Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias De Colombia Research Articles

Rebel Primary Commodity Markets, Price Shocks, and Supplier Victimization

AbstractRebel organizations often benefit from the sale of primary commodities. However, producing these commodities may require labor from noncombatants. Rebels provide security and payment to civilian suppliers, but their ability to do so depends on consistent profits. How, then, do price shocks to labor-intensive primary commodities undermine rebel–supplier relationships? I hypothesize that negative commodity price shocks lead cash-strapped rebels to ensure suppliers’ loyalty by substituting coercion for positive incentives. Conversely, states seek to limit rapid increases in rebels’ profit while avoiding the reputational costs of civilian victimization. Thus, victimization of rebel suppliers from groups such as pro-government paramilitaries is hypothesized to increase after positive commodity price shocks. I test these hypotheses with a new dataset covering 1999–2007 that combines monthly US STRIDE (System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evidence) data on cocaine price with municipal-level data from the Colombian Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica about the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and paramilitary groups’ use of civilian victimization.

Charles W. Bergquist (1942–2020)

Charles W. Bergquist (1942–2020)

Conflict violence reduction and pregnancy outcomes: A regression discontinuity design in Colombia.

The relationship between exposure to conflict violence during pregnancy and the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, and perinatal mortality has not been studied empirically using rigorous methods and appropriate data. We investigated the association between reduced exposure to conflict violence during pregnancy and the risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes in Colombia. We adopted a regression discontinuity (RD) design using the July 20, 2015 cease-fire declared during the Colombian peace process as an exogenous discontinuous change in exposure to conflict events during pregnancy, comparing women with conception dates before and after the cease-fire date. We constructed the cohorts of all pregnant women in Colombia for each day between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2017 using birth and death certificates. A total of 3,254,696 women were followed until the end of pregnancy. We measured conflict exposure as the total number of conflict events that occurred in the municipality where a pregnant woman lived during her pregnancy. We first assessed whether the cease-fire did induce a discontinuous fall in conflict exposure for women with conception dates after the cease-fire to then estimate the association of this reduced exposure with the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, and perinatal mortality. We found that the July 20, 2015 cease-fire was associated with a reduction of the average number of conflict events (from 2.64 to 2.40) to which women were exposed during pregnancy in their municipalities of residence (mean differences -0.24; 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.35 to -0.13; p < 0.001). This association was greater in municipalities where Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) had a greater presence historically. The reduction in average exposure to conflict violence was, in turn, associated with a decrease of 9.53 stillbirths per 1,000 pregnancies (95% CI -16.13 to -2.93; p = 0.005) for municipalities with total number of FARC-related violent events above the 90th percentile of the distribution of FARC-related conflict events and a decrease of 7.57 stillbirths per 1,000 pregnancies (95% CI -13.14 to -2.00; p = 0.01) for municipalities with total number of FARC-related violent events above the 75th percentile of FARC-related events. For perinatal mortality, we found associated reductions of 10.69 (95% CI -18.32 to -3.05; p = 0.01) and 6.86 (95% CI -13.24 to -0.48; p = 0.04) deaths per 1,000 pregnancies for the 2 types of municipalities, respectively. We found no association with miscarriages. Formal tests support the validity of the key RD assumptions in our data, while a battery of sensitivity analyses and falsification tests confirm the robustness of our empirical results. The main limitations of the study are the retrospective nature of the information sources and the potential for conflict exposure misclassification. Our study offers evidence that reduced exposure to conflict violence during pregnancy is associated with important (previously unmeasured) benefits in terms of reducing the risk of stillbirth and perinatal deaths. The findings are consistent with such beneficial associations manifesting themselves mainly through reduced violence exposure during the early stages of pregnancy. Beyond the relevance of this evidence for other countries beset by chronic armed conflicts, our results suggest that the fledgling Colombian peace process may be already contributing to better population health.

Navigating gender in elite bargains: Women's movements and the quest for inclusive peace in Colombia

AbstractA growing body of scholarship connects the participation of women and the inclusion of gender provisions to the sustainability of peace settlements. But how do women's groups navigate gender power structures and gendered forms of violence within complex and fragile political bargaining processes aimed at ending large-scale conflict? The 2016 Colombian peace agreement, internationally applauded for its inclusion of strong gender provisions and women's participation as negotiators and peace advocates, is a significant case for examining these questions. Drawing on original case material, including interviews of key actors on different sides of the conflict – this article analyses the political bargaining dynamics within and among women's movements, the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). We argue that the inclusion of women was pivotal in transforming the elite bargaining process and power structures of Colombian society enabling a gender-based approach to the substantive peace agenda addressing transitional gender justice for sexual violence survivors and gender-equal redistribution through land and rural reform programmes. The study suggests that deeply situated political bargaining analysis is essential to navigating gender in elite bargains rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive peace.

The endurance of women’s mobilization during “patriarchal backlash”: a case from Colombia’s reconfiguring armed conflict

ABSTRACT Despite the signing of a peace accord between the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Government of Colombia in 2016, it is increasingly apparent that the country’s armed conflict is reconfiguring rather than abating. This is evident in the widespread targeting of social leaders with threats, violence, and death. This article focuses on the Alianza de Mujeres Tejedoras de Vida, an association of women in Putumayo who mobilized for peace and women’s rights during Colombia’s armed conflict. Since 2018, however, they have been specifically targeted by armed groups for their activism and support of the peace process. This has led to increased – and gendered – acts of violence against them. This article frames the violence that they currently face as an example of what Berry refers to as “patriarchal backlash,” a reaction to the gains that women make in their communities during war that threaten men’s hegemonic control. I argue that while the resurgence of violence represents a limitation to women’s mobilization, it is not insurmountable. Indeed, the Alianza’s ongoing mobilization can be understood as a function of the repertoires of action developed during previous moments of conflict. This article contributes to wider conversations about the durability of women’s mobilization beyond the permeable bounds of a conflict/post-conflict binary.

Imag(in)ing Colombian post-conflict in corporate sustainability reports

Purpose This paper aims to study the use of photos in corporate sustainability reports (CSRs) as a means to gain legitimacy concerning Colombian post-conflict representations. Design/methodology/approach From a critical perspective based on legitimacy theory and political economy theory, and using visual semiotics and critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the use of photographs in sustainability reports as a mechanism to account for corporate actions regarding peace in Colombia. This paper relies on 121 pictures from 30 CSRs. Findings The analysis shows that companies are gaining legitimacy by referring to post-conflict through visual forms. Nonetheless, the structural conditions that caused the Colombian conflict are still present. Sustainability reporting that includes peace action representations becomes a control and subordination mechanism to reproduce existing power relations in the Colombian social order. Indeed, the generation of opportunities for civilians and ex-combatants, victims reparation, security and reconciliation remains unresolved structural issues. Hence, the use of corporate economic resources and their strategic visual representation in reports is just one business way of representing firms as aligned with government initiatives to obtain tax incentives. Research limitations/implications This study is centered on Colombian CSRs for the period 2016-2017; however, 2017 reports by some companies have not yet been published. This study also explored the messages contained in the images that include people. Images that do not depict persons were not examined. Originality/value This study provides evidence on visual representations of corporate peace actions aimed at gaining corporate legitimacy. Furthermore, this research examines a unique scenario that promoted more significant corporate social participation, following the signing of the peace agreements between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Ejército del Pueblo).

Healthcare access barriers for FARC ex-combatants in Colombia: qualitative perspectives from healthcare providers and FARC health promoters

BackgroundFollowing the 2016 Peace Agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Colombia promised to reincorporate more than 13,000 guerrilla fighters into its healthcare system. Despite a subsidized healthcare insurance program and the establishment of 24 Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación (ETCRs—Territorial Spaces for Training and Reintegration) to facilitate this transition, data has shown that FARC ex-combatants access care at disproportionately lower rates, and face barriers to healthcare services.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with FARC health promoters and healthcare providers working in ETCRs to determine healthcare access barriers for FARC ex-combatants. Analysis was completed with a qualitative team-based coding method and barriers were categorized according to Julio Frenk’s Domains of Healthcare Access framework.ResultsAmong 32 participants, 25 were healthcare providers and 7 self-identified as FARC health promoters. The sample was majority female (71.9%) and worked with the FARC for an average of 12 months in hospital, health center, medical brigade, and ETCR settings. Our sample had experiences with FARC across 16 ETCRs in 13 Departments of Colombia. Participants identified a total of 141 healthcare access barriers affecting FARC ex-combatants, which affected healthcare needs, desires, seeking, initiation and continuation. Significant barriers were related to a lack of resources in rural areas, limited knowledge of the Colombian health system, the health insurance program, perceived stigma, and transition process from the FARC health system.ConclusionsFARC ex-combatants face significant healthcare access barriers, some of which are unique from other low-resource populations in Colombia. Potential solutions to these barriers included health insurance provider partnerships with health centers close to ETCRs, and training and contracting FARC health promoters to be primary healthcare providers in ETCRs. Future studies are needed to quantify the healthcare barriers affecting FARC ex-combatants, in order to implement targeted interventions to improve healthcare access.

Hacer el estado: carreteras, conflicto y órdenes locales en los territorios de las FARC

In August of 2017, as part of the Peace Accords with the Colombian government, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) presented an extensive list of assets to be destined toward the victims of the armed conflict. It included approximately 3,700 kilometers of roads, most of them located in areas of influence of this guerrilla group. In this article, we investigate the type of actors, collaborations, power relations and technologies that made the construction of roads possible in Puerto Guzmán, an Amazonian municipality with a prolonged FARC presence. We argue that the construction and transformation of these infrastructures over time enables us to understand the state as a co-production involving different dynamics and actors, including some antagonistic to the state order.

Who Wants Peace? Predicting Civilian Preferences in Conflict Negotiations

Efforts to end civil wars via negotiations often generate sharp divisions in public opinion. A large, quantitative literature has found evidence for numerous variables serving as potential drivers of public support of and opposition to conflict negotiations. Yet the formation of policy preferences is a complex process, and while many factors might make small contributions to an individual’s conflict termination preferences, we lack a sense of which factors matter most or how to adjudicate among competing explanations. In this article, we leverage a large amount of nationally representative survey data from Colombia (2004–2015) and use machine learning tools to systematically explore which variables are the strongest predictors of public support for negotiations with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). We find that certain aspects of conflict exposure, individual values bearing on justice and punishment, and belief in the efficacy of the state are among the strongest predictors of negotiation preferences, while many conventionally important variables in the literature have little predictive power. The results have implications for scholars seeking to understand broad drivers of (dis)satisfaction with negotiations and shed light on the polarising Colombian peace process.

Between Conflict and Politics: Understanding Popular Support for the FARC’s Political Involvement

Political participation of former combatants is a central component of peace agreements. Similarly, people’s acceptance of political parties derived from such agreements is a crucial element towards peace building. Considering the peace deal between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), we ask “What factors shape popular support for the FARC’s political involvement?” We argue that attitudes towards the political integration of the former guerrilla are influenced by conflict experiences and partisan identities. Relying on survey data, our results indicate that conflict experiences and political identities alone are not correlated with attitudes towards the political integration of former insurgents. However, public support for former combatants having a political party is associated with conflict experiences only for those who feel close to parties that took a hawkish stance towards the agreement.

Cultural Production, Music and the Politics of Legitimacy: The Case of the FARC in Colombia

ABSTRACT This article investigates the role of cultural production as a practice with important implications for rebel legitimacy. Cultural production is employed to bolster rebel group legitimacy internally, by justifying existing hierarchical relations between the leadership and fighters, and externally by positioning the rebel group as a legitimate alternative to established elites and a rightful representative of the people. Building on a relational approach to armed groups legitimacy, the article analyses cultural production by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The analysis draws on FARC music production from 1988 to 2019, internal documents, artists’ testimonies, and field observations from 2017.

Largely on their own: Dealing with the rural legacies of conflict through local participatory peacebuilding

AbstractRural participatory peacebuilding was central to the peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Although rural reform included several elements dealing with the agrarian legacies of the war, none of them were implemented before the participatory process took place. We spend several months in three municipalities during the first year of implementation as the local participatory process unfolded. We find that structural obstacles with significant agrarian roots were affecting local participatory peacebuilding. Specifically, by comparing cases of how these legacies produced a persistent lack of trust of the state, fatally debilitated the organizational capacity of communities and drastically hindered the social reintegration of ex‐combatants, we show that local participation cannot replace structural agendas of rural reconstruction. Participatory democracy should be welcomed as peacebuilding strategy in rural contexts. In practice, however, when this promotion of local participation fails to be nested within a wider political pact addressing the deep agrarian dimension of the conflict, the net result is to displace responsibility from the national political class towards local communities who are asked to confront the legacies of war largely on their own.

Pengabaian Suku Asli dalam Proses Perdamaian di Kolombia

Peace talks between the Goverment of Republic of Colombia with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) started from 2011 to 2016, and followed by disarmament and transition phase until 2017. The talks and process have resulted peace agreement between the conflicting sides in 2016, FARC-EP disarmament process, and transitioning the rebels into civilians’ life. Considered as a success by some observers, the peace process is not yet solving the problem about indigenous people affected by an half-century conflict between the goverment and FARC-EP. This paper will examine discourses from perspective of community security which is originated from the concept of human security that involves violent action, and other threats towards indigenous people in Colombia, the Awa, and Wounaan People between 2011 to 2017. The goal of discursive practices on violent action towards indigenous ''people during the peace process in Colombia is to explain the threat to community security in Colombia due to the problem occured in indigenous community

Toward a New Phase of Guerrilla Warfare in Colombia? The Reconstitution of the FARC-EP in Perspective

The August 2019 announcement by some top former commanders of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo guerrillas in Colombia that they were resuming armed struggle was a major shock after the peace agreement between the rebels and the Colombian government in 2016. It was the clearest symptom of the current crisis of the peace process. It was not, however, an unforeseeable development. The government had brazenly attacked the content and the spirit of the peace agreement, and the systematic murders of ex-combatants and social leaders remained unpunished. As a result, increasing numbers of ex-combatants had decided to resume armed struggle. To regard these groups as mere criminals underestimates the political content of their statements and overlooks the reasons for this growing phenomenon. An exploration of the causes of the growing FARC-EP dissidences sets the stage for a discussion of the likely scenarios for conflict and peace building in the middle term.El anuncio de algunos ex comandantes de la guerrilla de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo en agosto de 2019 sobre su reanudación de la lucha armada causó gran conmoción después del acuerdo de paz de 2016 entre los rebeldes y el gobierno. Este fue el síntoma más claro de la actual crisis del proceso de paz, pero no se trató de un acontecimiento imprevisible. El gobierno ya había atacado descaradamente el contenido y espíritu los acuerdos, y los asesinatos sistemáticos de excombatientes y líderes sociales seguían impunes. Como resultado, un número cada vez mayor de excombatientes se decidían por reanudar la lucha armada. Considerar a estos grupos como meros delincuentes subestima el contenido político de sus declaraciones y pasa por alto las razones de este fenómeno creciente. Una exploración de las causas de las progresivas disidencias de las FARC-EP sienta las bases para una discusión sobre escenarios probables en torno la construcción tanto de conflictos como de la paz a mediano plazo.

Evaluating emergency physicians' knowledge, attitudes, and experiences of FARC ex-combatants: A pilot study of Colombia's emergency medicine teaching hospitals.

ObjectivesIn the 2016 Peace Accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Colombia promised to reincorporate 14,000 ex‐combatants into the healthcare system. However, FARC ex‐combatants have faced significant challenges in receiving healthcare, and little is known about physicians’ abilities to address this population's healthcare needs.MethodsAn electronic questionnaire sent to the Colombian Emergency Medicine professional society and teaching hospitals assessed physicians’ knowledge, attitudes, and experiences with the FARC ex‐combatant reincorporation process.ResultsAmong 53 participants, most were male (60.4%), and ∼25% were affected by the FARC conflict (22.6%). Overall knowledge of FARC reincorporation was low, with nearly two‐thirds of participants (61.6%) scoring in the lowest category. Attitudes around ex‐combatants showed low bias. Few physicians received training about reincorporation (7.5%), but 83% indicated they would like such training. Twenty‐two participants (41.5%) had identified a patient as an ex‐combatant in the healthcare setting. Higher knowledge scores were significantly correlated with training about reincorporation (r = 0.354, n = 53, P = 0.015), and experience identifying patients as ex‐combatants (r = 0.356, n = 47, P = 0.014).ConclusionFindings suggested high interest in training and low knowledge of the reincorporation process. Most physicians had low bias, frequent experiences with ex‐combatants, and cared for these patients when they self‐identify. The emergency department (ED) serves as an entrance into healthcare for this population and a potential setting for interventions to improve care delivery, especially those related to mental healthcare. Future studies could evaluate effects of care delivery following training on ex‐combatant healthcare reintegration.

Violence as a symptom: The case of Colombia

With a view to developing certain arguments put forward in previous works, my intention in this article is to approach the persistence of violence in Colombia as if it were a symptom. By symptom, I mean a traumatic impossibility, an enduring rupture that resists symbolization, at the intersection of the social and the symbolic. Examples of this symptomatology include the implacable antagonisms between rural supporters of the Liberal and Conservative parties during the period known as La Violencia; between paramilitaries and guerrilla groups, which was a constant for more than 30 years; and, more recently, between those on either side of today’s clashes over the peace process that was finally agreed with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) in 2016. In each of these three cases, there appears to be an impossible dynamic between two binary terms, each preventing the other from realizing its self-identity. In contrast to my previous work, where I examined the notion of the symptom from a Lacanian perspective, in this article, I will explore it through a series of metaphors or tropes that have been in common usage in Colombia at different times, understanding them as survivors of past events, carrying memory into the present. These tropes bear a heavy symbolic weight, as they serve to encapsulate and articulate emotions, anxieties, and fears in relation to antagonistic groups or political enemies. Although they belong to different periods in history, and as such their meanings are distinct, what they share is a capacity to crystallize the content of a conceptualization of a hated and feared other that must be eliminated. It is in this respect that they can be described as symptoms of a hatred for which the only outlet is violence.

The end of gunpoint conservation: forest disturbance after the Colombian peace agreement

In November 2016, after 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the primary rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) reached a peace agreement. The agreement incorporated three changes to institutions governing forest land occupation and use: (a) the demobilization of FARC from forested places, (2) the future distribution of legal land titles and new road construction into forests, and (3) the eradication of illicit crops. However, we document unprecedented rates of forest disturbance in the months following the peace agreement in biodiversity hotspots across the country. Are the declaration of peace and the increased rates of forest disturbance related? Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the impact of the Colombian peace agreement on forest disturbance. Focusing on the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt (AATB), we used automated satellite image disturbance detection methods and ethnographic data to quantify and interpret forest cover change from 2010 to 2018 that span wartime, peace negotiation, and post-peace agreement stages. Our findings indicate that during the post-peace agreement period (2017–2018), the area of forest disturbance increased by 50% (about 238 000 ha) across the AATB in comparison with the four-year peace negotiation stage (2013–2016); these changes reflect the end of FARC-led gunpoint conservation in the region. Forest disturbance also spread deeper into the Amazon watershed and increased in area by 187% within the AATB’s protected areas. We find that following the peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC, key actors (viz. drug cartels, large landowners, campesinos and dissidents) with expectations of favorable land tenure policies swept into the region; this led to increases in large-scale cattle ranching, coca cultivation dispersal, and speculative illegal land markets each of which contributed to the widespread forest disturbance that we mapped. The rapid increase in forest disturbance occurred despite the interest of the international community in promoting forest conservation initiatives in the AATB and Colombia’s existing conservation and land titling frameworks for public lands. Our findings underscore the need for conservation strategies sensitive to rapid institutional and demographic changes in the course of the peace agreement to prevent forests from becoming an unexpected casualty of premature and unstable peace.

Forests in the time of peace

ABSTRACT The signing of Colombia’s peace agreement in 2016 signaled the end of a decades-long war between the government and the FARC (Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), but also an emerging assault against the country’s forests. This article aims to understand the interactions between forests and peace. In doing so, it traces landscape transformations of deforestation and possibilities for making landscapes livable in the midst of disturbance. Drawing on field research, including interviews and participant observation carried out in Colombia from 2016 to 2018, it reveals how deforestation is driven by ongoing colonization and land grabbing, mostly dedicated to extensive cattle ranching, coca cultivation, and campesinos’ transition to ‘licit’ agricultural alternatives. The article also shows how emerging coordination among farmers and forests following forest disturbance contributes to an interpretation of peace in which forests are integral. The article concludes with a call to incorporate forests in the construction of peace.

Gestionar los odios para obtener la paz: paradojas de la construcción de la paz en Colombia

Colombian attitudes are analyzed in relation to the peace treaty signed between the government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forced (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – farc). For this, related phenomena are examined regarding the plebiscite through which such an agreement was approved or refused: campaign strategies for or against, opinion polls regarding key topics (political participation, coexisting with former combatants), and focus groups discussions. The main argument is that management of hatred and fear have led to a foundation on which to build peace in the country.

Ee-imagining Colombia’s new security landscape in the wake of the FARC Peace Accord

ABSTRACTAfter two centuries of almost non-stop warfare since Independence in 1819, Colombia now finds itself at a crossroads. One path entails the construction of a culture of peace in the aftermath of the 2017 disarmament of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Another trajectory entails a profound transformation of war. Colombia is increasingly leaning toward reconfigured warfare. The most prominent feature of this redefined security panorama is the re-conception of boundaries, both physical and ideational. One is reminded of the chilling observation of Gabriel García Márquez that a country ‘condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.’