Colombia has been experiencing an intense intrastate conflict for over half a century, and this conflict shows few signs of abating. While it originated as a conflict over ideological control of the nation, today this war is waged between the forces of the state, several major leftist guerrilla groups and a collection of right-wing paramilitary forces, all under laid by the powerful influence and funding of the groups who control Colombia’s cocaine industry. Were it not for the tremendous influence of the cocaine industry – both in terms of funding and the perpetuation of violence – the conflict in Colombia would be, if not resolved all together, then at least far less brutal, pervasive and intractable than it is today. While cocaine was not the cause of the conflict, it is responsible for the war’s perpetuation. In order to fully understand the role of cocaine in this conflict it is necessary to understand both some important aspects about the history of this conflict, as well as about Colombia’s cocaine industry in order to see how the two have converged. To this end, I will begin my discussion with a brief examination of the vital background factors of this conflict. I will then turn my focus to the major groups in this conflict – the guerrillas, the paramilitaries, and the drug cartels– in order to show both the role they play and their links to the cocaine trade -- either direct cooperation, as is the case with the paramilitary groups, or through export and transportation taxation by the guerrillas. I will also explore the role of the Colombian state, with attention to its strategies for dealing with this conflict and the impacts of those decisions. Lastly, I will turn to discussion of attempts at intervention in this conflict by foreign parties, most notably the United States, to show how even their approaches to this conflict have focused on cocaine rather than on what has and continues to be a long and bloody conflict that displaces and terrorizes thousands of Colombians each year.
While this conflict traces its origins from many sources, including Colombia’s colonial legacy, there is a general consensus among scholars in this field that the current conflict began in 1948, when the bloody and violent period referred to as la violencia began with the assassination of a Liberal populist, Jorge Gaitan, in April of that year (Manwaring, 2002, p. 69). During la violencia, the Colombian government “could not control the violence that spread though the countryside. Rural violence became the norm as an estimated 20,000 armed Liberal and Conservative combatants settled old political scores. Over the period from 1948 to 1966, la violencia claimed the lives of over 200,000 Colombians” (ibid, p. 69). This violence culminated in one of Colombia’s few periods of military rule (McLean, 2002, p. 124). During the chaos and instability that followed the end of la violencia, Colombia’s narcotics industry began to flourish.
The first drug product produced in Colombia was marijuana, and from 1976 to 1979 Colombia led the world in marijuana production (Vargas, 2002, p. 11). Towards the end of the 1980s, cannabis production shifted to Mexico and according to Vargas, “Colombia’s illegal drug economy began to focus on the processing and exporting of cocaine” (2002, p. 11). By 1990 Colombia was the world’s largest cocaine producer (ibid, p. 10). This explosion in cocaine production, however, was by no means an accident, but rather occurred due to a combination of several structural conditions, all set against a backdrop of internal conflict. These structural conditions include “Colombia’s geographical position, favorable terrain, strong entrepreneurial skills of the Colombian people, and a community of fellow nationals in the United States willing to provide access to markets and to function as a distribution network for Colombian cocaine” (MacDonald, 1989, p. 19). This unique set of circumstances has allowed the cocaine industry to expand rapidly, and in 1998 an estimated 101,800 hectares of land were in use for cocaine production (Vargas, 2002, p. 32). While it is extremely difficult to pin down exactly how much cocaine is produced in Colombia in any given year, drug revenues account for an estimated 36 percent of the nation’s gross national product (Macdonald, 1989, p. 52 see also Vargas, 2002, p. 41), and about 80 percent of cocaine in the United States and Europe is thought to have originated in Colombia (Sweig, 2002, p.2). Due to the incredible size of the cocaine industry and the huge profits it brings to the drug lords who control it, it is no surprise that it is a source of considerable power. “Cocaine… has become a form of power – those who possess it can gain considerable political and economic influence capable of buying and challenging – even overthrowing – governments” (MacDonald, 1989, p. 1). It is this challenge to the state’s power which today the Colombian government has to contend with, and the results have been disastrous for both the institutions of the state and its people.
Colombia today faces a huge set of social and humanitarian crises, including the highest violent death rate in the world – 73.3 per 1,000 people, compared with the United States at 8.2 (McLean, 2002, p. 129)– and huge flows of displaced people, which currently are at one of the highest levels ever seen in the nation’s history. “In 2002, forced internal displacement… reached an all time high: approximately 320,000 persons were obliged to leave their homes and seek shelter in other parts of the country from the escalating armed conflict” (Latin American Report {LAR}, 2003, p. 1). It is statistics like these that have led some critics to argue that “the whole idea of Colombia as a functioning state… is a fiction” (Sweig, 2002, p. 3). Indeed the challenges posed by the ongoing conflict and uncontrollable cocaine industry do pose a grave threat to the Colombian state. “The problem in Colombia is that the country, and its potential, is deteriorating because of three ongoing simultaneous and interrelated wars involving the illegal drug industry, various insurgent organizations… and ‘vigilante’ paramilitary groups” (Manwaring, 2002, p. 69). It is to these groups then, who pose so grave a threat to the Colombian nation, that we must now turn our attention.
There are several major socialist or leftist guerrilla groups fighting in Colombia today, most notable the FARC and the ELN. In recent years, these guerrilla groups have become increasingly powerful. In Colombia today, Marin says that “the guerillas control large expanses of territory… and have built up formidable military capabilities” (2002, p. 1). Some estimates peg the military capacity of the guerrilla groups at as high as 21,000 to 23,000 (Sweig, 2002, p. 2) and yet, as scholars within the Crisis web organization recognize, many of the guerrilla leaders “have become ‘military entrepreneurs’ who feel little need to cooperate and communicate with Colombian society… They have lost most of their former popular support.” (Crisisweb, 2003, p. 1). How then have the guerrilla groups managed to expand both their size and power despite waning popular support? The answer, I believe, must lie in their linkages to the drug industry. In order to show both how the guerrillas became and continue to be involved in the narcotics trade, as well as the impact this has had on them, I will turn to a more detailed discussion of the FARC, who are both the largest group and one thought to be typical of Colombian guerrillas.
As this conflict was once primarily oriented around competing political ideologies, it follows that this would also be the case for the different parties still involved in the conflict today. FARC was initially a socialist group, but today the ideological aspects of this group, if even still present, are heavily downplayed. “The FARC’s first substantial change has been their abandonment of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy” (Oritz, 2002, p. 130). The main target of the FARC, however, remains the Colombian state. As a guerrilla group, the goal of the FARC is to actually replace the existing government, and so despite their shift away from clear cut socialist beliefs they do still present themselves as a socialist alternative. “The FARC have… heightened their critique of the government’s incompetence in dealing with the country’s biggest problems (social inequality, crime, and deficient public services), while presenting themselves more and more as a credible alternative for ‘good government’” (Oritz, 2002, p. 130). Because their aim is the eventual overthrow of the state, it is no surprise that both the representatives and mechanisms of the state are the FARC’s main targets.
The FARC tends to attack representatives of the state itself – mayors, senators, presidential candidates, cops, soldiers, police stations, municipal buildings, electrical grids, dams, oil pipelines, and more recently, commercial buildings and patrons of upscale restaurants in Bogotá. This strategy is part of the FARC’s total war strategy, meant to cripple the state (Sweig, 2002, p. 3).
What is most remarkable about the FARC’s tactics, however, is not their choice of targets, which seem to be by and large in line with the group’s goals, but rather the impact that they manage to have. Oritz argues that the “FARC’s most distinctive feature has been their ability to develop this war machinery independently, without needing substantial sponsorship from foreign states” (2002, p. 137). FARC does not rely on foreign funding because they have found an even greater source of income at home: cocaine.
While FARC itself is not a producer or distributor of cocaine, they have been linked to the narcotics trade for a number of years, profiting from allowing and occasionally overseeing drug production in the territory they control.
The origin of their funding is in the FARC’s links with the drug trade. In general terms, the insurgents have not taken part in the sale of narcotics; that is, in the transfer of the drugs to their final markets in Europe and the United States. This stage of the drug business is still in the hands of specialized criminal groups. Rather, the rebels have taken on the role of a parallel state authority in areas where narcotics are produced… The FARC receives taxes in the form of a percentage of the value of the drugs produced and exported (Oritz, 2002, p. 137).
In addition to profiting from the cocaine trade through land control and illicit ‘taxes,’ the FARC also has served as essentially a ‘for hire’ armed security service for the drug cartels. As government anti-drug raids intensified, the cartels soon needed greater protection, both for themselves and for their operations, and for this they frequently turned to the FARC. “What brought the drug war and the guerrilla organizations together was an escalation of the government’s anti-narcotics operations, which culminated in the March 1984 raid on what was then the world’s largest known cocaine production centre” (MacDonald, 1989, p. 37). This production centre, know as Tranquilandia was staffed by some 60 personnel, who were guarded by over 100 FARC soldiers (ibid, p. 37). Between these various methods of profiting from cooperation with drug traffickers, income from cocaine-related sources now accounts for a substantial proportion of the FARC’s income. “FARC’s total revenue in 1998 had reached $285 million. Of this, $136 million derived directly from the payment of services by drug dealers” (Oritz, 2002, p. 137). This source of considerable funding has allowed the FARC expand rapidly, and they have become a substantial force to be reckoned with.
Since the early 1980s when they first began establishing links to the narcotics trade, the size and power of the FARC’s forces has increased dramatically.
In 1982, a decision was taken by the… FARC to develop links with the Colombian drug industry… As a result, FARC expanded from approximately 2,000 guerrilla fighters in 1982 to over 70 fronts with approximately 18,000 to 20,000 fighters in 2001. This illicit funding has provided the FARC with the capability of confronting regular Colombian military units up to battalion-size, and of overrunning police and military installations (Manwaring, 2002, p. 71).
In addition to providing the financial means for the acquisition and upkeep of more troops, FARC’s criminal connections also tied them into a greater international crime ring which allowed them access to black market equipment for their expanding forces.
The links of the guerrillas with the drug mafias have played a key role because they furnish the insurgents with not only the financial resources necessary to purchase combat equipment but also the contacts in the international black market for arms that usually runs parallel to the drug market. As a result, the FARC have habitually carried out drugs-for-guns swaps (Oritz, 2002, p. 138)
FARC then, is a very large and well armed insurgent force whose strength could easily pose a substantial threat to the Colombian state, and it is equally clear that much of this strength stems directly from their ties to Colombia’s cocaine industry. The intense violence in Colombia, however, is not due only to the ongoing war between the FARC and the government forces. Also involved in this conflict are a number of right wing so-called ‘self-defense’ paramilitary groups, and it is to them that we shall now direct our attention.
The paramilitary groups grew up largely in reaction to the increasing need for private security forces in the rural areas that were overrun by violence between the guerrillas, drug cartels, and state forces. “These ‘vigilante’ groups began as self-defense organizations for the protection of family, property, and the law and order of a given geographical area” (Manwaring, 2002, p. 72). Despite their origins, the paramilitary groups are not, however, a benign presence, and their actions are as seeped in blood and violence as are those of any of the other parties involved. “Paramilitaries are responsible for the majority of human rights violations in Colombia. Last year alone… the paramilitaries were linked to the deaths of 3 journalists and 11 human rights monitors. In addition, the AUC {paramilitary group} was responsible for the majority of the 201 assassinations of trade unionists last year” (Sweig, 2002, p. 3). The paramilitaries are fundamentally not, then, a private security force, but rather a right wing vigilante group whose ideological agenda propels them into combat with both the leftist guerrillas and the state.
Because of their growing popularity and power, Sweig refers to the paramilitary groups as “right-wing, drug financed, extreme nationalists” (2002, p. 3) and goes on to argue that it is “the paramilitaries, who aim to take over key territories and sectors of the police, military, and Congress, that pose the greatest threat” (2002, p. 3). These groups are also substantially funded by drug money, and so too their growing power has become a mounting threat, with swelling numbers and influence. “Paramilitary groups have grown – now estimated to include some 15,000 ‘soldiers,’ a number rivaling the FARC – to fill the vacuum left by the absence of government. Following the guerrillas’ example, they also began making money from criminal enterprises” (McLean, 2002, p. 132). It is highly doubtful that the power of the paramilitaries would be anywhere near its current level were it not for the fact that they, like the guerrillas, earn a substantial income from providing services to the drug lords. “Like the insurgents, the paramilitaries profit from drug trafficking” (Manwaring, 2002, p. 72). Both of Colombia’s main groups of rebel combatants are funded largely by the nation’s drug cartels, so it is clear then that they may well be the greatest threat of all. Were it not for their need for huge amounts of armed protection, as well as use of insurgent controlled territories for drug production and transportation, none of Colombia’s insurgents would have anything close to their current levels of power. It is to these drug cartels, the major force funding this war, to which we will now turn our attention.
Several decades since their inception as marijuana producers, Colombia’s drug cartels have become big business and have developed a powerful and effective structure that enables them to continue their illegal activities unhindered by government attempts at intervention.
The illegal drug industry in Colombia can be described as a consortium that functions in much the same way as virtually any multinational Fortune 500 company. Products are made, sold and shipped, bankers and financial planners handle the monetary issues, and lawyers deal with the legal problems (Manwaring, 2002, p. 70).
One of the major advantages of this highly structured and efficient organizational hierarchy for the cocaine cartels is that it allows them a maneuverability that it is virtually impossible for the inherently slow, bureaucratic state forces to match. Manwaring describes the cartels as having at their disposal “a very efficient organizational structure, the latest in high-tech communications equipment, and state of the art weaponry” (2002, p. 70). He goes on to argue that these advantages mean that within the cartels “decisions are made quickly that can ignore or supercede laws, regulations, decisions, and actions of the government” (2002, p. 70). Their substantial wealth enables the drug lords to ensure that they stay one step ahead of state forces, and also funds their own violent war against the state.
The very existence of the drug cartels sets them at direct odds with the state, and their conflicts have been numerous and bloody. The goal of the trafficking organizations is essentially to weaken the state, their main opposition. “The terrorist objective of the traffickers is to wage war against the various government agencies and civil groups combating them” (Vargas, 2002, p. 11). One of the groups hardest hit by the battles waged between the government forces and drug cartels have been members of Colombia’s judiciary, who are frequently the drug lords’ targets. “The traffickers have put judges in a dilemma – ‘silver or lead’: they must take a bribe or be shot dead. As a result, state justice has collapsed in many cases” (MacGregor, 1993, p. 46). While the impact of the constant violence against judges on Colombian society has been severe, they have not by any means been the sole targets. McLean describes the intense violence and terror wreaked by the cartels during the 1990 elections saying that
As the 1990 presidential campaign got underway, Escobar {a powerful drug lord} went on a rampage with the clear intent to bend the political process to his will. His minions not only killed Galan {the forerunner} but three other presidential candidates as well and brought down a fully loaded 727 airliner… an attempt to kill one of the last credible presidential contenders… After the presidential election, with the country preparing for the election of a constituent assembly, he set out to kidnap a selection of wives and children of the country’s most elite families… Escobar wanted to influence the assembly’s drafting of a new constitution to forever bar extradition of Colombia citizens and arrange special plea-bargaining rights for criminals such as himself. (2002, p. 128).
The major cocaine organizations use terror and intimidation tactics to impose their own political agenda on the nation, and have been so successful that they have even, to a certain extent, been able to buy their own immunity. “Via the military and police personnel of all ranks involved in the business, the mafias are able to use and maintain laboratories and transport drugs throughout the country and abroad, but they also enjoy immunity for their crimes, by receiving advance warnings of police operations” (MacGregor, 1993, p. 84). The success of the cartels in infiltrating and corrupting the government and political processes is indicative of what may well be the greatest hazard to Colombia today: the involvement of their own government, either through complicity or direct support, in the narcotics trade. It is to the role of the government in this conflict that we shall now turn our focus.
The Colombian state has all the trappings of a functioning democracy: regular and free elections, a multitude of parties and candidates, a congress and an independent judiciary. Yet despite possessing all the structural signs of a healthy representative democracy, Colombia’s democracy is often tenuous at best. Sweig says that “Elections are held on a regular basis, but leaders, candidates, and elected politicians are regularly assassinated” (2002, p. 77). This problem is so widespread the between 1989 and 1999, 138 mayors and 569 members of parliament, deputies, and city council members were murdered (ibid, 2002, p. 77). Overall, Colombia is certainly a nation in jeopardy, and due to constant internal conflict the government is becoming progressively less able to meet its citizens’ basic needs. “The government is more limited each day in its ability to meet basic needs for housing, utilities, transportation, health, education and security. Urban slums where young people have no hope for the future have become a fertile recruitment grounds for violent movements of all types” (Marin, 2002, p. 1). In this way, then, the conflict becomes self-perpetuating. Paramilitary and guerrilla groups provide a parallel state structure in the nearly 60 percent of rural municipalities where state institutions are absent, either partially or all together (Manwaring, 2002, p. 77), and in this way fulfill some of the needs no longer being met by the state. State institutions and services are currently at risk because the vast majority of the government’s attention is focused on drug eradication.
Cocaine does seem one way or another to be behind all of Colombia’s greatest problems, fueling a constant war against the state, so it does seem prudent for the state to regard narcotics eradication as a vital policy area. However, many scholars express concern that the government’s approach may be too narrow and that their ‘war on drugs’ approach fundamentally further embeds the notion of violent conflict as an acceptable norm. Vargas argues that “Instead of the Colombian state giving priority to defending the principles that are fundamental to the democratic existence of its society, it is trying to establish a normative pattern that justifies and defends forced eradication. Aerial spraying {of narcotics crops} is said to belong to the realm of national security” (2002, p. 24). In addition to their excessively eradication-oriented approach, the Colombian state also, according to Vargas, over uses military-style tactics in drug eradication. “The line between counter insurgency and anti drug policy has become blurred. The current policy has evolved from actions meant to curtail drug demand into national security considerations, reinforcing military involvement” (2002, p. 12). In other words, the government of Colombia views its anti-drug policies as a military campaign, much like its counter insurgency policy. Yet despite the risk of perpetuating violence, the government today still has a hard line eradication policy at the core of its drug policy. “Anti-drug authorities remain determined to fumigate coca zones completely and also advocate even more drastic measures such as joint actions by the police and military” (ibid, 2002, p. 19). A large part of the reason that these approaches have become so controversial is due to the negative impacts of these government actions on the people of Colombia.
Forced eradication of illicit crops through aerial spraying results in huge quantities of chemical pesticides being poured into the Colombian land, and it also endangers some of the country’s most ecologically sensitive areas as well as posing a threat to local indigenous groups (Vargas, 2002, p. 22). When coca fields are sprayed, the growers simply relocate, and this has meant that sensitive regions of Colombia’s Amazon basin become new areas for narcotics cultivation (MacDonald, 1989, p. 20). The militaristic tactics used for eradication also present a threat in and of themselves. Vargas warns that “illicit crop fumigation makes the state lose legitimacy” (2002, p. 22). In other words, by engaging in violent tactics similar to those used by the various sets of insurgent groups, the state faces the risk of appearing itself to be no better than those it fights. “The war tactics surrounding aerial spraying… violate the basic rights of communities. This has repercussions for the political and military goals of the insurgency and helps foster a certain legitimacy among those who have taken up arms along a great part of the national territory” (ibid, 2002, p. 25). Clearly then, the Colombian authorities’ approach to the cocaine problem is itself not unproblematic, but policies such as these may conceal an even greater crisis that some argue is eroding the state itself – government corruption and complicity towards the drug cartels.
As we have seen, Colombia’s drug cartels have frequently tried – and been successful – in bribing and corrupting government officials. Many Colombians argue that there is little they can do to solve the cocaine problem so long as demand in the United States remains so high (McLean, 2002, p. 126). While there is certainly an element of truth in their claim, this attitude can also be seen as promoting denial and even accommodation.
Although American addicts have certainly provided an endless supply of revenue to the drug lords, the fact that 40,000 illegal armed combatants have flourished also necessarily implies a degree of complicity, direct and indirect, by Colombians themselves. The judiciary is so weak and corrupt, for example, that upward of 95 percent of crimes are never prosecuted (Sweig, 2002, p. 6)
Examples of this type of corruption, once you begin to search them out, seem to be everywhere. Manwaring points out that it is no longer even against the law for politicians to openly take money from drug lords, saying that “the Senate decriminalized the issue of ‘illicit enrichment’ by making it a misdemeanor that could be prosecuted only after the commission of a felony” (2002, p. 78). On the one hand, policies like these do clearly seem to foster corruption, but on the other hand, since so many state authorities and representatives already face the ‘silver or lead’ dilemma – risking their lives if they refuse to accept bribes – it can also be viewed as a humane decision and an unwillingness to legislate people to their own deaths. One way or another, however, Colombian politics are riddled with ‘bought men,’ those on the payroll of the narcotics traffickers. Ernesto Samper is one such example, a man who openly accepted drug money into his election campaign even though he had already come under heavy suspicion for his connections to the drug cartels. After winning the election Samper had his U.S. visa revoked since, according to MacLean, “Washington was convinced that he was allowing the drug trade to flourish” (2002, p. 129). Corruption and complicity, paired with militant eradication policies on the part of the Colombian authorities, have meant that the nation seems overall to lack the political will needed to solve its crisis. The state’s role in this conflict, in both cases is centred on cocaine. The state structure as a whole, however, finds itself caught between corrupt officials willing to turn a blind eye to the drug trade, and the United States – the only foreign nation to really make any attempt at intervention in this conflict – who focuses solely on Colombia’s cocaine problem, pushing for a more forceful anti-narcotics war.
In terms of foreign intervention in the Colombian conflict, the United States has become involved due largely to the fact that cocaine is also their problem (Sweig, 2002, pp. 8-9) and, as discussed previously, 80 percent of cocaine in the U.S. comes from Colombia. Important to note, however, is the extent to which U.S. involvement has ignored many of the problems in Colombia and focused instead solely on cocaine. “The United States tends to ignore the insurgent and paramilitary problems in Colombia… The United States has focused its money, training and attention almost entirely on the counter-drug campaign” (Manwaring, 2002, p. 75). This single-mindedness towards the conflict in Colombia on the part of the U.S. has persevered even in the face of what is generally thought to be outright failure. Sweig points out that “Since U.S. Congress first appointed $1.3 billion for Plan Colombia in 2000, coca cultivation in Colombia has actually increased” (2002, p. 2). She goes on to argue that
If the United States actually wanted to reduce the massive quantities of drugs coming from Colombia… a combination of demand reduction and decriminalization at home with sustainable, alternative development in Colombia would be a far safer and more effective way to spend U.S. tax dollars (2002, p. 5)
The United States then, like all of the other parties involved in this conflict, have their methods and strategies centred around cocaine, which it seems clear is what must lie at the very core of this conflict today.
The current conflict in Colombia has its roots in the ideologically-based violencia that embroiled the country in turmoil and warfare for sixteen years, beginning in 1948. Since then, however, the nature of the conflict has changed considerably, propelled forward with increasing ferocity and momentum by cocaine and the millions of dollars it brings into the country each year. Both the leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries now profit from connections to drug cartels, and their forces and armament levels have increased dramatically as a result. The drug cartels themselves continue to pose a destabilizing threat to the government through constant bribery, kidnapping and assassinations, and the state authorities themselves are heavily impacted by the cocaine trade, both in terms of their adoption of militaristic anti-drug policies and actual corruption and complicity towards the drug cartels. The United States has been the major foreign party involved in this conflict, and their involvement is also centred on narcotics. Despite the fact that this conflict started long before large-scale narcotics operations appeared in Colombia, the ongoing war today has been perpetuated by cocaine, and until the issue of cocaine is addressed in sustainable ways that offer real alternatives for the Colombian people, the nation will continue to be embroiled in violent, pervasive and intractable warfare.
submitted to Dr. Brian Job, University of British Colombia, Department of Political Science, Poli 360
References:
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Latin America Report. Colombia’s Humanitarian Crisis. Latin American Report. 4. Accessed February 27th, 2004 at http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=1536+l=1.
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