Catatumbo Region Research Articles

Communities as a Subject of Social Fabric Construction in the Colombian Catatumbo Region

The community actions developed by the inhabitants of marginalised communities by Idler and McGill have contributed to the construction of a social base for peace, favouring cohesion and the reproduction of social life in the resistance to years of armed conflict, state abandonment and other social phenomena. The Catatumbo region in Colombia has been the focus of several analyses regarding the visibility of public and private organisations that have come to the territory to provide perishable assistance, which do not constitute a holistic social project involving all aspects of the conflict and its impact on the community. This prevents the recognition of the figure of collective social subject that contributes to the construction of a social basis for peace. In this sense, this article is intended to address the contribution of the communities as collective subject to the construction of the social fabric, recognising the different initiatives that have been developed by the subjects who inhabit the region from their historical‐political role.

The Motilon border: interethnic relationships and conflicts in the current Catatumbo region (Colombia) during the second half of the eighteenth century

Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, el régimen borbónico buscó avanzar sobre aquellos territorios que permanecían por fuera del control colonial. La región del Catatumbo (en la actual Colombia), habitada por los llamados indígenas motilones, constituía una de esas fronteras que separaban los territorios controlados por la colonización de aquellos que resistían a su influjo. Con base en esta hipótesis, la pregunta central del texto apunta a identificar esta región como uno de aquellos espacios de frontera en los que constantes conflictos y negociaciones definían las relaciones interétnicas, donde los pobladores resultaron actores políticos relevantes en la definición de las relaciones de poder, que no permitieron la consolidación de una posición hegemónica, a pesar del interés de la Corona española. Por tanto, se examinarán y contrastarán fuentes relacionadas con el desarrollo comercial y con el avance misional dados en aquella región durante la época referenciada. Asimismo, se buscará analizar otras fuentes que permitan identificar la variedad de dispositivos de control que concurrieron como parte del interés colonizador, y se concluirá que, más allá del establecimiento de misiones religiosas en esa zona de frontera y del desarrollo comercial, los indígenas sostuvieron su resistencia al asedio colonial.

Inclusive education in the Catatumbo region, Universidad Francisco De Paula Santander Ocaña a challenge for access to higher education

La región del Catatumbo es una de las zonas más conflictivas de Colombia, caracterizada por presencia de múltiples dificultades, como el bajo acceso a la educación superior por parte de jóvenes en edad escolar. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los resultados de la propuesta de educación inclusiva desarrollada por la Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander frente al acceso de educación superior en jóvenes en la región del Catatumbo. La recolección de información y su análisis parte de método de tipo cuantitativo descriptivo no experimental; las fases se dividieron en tres partes: un diagnostico que consistió en un rastreo de información sobre acceso a educación superior en la región del Catatumbo para el primer semestre de 2019; como segunda parte se realizó el diseño y formalización de la propuesta de educación inclusiva para jóvenes de la región del Catatumbo; finalmente se evalúo el impacto de esta propuesta durante el primer semestre de 2021. Como resultados se pudo determinar que de los estudiantes graduados de educación media en el 2018 en la región del Catatumbo entraron a la Universidad Francisco de Paul Santander de Ocaña el 6,4% el primer semestre de 2019. La puesta en marcha del proyecto de educación inclusiva se evidenció en la creación de la resolución 0479 del 13 de agosto de 2019; identificando tras su implementación un incremento de 65% de estudiantes de la región del Catatumbo en la Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander Ocaña, pasando de 36 admitidos para el primer semestre de 2019 a 55 para el primer semestre de 2021. Como principal conclusión se determina que existe un impacto positivo y significativo de la propuesta de educación inclusiva en el acceso a la educación superior en la región del Catatumbo.

Justicia alternativa y construcción del Estado desde lo local en el contexto rural colombiano

Con esta investigación, se propone exponer y analizar algunas prácticas de justicia alternativa y de resolución de conflictos desarrolladas por comunidades campesinas en la región del Catatumbo(Norte de Santander, Colombia), en un contexto donde la presencia del conflicto armado y la implementación del acuerdo de paz permiten debatir sobre la legitimidad y legalidad de dichas prácticas alternativas de justicia y convivencia ciudadana. En esta investigación se plantea como hipótesisque el fortalecimiento de las prácticas de justicia alternativa, especialmente las desarrolladas por las comunidades campesinas, contribuyen a la construcción del Estado desde lo local.A través del análisis de la normatividad vigente, las vertientes teóricas y la descripción fenomenológica de las prácticas comunitarias, se exponen los dilemas a los que se enfrentan las comprensiones sobre la justicia, los métodos de resolución de conflictos y las prácticas de construcción de paz en un contexto donde aún no se ha superado el conflicto armado.

Testimonios de guerra y paz. Una mirada desde las escuelas de la región del Catatumbo

En Colombia el conflicto armado latente se ha caracterizado por las distintas formas de violencia, con particularidades propias de tiempo, contextos, actores y dinámicas que lo hacen aún más complejo y con una característica prominente, respecto a la vulneración de la dignidad y los derechos humanos especialmente contra la población civil. La Región del Catatumbo y sus habitantes han sufrido de cerca los efectos que ha dejado más de cinco décadas de violencia y que se espera que tras la firma del tratado de paz con el grupo guerrillero que tenía mayor influencia en la región, la situación hubiese cambiado para mejorar. Esta investigación recolecta las opiniones de un grupo de estudiantes pertenecientes a la Sede Filo de Palo, y docentes que laboran en la comunidad. Se desarrolla una investigación mixta en la que se utilizan la encuesta y la entrevista como instrumentos de recolección de datos. Los resultados permiten evidenciar en opinión de los informantes las afectaciones han sido muchas tanto a nivel individual como en la comunidad. En ellos se observa cierto pesimismo hacía un mejor futuro y se concluye que el proceso educativo es uno de los sectores que demanda mayor apoyo por parte de los entes territoriales para así ofrecer nuevas y mejores oportunidades de las que hoy día experimentan la comunidad académica.

Pedagogical practices of physics teachers from the Catatumbo region, Colombia

Pedagogical practice allows teachers to focus their attention on three types of knowledge: disciplinary knowledge: what do I know, pedagogical knowledge: how do I communicate what I know, and academic knowledge: how do I transform myself with what I know? Thus, the teacher has the capacity to transform not only his or her students, but to transform himself or herself in the process. In this sense, the research aims to characterize the pedagogical practice of physics teachers in educational institutions located in the “Catatumbo, Colombia”, a region characterized by high levels of violence and very specific social situations; it also aims to determine the influence of training at the master’s level of the Francisco de Paula Santander University on teachers working in the area of physics. The research, framed in the mixed paradigm, allows the realization of univariate and multivariate analysis of variables inherent to the process of training and professional action of master teachers, as well as the categorization of their experiences resulting from the application of knowledge obtained throughout their studies in their professional practice and training in different areas of knowledge, emphasizing the practices, laboratories and teaching strategies used in the training of students by physics teachers.

Development Programs with a Territorial-based Approach in Colombia: An Agonistic multi-level Political Reconciliation Analysis

This article analyses the Development Programs with a Territorial-based Approach in Colombia, established in Item One of the 2016 Final Agreement to End Conflict and Build Peace, from the notion of political reconciliation. It argues that, in the current complex post-agreement setting, the program can be positioned as a space for political reconciliation as long as an agonistic multi-level approach is adopted. Only through the simultaneous and comprehensive implementation of institutional, constitutional, and relational peacebuilding efforts, the recognition of both the conflictual relations among all actors and the relevance of public contestation would be possible, so as to advance in the participatory territorial planning for peace and its successful completion. The dynamics in the Catatumbo region, one of the focalized zones for the program, demonstrate the need for applying an alternative and critical perspective of political reconciliation in order to move towards a sustainable and long-lasting peace in Colombia based on the interconnection between peace, reconciliation, and development.

Advance in the computational tools that support the cooperative sector in Colombia

The technological evolution in the 21st century allows organizations to define flexible and integral processes and information systems that guarantee their competitiveness and sustainability. The dynamics of the cooperative sector seeks to use, merge and implement new technological components, aimed mainly at strengthening its business model. The descriptive quantitative research achieves an approach with seven cooperatives (savings and credit) of the Catatumbo Region, Colombia, through the survey technique in order to determine the adaptation of cooperatives in the global panorama of information and communication technologies. In conclusion, the managers of savings and credit cooperatives require technologies to support administrative and strategic operations, as well as contribute to the design and implementation of software to ensure quality, security and effectiveness of institutional information and services to all their stakeholders, prioritizing in contributing to closing the digital divide and social inequality.

La organización social en el Catatumbo: formas de lucha desde la base

Diagnosticar los conflictos es una estrategia del Enfoque de Transformación de Conflictos para construir la paz. Al aplicarse a las formas organizativas de la Junta de Acción Comunal en el Catatumbo se desenmascaran algunos de los problemas estructurales en la disputa por el territorio. El campesinado catatumbero es un actor clave en la lucha de defensa por la vida en Colombia, y es labor del trabajador social unirse y comprender las dinámicas comunitarias para afinar la perspectiva crítica de la realidad y quebrantar la burbuja académica que separa la universidad de la comunidad y la cotidianidad en el campo colombiano.

Biodigestion: Alternative use of vegetable matter for obtaining biofuel in the province of Ocaña, Colombia

The Catatumbo region offers a great variety of agricultural products on demand in the urban centers of the department of North Santander. Since in this locality there is no management or use for vegetable material wastes this study focused on the public market, represented by a wholesale and retail trade in agricultural products, the most representative being tomatoes and onions. This research prospects the potential for biodigesters as an alternative, based on anaerobic digestion for the production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic biomass from vegetable species of the Catatumbo region. An assessment of possible raw materials that exist within the region was carried out, determining operating conditions and estimative production of bioethanol.

El Catatumbo: estrategia militar por encima de desarrollo rural. Estudio de caso: Víctor Ramón Navarro Serrano, alias Megateo

La región del Catatumbo está ligada a la historia del conflicto militar y el cultivo de coca en Colombia. El artículo de reflexión realiza un estudio de caso sobre la influencia socio-económica de Víctor Ramón Navarro Serrano, alias Megateo, mando del Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) en la región. Su persecución y muerte estuvieron atadas a una estrategia militarista, acorde con la presencia de tipo diferencial del Estado; esto demuestra que elenfoque bélico presenta mayor relevancia que el desarrollo rural territorial. Las acciones de los gobiernos se han centrado en un mayor despliegue de la fuerza pública y han desconocido las realidades complejas y las necesidades básicas de la población. Las dinámicas del Catatumbo han sido una barrera para desarrollar políticas de desarrollo rural territorial, debido a que estas requieren presencia de las instituciones estatales que apoyen las iniciativas de los actores sociales locales. Se puede observar que la militarización de la región ha tenido como consecuencia la estigmatización de actores y organizaciones sociales, así como rupturas entreestos y el Estado, lo que impide la generación de alternativas reales para la sustitución del cultivo de la coca.

The Catatumbo geographical information system

The objective of this study was to develop a Geographic Information System (GIS) for 16 municipalities in the Catatumbo region, Ocaña province and in southern Cesar, located in Colombia, South America. For this, a joint investigation was carried out between three entities: the UFPSO, IGAC, and Asomunicipios, which permitted the collection and structuring of the information to be uploaded onto the GIS, following tool design. As a result, the implementation of said tool was performed via installation on university servers and is in a state of continuous operation, as municipal officials are regularly trained in the management thereof. Thus, the tool constitutes an important technological development that will allow municipalities to improve the quality of the cartographic inputs used for territorial planning processes, as well as provide the means necessary to publish and manage this information for various purposes.

Macrobrachium santanderensis, new species of freshwater prawn (Crustacea: Decapoda: Palaemonidae) from the northeastern Andes mountains of Colombia

There is only one species of freshwater prawn documented for the Catatumbo region, which is part of the northeastern Andes mountains of Colombia. Morphology comparison with other Colombian Macrobrachium species which inhabit the nearby Orinoco river basin such as M. brasiliense, M. cortezi, M. heterochirus, and M. reyesi, and the only species reported for the Catatumbo region (M. praecox) reveals distinct characters of a new freshwater prawn species. The differences between the new species described herein and the previously reported Macrobrachium species are in the ornamentation of the rostrum and the second pair of pereiopods, proportion of some segments of the second periopod, as well as size and number of eggs. The new freshwater prawn species (Macrobrachium santanderensis) is reported, described, and illustrated.

Régimen político y límites de la democracia en regiones afectadas por conflicto armado y cultivos ilícitos: el caso del Catatumbo

This article is based on research carried out in three municipalities of the Catatumbo (North Santander department, Colombia) region, and analyzes institutional arrangement dysfunctions that arise from active illegal armed groups and illicit crops, pointing out the effects on the political regime and the exercise of democracy and stating the problems that must be faced by local governments in order to perform their mandate. The article suggests that Government action in this region has been affected by deep failures in legitimacy, efficiency, and effectiveness, which generated critical limitations to governability in that territory. Such failures are related to the factual suppression of the social contract and to the ineffectiveness of a democracy in its least representation. It concludes that in the municipalities under examination, Government failures strongly reduce the settlement costs for illegal armed groups to access territory control and to establish as protection agents in competition with the State. They also lead towards the establishment of a vicious affectation cycle where the cost increase of the public investment required to correct such failures in turn reduces political actors’ interest in solving them, thus creating a chronic trap that reduces governability in the regional level.

Contrasting sylvatic foci of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus in northern South America.

The ecology of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus transmission was compared at three enzootic foci: two forest sites in the Catatumbo region of western Venezuela that have yielded small numbers of virus isolates since the 1970s, and another focus in the middle Magdalena Valley of Colombia that has consistently yielded many VEE virus isolates. Our results demonstrated dramatic differences in VEE virus isolation rates from sentinel hamsters, as well as differences in mosquito species composition and captured mammals with antibodies to VEE virus, between the Colombian and Venezuelan study sites. The higher isolation rate of enzootic VEE virus in the Colombian site was associated with a more abundant fauna of spiny rats (Proechimys spp.), known reservoir hosts of enzootic VEE virus. Mosquito collections demonstrated that the Colombian forest had a higher mosquito diversity and species evenness than either of the Venezuelan forests. The Colombian focus was especially richer in its Culex (Melanoconion) spp. fauna, a subgenus that includes all proven enzootic vectors for VEE virus. Our results suggest that the greater abundance, diversity, and stability of enzootic vector populations, combined with the greater density of rodent reservoir hosts, explains the higher levels of VEE virus circulation in the Colombian focus compared with the Venezuelan forests.

Genetic diversity and relationships among Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus field isolates from Colombia and Venezuela.

During field studies of enzootic Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) viruses associated with epizootic emergence, a large number of virus isolates were made in sylvatic foci of Venezuela and Colombia. To rapidly characterize these isolates, antigenic subtypes were determined by means of immunofluorescence and by single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis by use of an 856-bp fragment from the P62 gene, which we used to distinguish genetic variants. Representative isolates were sequenced to assess the sensitivity of SSCP to detect genetic differences. The SSCP analysis distinguished isolates differing by as little as 1 nucleotide; overall, differences of > or = 1 nucleotide were recognized 89% of the time, and the sensitivity to distinguish strains that differed by only 1 or 4 nucleotides was 17 and 57%, respectively. Phylogenetic analyses of representative sequences showed that all recent isolates from the Catatumbo region of western Venezuela and the middle Magdalena Valley of Colombia were closely related to epizootic subtype IAB and IC strains; strains from Yaracuy and Miranda States were more distantly related. Cocirculation of the same virus genotype in both Colombian and Venezuelan foci indicated that these viruses are readily transported between enzootic regions separated by > 300 km. The SSCP analysis appears to be a simple, fast, and relatively efficient method of screening VEE virus isolates to identify meaningful genetic variants.

Arbovirus Studies in Southwestern Venezuela during 1973–1981

Increasing utilization of arable land in southwestern Venezuela has led to a potential increase in human exposure to arbovirus infections. Since previous studies in the Catatumbo region of this area documented the presence of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) viruses, an attempt was made to study the transmission and maintenance of these viruses from 1973 to 1981. Isolations of EEE, VEE ID strains, Una, Itaqui , and Moju viruses were repeatedly obtained from mosquitoes, mostly Culex ( Melanoconion ) spp. and sentinel hamsters. The results indicate that these viruses constitute a potential hazard to public health in the area. Further, the strategic location of the Catatumbo region, between enzootic tropical foci of arboviruses, may provide circumstances and conditions for study of both enzootic maintenance and movement of these viruses.

Studies of arboviruses in Southwestern Venezuela: I. Isolations of Venezuelan and Eastern Equine Encephalitis viruses from sentinel hamsters in the Catatumbo region.

The purpose of this report is to describe isolations of Venezuelan (VEE) and Eastern (EEE) Equine Encephalitis virus made in the lowland moist tropical forest of the Catatumbo region on the southwestern part of the State of Zulia, Venezuela. We have isolated four strains of EEEV from sentinel hamsters exposed at Caño Mocho and Madre Vieja sites in 1973 and 1974, and three strains of EEEV in Hacienda (Hda.) Las Nubes in 1975. Both viruses were recovered during silent interepidemic periods and we believe these viruses are maintained in this region in sylvatic conditions. The recovered virus strains were detected within 24 to 48 hours, both in SMB and Vero Cell monolayer cultures and the sentinel hamsters yielded virus infectivities up to 10(4) PFU ml. Our VEEV isolate (IVIC PAn 23645-47), recovered during the silent interepizodemic period had an elution profile on the hydroxylapatite column corresponding to that of a I-D (VEEV-3880) or a I-E (VEEV-63A216) 'enzootic' subtype. However, considering other in vitro criteria (KHI; HA pH 5.8-6.0; small plaque size in Vero monolayers with suitable overlay media), this later and other previous isolates had some very distinct properties of the 'epizootic' strains. Thus, the evidence suggests that in Venezuela the VEEV cycle in nature is maintained either by the so called 'enzootic' and/or 'epizootic' virus types, or the virus population of the isolates have particular in vitro properties which do not correlate to the virulence markers in vivo. We consider this important question must be further clarified, and in addition, the isolation of three strains of EEEV are reported; this is the first report of the presence of this virus in Venezuela. Although the EEEV isolates may be of the South American type, they must be considered as potentially dangerous in the case of outbreaks.