Colombia's War of Neoliberal Economics
By Chelsey Dyer, NACLA
09 March 19
Despite the 2016 peace accords in Colombia, conflict and violence continue
due to the U.S.-supported neoliberal economic model. In order to imagine
peace, we must imagine a new model of reparations and justice.
Colombia today has the highest number of recorded assassinations of human
rights defenders in the world. In the first 15 days of January 2019 alone,
nine social leaders were murdered. These alarming statistics make it clear
that peace has not come to Colombia, despite the signing of its historic
peace accords with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in
2016. It is also clear why: the peace accords did not alter the countrys
neoliberal economic model, which was a key driver of the conditions that led
to the 50-year conflict.
As many Colombian activists predicted, the same neoliberal economic
conditions that created insecurity before the accords were signed continue
to exist today and contribute to violence, displacement, and economic
insecurity, particularly for Afro-Colombians, Indigenous peoples, and
campesino communities. While neoliberalism is national policy in Colombia,
it is also one upheld by Colombias foreign allies, including the United
States. And, unlike the story President Duque may tell, U.S. policies have
not contributed to liberation in Colombia or the rest of Latin America.
Instead, they have exacerbated economic insecurity and violence.
Neoliberal Turn in Colombia and Plan Colombia
In the 1990s, Colombia began to embrace neoliberal economics, and the
government made its land available to more multi-national businesses. At the
same time, after decades of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizing, the
government enacted a new constitution in 1991 and Law 70, which recognized
Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities as distinct ethnic groups with the
right to land titles. However, these initiatives were contradictory, because
these communities ancestral territory is frequently located on the same
resource rich land that multi-national businesses wish to possess. This
dynamic continues to play out todayas communities vie for land titles to
maintain control over their territory, they face pressure from armed actors
and big businesses who seek to use the land to implement extractivist
projects, construct industry, or run drugs. Oftentimes, these actors use
violence, threats, or assassinations in order to frighten and silence their
opposition, such as community leaders at the forefront of campaigns to
prevent displacement.
Todays rise in activist killings cannot be disentangled from the original
imposition of neoliberal economics and the shock doctrine tactics of Plan
ColombiaTodays rise in activist killings cannot be disentangled from the
original imposition of neoliberal economics and the shock doctrine tactics
of Plan Colombiaa multi-billion dollar U.S. aid package framed first
through the veneer of the war on drugs, and then as a war on terror against
the FARC. The fragmentation of social movements and classes wrought by
paramilitary, guerrilla, and state violence in the 1990s strengthened by
U.S. military training and funding allowed neoliberal doctrine to enter into
Colombia largely uncontested. As this system continues to operate, social
leaders in Colombia are being systematically killed and displacements
continue, with at least 1,300 people already displaced this year.
A War By Many Means
431 social leaders were murdered between January 2016 and December 2018. A
recent report released by the Colombian Commission of Jurists demonstrated
that these murders are systematic, frequently target members of Communal
Action Boards (JAC) or those who are protecting their territory, and are
linked to a drive to silence community activism. The killing of Maritza
Quiroz Leiva on January 6 exemplifies this pattern. She was leader of the
Victims Committee in Santa Marta and an active advocate against forced
displacement, who was gunned down in her home. Years previously, her husband
was killed after they recovered land from which they had been forcibly
displaced. Quiroz Leiva was the sixth social leader killed this year.
Many argue that incidents of violence in Colombia like the killing of
Marista Quiroz Leiva are a result of the vacuum of power left by the FARC
and the subsequent rivalries between different armed groups that are now
vying for power and control in these areas. While this is certainly true to
some extent, it is only part of the picture. This theory fails to address
the capitalist motivations that underlie these groups quest for territorial
control and those who are victimized by it.
Similarly, activist killings are not a result of capitalism, but a tactic of
it.As geographer Ulrich Oslender has written, the state and paramilitary
forces act at the service of national and transnational capital. Oslender,
who focuses on mass displacement, argues that such violence is not the
result of capitalism, but rather a tactic of those in power in the global
capitalist system. In fomenting violence and creating economic and physical
insecurity for local residents, businesses can more easily usurp territory.
Similarly, activist killings are not a result of capitalism, but a tactic of
it. Repression and assassinations are part of a strategy of sowing fear to
silence social leaders, unravel the social fabric, and thus eliminate or
strain social movements that counter the reigning economic model. This is
not simply an economic modelit is a form of neocolonialism that sows social
unrest in order to generate profit.
The media generally characterizes violence in Colombia as fragmented
instancesa community was displaced, a protest erupted, an activist was
murdered. These individually highlighted events create an international
image of internal insecurity caused by a governments own ineptitude or the
violence of illegal armed actors, eliding the historical and current role of
neocolonialism and foreign economic intervention. In reality, these
instances are all interconnected into an overarching framework of powerthat
Afro-descendant and Indigenous activists have been fighting against for
centuries. In fact, looking at different instances of U.S. influence in
Colombia tracks a clear pattern of neocolonial control and its connection to
the assassinations of activists.
In May 2017, Buenaventura residents held a 22-day civic strike to protest
ongoing investment in its port instead of investing in local residents. In
an impressive show of organizational capacity, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous
communities and organizations united to shut down the city, blocking the
port and flooding the streets. Residents demanded resources to invest in
building a local hospital, more economic opportunities, and potable water.
The strike, however, faced brutal repression. Colombian Mobile Anti-riot
forces (ESMAD) used U.S.-made tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately
on the population to break up protests. U.S. weapons were used to suppress
and control a manifestation that threatened the reigning socio-economic
ideology.
Activist repression is another tool used to try and silence
counter-narratives and strain social movements. When the reigning political
class fails to silence dissent through repression, their tactics can
intensify into assassinations threats and attempts. In fact, a year after
the strike, Temístocles Machado, a well-known leader of the civic strike,
was assassinated. Others who were involved also continue to face ongoing
threats. Both psychological and physical violence has followed organizers in
Buenaventura. Community leaders did, however, eventually come to an
agreement to create an autonomous fund to invest back into the city to
improve infrastructure, healthcare, and education, and today continue to
meet with government officials to ensure that the accord is properly
implemented.
In spite of small steps forward, U.S. policy is still exerting influence on
Colombia. Under U.S. pressure, President Duque is advancing a return to
aerial fumigationdespite its violation of the 2016 Peace Accords, ongoing
denunciations from civil society, and well-documented health risks. This is
also connected to a strategy of repression aimed at maintaining and
expanding economic control, because the dangerous spraying of chemicals
displaces residents who live on resource-rich land, allowing illegal and
legal businesses to move in. Colombia already has the highest internally
displaced population in the world and research has demonstrated that aerial
fumigation causes significant displacement. If the U.S. and Colombian
governments were interested in decreasing coca crop farming they would
invest more in substitution models, address the socioeconomic causes that
necessitate people to grow coca, and protect activists as their work is
striving to build sustainable socioeconomic futures. Instead, we see
advocates for crop substitution among those who are being
assassinatedactivists such as Dilio Corpus Guetio, a campesino leader in
Cauca who was on a local committee that verified the substitution of illicit
crops. He was murdered January 29, 2019, shot while riding his motorcycle to
work.
Though official reports may not detail the reasons for their assassinations,
to other activists and social leaders it is clear that Corpus Guetio was
killed because of his work, which threatened to disrupt illicit and licit
resource and drug economies in the area. We see this pattern of
intimidation, threats, and assassination across Latin America against
activists working to protect the environment, land, and basic human
rightsand we continue to see this in Colombia during a time in which
peace has supposedly arrived.
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