Peace in Colombia appears to be linked to the government’s ability to guarantee democratic opposition to whatever is considered the “status quo” by those in power.
The resistance of far-right regional elites of whom some have controlled their regions for centuries has additionally complicated both peace and democracy, especially after the rise of fascism in the 1920’s and the rise of communist guerrillas in the 1960’s.
Political polarization between liberals and conservatives, fascists and communists, and ultimately insurgents and counterinsurgents has perpetuated violence that mainly targeted the civilian population.
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This polarization surged during the Cold War and created a political culture in which someone is either “good” or “bad,” “capitalist” or “communist” and ultimately a “insurgent” or a “counterinsurgent.”
The situation got really out of hand in the 1980’s when drug traffickers began defending their interpretation of the “status quo” in an alliance with the security forces, far-right regional “clans” and sectors within the business community.
Another factor of violence is the resistance of largely far-right regional clans against the emancipation movements or attempts to make Colombia a more democratic and inclusive society, which would oppose the status quo on a regional level and their ambitions to accumulate political power.
Since the 1950’s, multiple Colombia’s governments have tried to promote democracy and, which has failed more often than it is not.
Each and every one of these peace processes have somehow been sabotaged.
The latest peace process, which kicked off after a peace deal between now-defunct guerrilla group FARC and former President Juan Manuel Santos, is struggling because of the persistent polarization, corruption and resistance from the regional clans.
The far-right in Colombia
La Violencia
La Violencia also triggered a mass expulsion of small farmers and peasants from the rich and strategically located Andean region to the coastal regions in the north and the west of Colombia and jungle regions in the east and the south.
This mass expulsion was promoted by fascist President Laureano Gomez, who turned Colombia into a dictatorship in 1949.
The 1886 Constitution allowed the president to also appoint governors and mayors, which gave the fascist wing of the Conservative Party absolute control in Bogota and virtually absolute control on a provincial and municipal level.
The regional elites were particularly powerful as they commanded their own police forces and were able to rig the system to such an extent that they also controlled the regional courts.
Gomez and the fascist governors additionally promoted the creation of paramilitary death squads to exterminate anyone deemed liberal in cooperation with the provincial police and the military.
Moderate conservatives conspired with the military to oust Gomez and install a military dictatorship in 1953 after the dictator also went after them.
General Gustavo Rojas immediately nationalized the police and offered amnesty and land to the liberal guerrillas who had taken up arms and were successfully gaining control over the countryside, particularly in the regions where they could count on large numbers of displaced peasants.
The peace process was a success for half a year until the paramilitaries began assassinating demobilized guerrillas.
The liberal guerrillas retook arms, this time with the help of communists whose party had been banned by Rojas.
In an attempt to end the war, the leaders of the Liberal Party agreed to form the “National Front” regime with the conservatives and the fascists.
This oligarchical regime would allow the parties to end the bipartisan war and alternate control over the national government in Bogota.
The military ousted Rojas and Liberal Party mogul Alberto Lleras became president in 1958 with the support of the conservatives and the largely fascist regional elites.
The National Front
Lleras revived efforts to demobilize liberal guerrillas and the fascist paramilitaries, which allowed bipartisan violence to drop.
The president also created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform to seek land for the landless peasants and created so-called Communal Action Councils to promote the political input from community organizations.
Lleras’ efforts had little effect, especially after the 1960 murder of communist peasant leader Jacobo Prias Alape, one of the key moments in the reactivation of the armed.
Alape’s death triggered some of the liberal guerrillas to rearm together with other peasant communities with outspoken communist ideals.
Among the liberal guerrillas was Manuel Marulanda, the founder of the FARC, whose community of peasants who were displaced to the south of the Tolima province during La Violencia took up arms, initially citing “self-defense.”
The so-called “Republic of Marquetalia” founded by Marulanda and his friend, Jacobo Arenas, began to openly challenge the legitimacy of the Bogota oligarchy.
This resistance was fiercely opposed by conservative Senator Alvaro Gomez, the son of the former dictator, who decried what he called the “independent republics.”
Senator Alvaro Gomez
Lleras’ successor, the conservative President Leon Guillermo Valencia, took office in August 1962, a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis spurred concerns by US President John F. Kennedy and governments throughout Latin America about the threat of “international communism” in Latin America.
Valencia, with the support of the regional clans, revoked Lleras’ agriculture reforms.
Colombia’s armed conflict for some also a family affair
FARC
US Army Coronel William P. Yarborough, a.k.a. the “Father of the Modern Green Berets,” advised the Colombian government to embark on a comprehensive plan that would seek the creation of new paramilitary groups to assist the military in fighting communist peasant communities in combination with rural development.
In July 1962, the Colombian military launched “Plan Lazo,” which sought to bomb the “independent republics” that were supported by the Colombian Communist Party (PCC) and get rid of the rebellious peasants with a ground offensive.
The military bombed the “Republic of Marquetalia” in May 1964, but failed to do serious damage to the community after which Marulanda took up the nickname “Tirofijo” and founded the FARC with the support of the PCC.
A bunch of anti-National Front forces also formed guerrilla groups like the “National Liberal Army” (ELN), the “Popular Liberation Army” (EPL), the “Revolutionary Liberal Movement” (MRL), the “National Popular Alliance” (Anapo), and the “Independent and Revolutionary Workers Movement” (MOIR).
Valencia and his liberal successor, Carlos Lleras, didn’t take further action against the guerrilla groups that posed no significant threat and in general weren’t really doing much unlike labor unions that were increasingly calling for strikes.
These strikes were violently struck down after Valencia declared a state of siege, giving almost absolute powers to the military.
The M-19
Things changed during the 1970 elections when the National Front sought to extend its rule for another four years, pushing forward Conservative Party mogul Misael Pastrana.
The unpopular National Front candidate was challenged by Rojas, the former dictator who had been in power between 1953 and 1957, with the support of Anapo.
The elections on March 19 were marred by fraud claims after Pastrana surprisingly won.
The conservative president further deteriorated the public approval of the National Front, especially after his Integrated Rural Development Plan, which allowed large landowners to claim agricultural land at the cost of small farmers.
Pastrana also sought to revive the fight against guerrilla groups, but was surprised by the M-19, which was named after the date of the allegedly stolen elections of 1970 and announced an urban guerrilla offensive.
Unlike the communist guerrillas, the M-19 promoted a nationalist and pro-democracy agenda.
In 1974, liberal presidential candidate Alfonso Lopez won the first free elections since 1946, but failed to contain growing public unrest, which led to a National Strike in September 1977.
The strike was struck down brutally and left 33 people dead, 3000 people injured and thousands in prison.
The repression, the United States’ defeat in Vietnam and the Sandinistas’ overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictatorship only increased tensions between Colombia’s government and the increasingly unruly social movements, and triggered the guerrilla groups to announce that they also would seek the violent overthrow of the government.
When Gustavo Petro was a guerrilla
Security Statute
President Julio Cesar Turbay decided to crush the growing resistance against the government with overwhelming force.
Within a month after taking office, the liberal president issued the Decree 1923 of 1978 on September 7.
With the “Security Statute” decree, Turbay declared a state of siege, restricted and suspended a number of human rights and began one of the most violent crackdowns of political opposition in the history of Colombia.
Turbay’s authoritarianism had little effect on the guerrillas, but submitted political opponents to state terror and a flurry of crimes against humanity, including torture and the forced disappearance of political activists.
The Security Statute even allowed the military to create “American Anti-Communist Alliance” and the “Black Hands,” which carried out terrorist attacks on the leftist political opposition.
Meanwhile, the president seemed hardly concerned about the Medellin Cartel, which was using its booming cocaine exports to expand its political power in Antioquia and Bogota.
The Security Statute was one of the most anti-democratic policies implemented by any government since the end of the military dictatorship in 1978.
Also guerrilla groups like the FARC and the M-19 began posing a serious threat to Colombia’s democracy, and began kidnapping predominantly drug traffickers and members of Colombia’s “oligarchy” to finance their revolutionary plans.
Efforts to make peace
Turbay’s successor, the conservative President Belisario Betancur maintained the Security Statute, but also began to actively promote the political participation of the guerrilla groups that were trying to overthrow the State.
Betancur’s peace policies were by far the most comprehensive of all his predecessors and sought to open up Colombia’s democracy to opposition organization and a National Rehabilitation Plan that sought to decentralize power and a solution to the problem of drugs.
The president’s peace policies were opposed by the military, which believed that they could defeat the guerrillas through war, perhaps because of their increasingly close relationship with the newly elected Congressman Pablo Escobar and his Medellin Cartel.
Also the far-right clans opposed Betancur’s peace policies. They also had begun aligning with the cartel and were able to expand their land ownership by laundering Escobar’s drug money.
The three forces had just formed one of Colombia’s most powerful paramilitary groups, and were jointly exterminating anything that threatened the status quo.
Betancur’s Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara frustrated the narcopolitical honeymoon in 1983 when the minister exposed Escobar’s drug trafficking activity, which forced the Medellin Cartel boss out of Congress.
Lara was assassinated in 1984 after the minister and the police began going after Escobar’s money laundering associates among the regional elites and the military.
How Colombia’s former president helped kick-start the Medellin Cartel
The political extermination
The majority of the guerrilla groups did like Betancur’s peace proposals, particularly the FARC which agreed to form a political party, the Patriotic Union, in 1984.
The party, which also counted the support of democratic opposition forces, began preparing for the 1986 elections.
The M-19 didn’t trust the process and intensified their guerrilla attacks, which culminated in the 1985 siege of the Palace of Justice of Bogota and the hostage-taking of the Supreme Court.
The response of the military, which still enjoyed the privileges of the Security Statute, and bombed the entire justice building to pieces, killing 11 of Colombia’s Supreme Court judges and destroying the entire judicial archive of the Medellin Cartel.
The UP’s electoral participation was surprisingly successful, but was also immediately cut down. All its congressmen elected in 1986 were assassinated by Medellin Cartel assassins and their allies in the military and intelligence agency DAS.
The political party broke with the FARC to dedicate itself entirely on politics ahead of Colombia’s first local elections in 1988, and with success. The party won 16 mayoral elections, 95 coalition mayoral elections, 18 seats in provincial assemblies and 388 council members.
In response, the paramilitaries and State officials began an extermination campaign that was never seen in the history of Colombia and 8,300 members and leaders of the UP were exterminated, according to the JEP.
The paramilitary network of narcos, members of the military and members of the security agency DAS began a similar extermination campaign targeting human rights workers who had begun organizing in the late 1970’s to investigate the crimes against humanity committed as part of the Security Statute.
In their defense of their interpretation of the Status Quo, the paramilitary network assassinated three UP candidates and Lara’s main ally, Luis Carlos Galan, ahead of the 1990 elections.
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A democratic constitution
Because of the violence, the FARC and the ELN wanted nothing to do with political integration and focused exclusively on their military offensive.
Guerrilla groups M-19, EPL PRT and the indigenous Quintin Lame, however, persisted and demobilized after Galan’s former speech writer, Cesar Gaviria, took office.
Together with the traditional parties, social organizations and the guerrillas, a constitutional assembly approved the 1991 constitution, which is valid until this day.
The new constitution did away with the authoritarian nature of the 1886 Constitution and introduced far-reaching democratic reforms, giving political rights to opposition parties and creating a justice system that would tackle impunity that had been the “root problem” of violence during La Violencia, according to a study commissioned by the outgoing military junta in 1957 and buried by the National Front.
The new constitution triggered the creation of all kinds of community organizations, labor unions and rights groups like those defending the rights of ethnic minorities.
The 1991 constitution also banned the arming of civilians or any form of paramilitary organization.
Violent response to democratization
Notwithstanding, the implementation of the constitution triggered the worst escalation and the highest levels of violence as the paramilitary networks stepped up their terrorism activity to maintain the status quo as they saw it.
The FARC and the ELN intensified their offensive to gain control over local and regional governments in guerrilla territory while the paramilitaries, the clans and the military embarked on their most aggressive terror campaign ever to exterminate anyone threaten the status quo and the accumulation of wealth after taking over the drug trafficking activities of the Medellin Cartel in 1992 and that of the Cali Cartel in 1994.
Privatization policies that sought to decentralize power allowed both the clans and the ELN to line their pockets by acquiring former State companies for cheap.
After the 1994 election of liberal President Ernesto Samper, the clans additionally were able to convince now-convicted Defense Minister Fernando Botero, a Cali Cartel associate, to create so-called Convivir groups that again allowed the arming of civilians, this time with legal financing from the private sector.
Botero’s ally, former Medellin Cartel associate Alvaro Uribe, was elected governor of the Antioquia province in 1994 and began certifying the creation of many dozens Convivir groups as front companies of the paramilitary groups formed by other former associates of the cartel.
Meanwhile, the FARC and the ELN sought to expand their regional political power by co-opting local and regional governments in the south and the east of the country.
Samper banned the Convivir before leaving office in 1998, but by then the paramilitaries, their allies in the private sector and the regional clans had accumulated more power than ever before and began taking over the country with the help of the military.
Colombia’s truth commission hears Uribe over war crimes
Renewed peace efforts
By the time that conservative President Andres Pastrana, the son of the politician who allegedly stole the 1970 elections, took office, the country was on the brink of becoming a failed state, which got even worse after a financial crisis in 1999.
Pastrana resumed peace talks with the FARC while the president was trying to bolster the security forces with the help of the security forces and the guerrillas were trying to bolster their armies by escalating their involvement in criminal rackets.
Meanwhile, the paramilitary network expanded their political power and control over the economy.
When the FARC peace talks collapsed in 2002, the AUC and their associates had gone from controlling a few regional governments and a few seats in the Senate to controlling 35% of Congress, intelligence agency DAS, and much of the military and National Police.
Most importantly, they were able to secure the election of Uribe, one of their most ardent supporters since the Medellin Cartel.
Testimony: how group on US terror list helped Uribe win Colombia’s 2002 elections
The return of the clans
According to the Supreme Court, the far-right president converted the presidential palace to the headquarters of a criminal organization.
Uribe even got away with bribing Congress into changing the constitution in his first attempt to perpetuate power in 2006.
The president’s second reelection attempt was struck down by the constitutional court in 2010 and liberal President Juan Manuel Santos was elected.
Santos immediately purged the government of so-called “Uribistas” and began peace talks with the FARC in secret in 2011.
How Colombia’s peace talks began and came to a successful end
Promoting peace and democracy again
The talks resulted in a far-reaching peace deal with the FARC that sought to further promote the political inclusion of opposition forces and social organizations in 2016.
Uribe was able to regain power in 2018 through the election of President Ivan Duque, a minion of the “Uribistas” whose campaign was financed by the mafia.
The former president was forced to abandon politics in 2020, however, after the court ordered his detention over evidence exposing Uribe’s alleged organized crime activity.
Duque tried to revert the 2016 peace deal with the FARC and in particular the war crimes tribunal that meant to expose the ties between the paramilitaries, the clans, the military and the private sector.
The president also sought to obstruct the criminal investigations that began revealing evidence about Duque’s ties to drug trafficking and other organized crime activity in the courts.
Duque succeeded in severely damaging the peace process and escalating violence to levels not seen in decades, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian agency earlier this year.
Colombia subjected to worst levels of violence in decades
Paramilitary project collapses
The president’s apparent misrule and corruption, however, triggered the biggest anti-government protests in 2019 and 2021 since the National Strike held in 1977.
Police crushed the protest with the use of more violence, which left more than 80 people dead and thousands injured, according to human rights organizations.
Meanwhile, support for Colombia’s opposition grew ahead of the 2022 elections.
Duque’s main opponent as former M-19 guerrilla Senator Gustavo Petro’s promised to do away with the status quo, and restore democracy and peace.
The opposition politician won the elections with relative ease and has begun the preparations needed to assume power and implement policies to secure a non-violent democracy as urged by the Truth Commission.