiers and vowed to increase patrols to improve road security.

Less than a month later, the ELN published images of guerrillas patrolling inside urban areas.

The origin of the violence

The most recent wave of violence is due to the collapse of a non-violence pact between the ELN, which controls Arauca, and dissident FARC guerrillas of the 10th Front that also operate on the border, according to conflict analyst Victor Barrera of think tank CINEP.

The turf war is being agitated by a third guerrilla group, “Segunda Marquetalia,” a rival of the Southeastern Bloc of which the 10th Front is part.

Segunda Marquetalia apparently hopes to weaken the Southeastern Bloc by eradicating the 10th Front.

The government’s failure to do much more than send soldiers to Arauca made the province a “laboratory of war against its population,” according to human rights organization Humanidad Vigente.

Humanidad Vigente

Venezuelan interference

Both Human Rights Watch and CINEP blamed Venezuelan authorities of aggravating the situation, but providing safe havens to groups like the ELN and Segunda Marquetalia.

“The Venezuelan State allows armed actors such as those of the Segunda Marquetalia and the ELN to fight over territory with the dissidents and the Colombian State,” according to CINEP director Martha Marquez.

HRW Americas director Tamara Taraciuk

Social issues

The crisis that tanked Venezuela’s economy after 2015 has disproportionately affected the border province.

According to Migracion Colombia, some 45,000 Venezuelans had settled in Arauca by the end of last year when the province’s entire population was estimated to be around 262,000 people.

The mass migration has aggravated the social situation in the province where 32.5% of the population was unemployed and more than a quarter lived below the poverty line last year, according to statistics agency DANE.

Unemployment in Arauca

Illegal armed groups on the other hand are making a killing by charging protection fees for anyone who wants to cross the border.

The mass migration spurred multiple think tanks to urge Colombian authorities to combat Arauca’s informal and illegal economies by ending historic neglect.

The president said in January that the government was investing $496 million (COP1.85 trillion) in the province of which $76 million (COP284 billion) would be for social investment that would benefit more than one third of Arauca’s 262,000 inhabitants.

How much of that money will end up being invested is a mystery. Funds meant for poor children’s school meals and emergency funds meant to combat the coronavirus crisis were embezzled by the governor, according to the prosecution, which has detained the politician.