The Colombian crisis in historical perspective.

Abstract. This article explores the nineteenth- and twentieth-century roots of the present violence in Colombia and the main actors involved therein. Focusing on the civilian government, the Colombian military, the FARC and ELN guerrillas, and the paramilitaries, it emphasizes the chronic weakness of the state, the privatization and regionalization of conflict, the impact of the cocaine export economy, and the difficulties of coming to a peace agreement. This article also explains connections and differences between the Colombian violence of the 1950s and the current conflict, and it provides a guide to the literature authored by Colombian social scientists on the subject.

Resume. Cet article explore les racines historiques de la violence actuelle en Colombie, qui datent du XIXe et du XXe siecles, et analyse le role de ses principaux acteurs. En se penchant sur le gouvernement civil, les forces armees colombiennes, les guerillas des FARC et de l'ELN ainsi que sur les paramilitaires, ce travail souligne les faiblesses chroniques de l'Etat, la privatisation et la regionalisation du conflit, l'impact de l'economie d'exportation de cocaine et les difficultes qui ont entrave le chemin vers un accord de paix. Cet article explique aussi les liens et les differences entre la violence des annees cinquante et celle du conflit actuel et fournit un guide de la litterature produite par des chercheurs colombiens sur le sujet.

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Colombia today is in major crisis. Large areas of the countryside are controlled by guerrilla groups (there are 20,000 guerrillas in arms) and paramilitary forces (the paramilitaries claim 10,000 members). The government has no legitimate monopoly of force and is extremely weak; it does not and cannot effectively protect its citizens. Most crimes never come to trial, judges receive death threats, and the army itself is accused of human rights violations. Since 1985 there have been 25,000 violent deaths per year, a total of 300,000 murders over the past decade and a half, 18% of which are attributable to the political violence. Homicide is the leading cause of death for men between the ages of 18 and 45, and the second leading cause for women. From 2000 through 2002, more than 5,000 people died in 900 massacres and another 3,500 a year were kidnapped for ransom. Trade unionists, teachers, human rights workers, politicians, church people, journalists, and peasant and indigenous leaders are threatened, and assassinations and disappearances are daily occurrences. In the past decade, 2.5 million people, mostly the rural poor, fled their homes and many remain refugees inside the country, while another 1.1 million Colombians, educated members of the upper and middle classes, have departed since 1996 for the United States, Europe, and other Latin American countries (mainly Ecuador and Costa Rica). Meanwhile, since 1999, the economy has gone into deep recession, the worst Colombia has experienced since the 1930s. (1)

North Americans tend to associate violence in Colombia with the drug trade. Indeed, Colombia is the world's major supplier of cocaine and an increasingly important supplier of heroin. In May 2000, Colombia suddenly leapt into the news in North America because the US Congress, at President Bill Clinton's urging, voted to send $1.3 billion mainly in military aid to Colombia to fight the drug war. The Colombian government was already the largest recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere and the third largest in the world, after Israel and Egypt. About 75% of the additional $1.3 billion allotted to what is known as "Plan Colombia" has gone to train a new Colombian anti-drug army battalion and purchase military hardware, including Black Hawk and Huey helicopters.

The stated aim of this controversial escalation in US involvement in Colombia is to significantly reduce cocaine consumption in the United States (which is viewed as a problem of national security) by eradicating production of the coca plant in the southern jungles of Colombia. According to the United States, the Colombian government is fighting a life-and-death struggle against drug lords in cahoots with left-wing guerrillas who, since 11 September 2001, tend to be labelled "terrorists" both inside and outside the country (Tate 2000; Roldan 2001; Estrada Alvarez 2001; IEPRI 2001).

In 2001 US President George W. Bush increased security assistance to the Colombian army and police through the Andean Regional Initiative to support counter-drug activities in the Andean countries of South America. Then in March 2002 the Bush administration began crossing the invisible line between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency to target Colombian armed groups without regard to drug activity. Concretely, the US government sought congressional funding to protect economic infrastructure--the Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline--against guerrilla attacks (Isacson 2003). (2) In May 2003, in the wake of Colombian support for the war in Iraq, the Colombian president asked Washington to extend the program of aerial interception of drug shipments to guerrilla arms shipments and to provide Colombia with intelligence equipment no longer needed in Iraq to combat the drug traffickers and the guerrillas (El Tiempo 1-4 May 2003).