Transitions in Colombia
For half a century in Colombia, an armed conflict of great complexity has opposed paramilitary groups (demobilized between 2003 and 2006 and recycled in criminal gangs, the BACRIM), guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), and state forces. The Colombian government’s Official Victims Registry lists 267,297 direct deaths, 728,096 indirect deaths, 169,201 disappearances, 7,358,248 displaced persons, and 36,578 kidnappings. Drugs (mainly cocaine, but also heroin and cannabis) have fueled and sustained the violence and conflict. The Peace Agreement signed in November 2016 by the Colombian government and the FARC therefore included a program designed to combat illicit drug production. In January 2017, both parties presented the National Comprehensive Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops (coca, poppy and cannabis) and, in November 2017, the UN and the government signed a 315-million-dollar aid agreement to eradicate these crops and strengthen rural development (redeployment of families and technical assistance).
Years of ineffective eradication policies
For the past 40 years, the Colombian government, with United States aid, has tried to combat drug production – 1978-1982, then 1982-1986 and, from 1999-2000, the Plan Colombia. The latter, which was widely condemned by the European Union, international organizations, and NGOs, did more to reinforce the Colombian state’s military capacity in its fight against guerrillas than it did to trouble drug traffickers. The massive aerial spraying of Monsanto glyphosate (begun in 1982-1986, suspended in 2005, and forbidden by the Constitutional Court in 2017) had serious consequences for the environment and public health, while its effects on reducing drug production were limited. State deficiencies, the very high concentration of land, poverty, permanent violence, and the low interest in substitution crops owing to lack of access to markets have contributed to a regular increase in drug production.
Colombia coca leaf production and profits, 2016
Comment: The UNODC survey data show the sharp increase in price (and profits) throughout the cocaine production chain, which deploys many and varied actors, from the farmers who grow the coca to the different stages of transformation and commercialization, which is controlled by local and international traffickers. Prices vary from 1 dollar per kilo of leaves to 1,633 dollars per kilo of cocaine, which is cut and sold on to European consumers for between 50 and 80 euros per gram.
At each stage of the transformation of coca leaves harvested into cocaine sold to the consumer, there is a considerable rise in prices and profits. To reduce the dependency on drug production by very poor farmers, the peace agreements initially placed the emphasis on voluntary substitution plans. But after the “no” victory in the peace referendum, the government had to negotiate new agreements providing for forced eradication (and even aerial spraying) in the event of failure or refusal of voluntary substitution. The policy of voluntary substitution involves a whole range of social and economic conditions, using a method that is both inclusive (producers, communities, FARC, international organizations, and NGOs) and extends the combat to all actors (producers, transporters, importers of precursors, processors, exporters, profit launderers, corruptors, and so on.). It provides for sustainable agricultural improvement programs (production of coffee, cocoa, fruit), consultation and strengthening of communities, monthly aid, securing and preparing land, opening up territory and ensuring access to markets, as well as introducing a minimum of public services, stabilizing land, ensuring personal safety and respect for human rights, and strengthening the legal framework.
- conflict > War
- Violent confrontation between armed groups over values, status, power or scarce resources, in which the aim of each party is to neutralize, weaken or eliminate their adversaries. This organized, collective, armed violence can be undertaken by states (via their national armies) or by non-state groups; it can bring several states into opposition (interstate war) or occur within a single state (civil war). The former, progressively codified within a legal framework, have become rare, while the latter, today primarily caused by state institutional failure, are tending to become more international in scope, to last over time (sometimes decades) and to be extremely devastating, especially for civilian populations.
- displaced persons > Displaced
- According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the term describes persons or groups who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or their habitual place of residence, in particular because of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, or to avoid the effects of these, but who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border. These are known as IDPs (internally displaced persons).
- international organizations > International Organization
- In the words of Clive Archer, an IO is “a formal, continuous structure established by agreement between members (governmental and/or non-governmental) from two or more sovereign states with the aim of pursuing the common interest of the membership.” Marie-Claude Smouts identifies three characteristics of IOs: they arise out of a “founding act” (treaty, charter, statute), have a material existence (headquarters, finance, staff), and form a “coordination mechanism.
- communities > Community
- According to the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936), community (Gemeinschaft) is the opposite of society (Gesellschaft) and denotes any form of social organization in which individuals are linked by natural or spontaneous solidarity, and driven by common goals. According to current usage, it applies to any social grouping that appears to be united, whatever its mode of integration (international community, European or Andean Community, or adherents of a religion). The ambiguous term of international community describes an ill-defined set of political actors (states, international organizations, NGOs, individuals, etc.) based on the idea of that humanity is united by common objectives and values or an allegiance to central political institutions, which is far from being the case.
- public services > Public Service
- An activity in the general interest carried out by a public or private body and overseen by the government. Public services serve a wide range of purposes, from the traditional sovereign functions (police, defense, justice, public finance, diplomacy) to the non-market state sector (education, health, social protection, culture and sport, etc.) and the industrial and commercial sectors (transport, energy, water, telecommunications, etc.). Public services are grounded in fundamental principles: equality of access and treatment for users, continuity, accessibility, neutrality and transparency of services, and their adaptability to evolutions of the general interest. The notions of services in the general interest and universal services, used in European and some international institutions, have – not without controversy – redefined the perimeters of state action in reaction to the liberalization of some of these sectors.