Abstract
This chapter reviews 90 years of anti-communist violence in Colombia, in which different political parties and social movements suffered persecution by mutating violent coalitions. It shows that anti-communist violence developed according to local and global dynamics, has affected Colombia’s provinces differently, and continues today, its recent manifestations being the murders of leftist social movement leaders after the signing of the 2016 peace agreement. The chapter describes the origins of anti-communist violence in Colombia (1930–1966), reviews its consolidation under a national security doctrine (1966–1982), discusses the subsequent “anti-communist genocidal trap” (1982–2010), describes how anti-communism evolved into a mindset against the recent Santos-FARC peace process, and analyses the relationship between anti-communism and the assassinations of social movement leaders (2010–2018). It concludes that in today’s era of post-truth geopolitics, the anti-communist logic is far from over.
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Notes
- 1.
Forrest Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia (London: Verso, 2006).
- 2.
The Unión Patriótica was a party created in the framework of the Uribe Agreement for the FARC-EP to transit in to legal politics. See: Andrei Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks: A Con-textualisation of the Destruction of the Unión Patriótica in Colombia (London: Routledge, 2015).
- 3.
National Center for Historical Memory, Basta Ya: Memorias de Guerra y Dignidad (Bogotá: Nation Press Office, 2013), 20.
- 4.
Farmers and farm laborers.
- 5.
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- 6.
Quoted in “Bolsonaro Declares Brazil’s ‘Liberation from Socialism’ as He Is Sworn In,” The Guardian, last modified January 1, 2019, accessed January 2, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/01/jair-bolsonaro-inauguration-brazil-president.
- 7.
I use the term script to label a slogan that simplifies reality and collectivizes emotions through discourse. For a thorough, discussion see: Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks.
- 8.
Evan Davis, Post-truth: Peak Bullshit and What We Can Do About It (London: Abacus, 2018).
- 9.
Cf. Andrei Gomez-Suarez “Peace Process Pedagogy: Lessons from the No-Vote Victory in the Colombian Peace Referendum,” Comparative Education, 53:3 (2017): 463.
- 10.
Tobias Jones, “Fascism Is Thriving Again in Italy—And Finding Its Home on the Terraces,” The Guardian, last modified December 29, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/29/fascism-italy-racist-abuse-kalidou-koulibaly-italian-football?CMP=share_btn_tw.
- 11.
See: Andrei Gomez-Suarez, El Triunfo del No: la Paradoja Emocional detrás del Plebiscito (Bogotá: Ícono Editorial, 2016).
- 12.
The term “leaders of social movements” is used in this chapter to encapsulate the category of “social leaders” used widely today by scholars and practitioners in Colombia in order to group the leadership of indigenous, women, youth, LGTBI, community, human rights, and other grassroots organisations.
- 13.
Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks, 16.
- 14.
Álvaro Delgado, “El Experimento del Partido Comunista Colombiano,” in Una historia inconclusa: izquierdas políticas y sociales en Colombia (Bogotá: CINEP-Colciencias, 2009); Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks; Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia.
- 15.
Antonio Caballero, Historia de Colombia y sus Oligarquías (Bogotá: Editorial Planeta, 2018).
- 16.
Quoted in Natalio Cosoy, Votos y Devotos (Bogotá: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, 2018), 59.
- 17.
Gonzalo Sánchez, Guerra y Política en la Sociedad Colombiana (Bogotá: El Áncora Editores, 1991).
- 18.
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- 19.
Quoted in Cosoy, Votos y Devotos, 47.
- 20.
Quoted in Arturo Alape, Las vidas de Pedro Antonio Marín, Manuel Marulanda Velez, Tirofijo (Bogota: Planeta, 1989), 323.
- 21.
Quoted in Mario Aguilera Peña, Las FARC: La Guerrilla Campesina 1949–2010, ¿Ideas Circulares en un Mundo Cambiante? (Bogotá: Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris-OIM-ASDI, 2010), 39.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Carlos Arango, FARC 20 años: de Marquetalia a la Uribe (Bogotá: Ediciones Aurora, 1984).
- 24.
Marta Harnecker, Combinación de todas las formas de lucha (Bogotá: Ediciones Suramérica, 1989).
- 25.
Quoted in Delgado, “El Experimento del Partido Comunista Colombiano”.
- 26.
Jaime Arenas, La Guerrilla por Dentro (Bogotá; Icono Editorial, 2009).
- 27.
Quoted in Gwen Burnyeat, Chocolate, Politics and Peacebuilding: An Etnography of the Peace Community of San José de Apartardó, Colombia (London: Palgrave, 2018), 78.
- 28.
David Bushnell, The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
- 29.
Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, 59–62.
- 30.
Bushnell, The Making of Modern Colombia, 233.
- 31.
Delgado, “El Experimento del Partido Comunista,” 126.
- 32.
Ibid., 116.
- 33.
Marco Palacios, Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875–2002 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 197.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Francisco Leal Buitrago, La Seguridad Nacional a la Deriva: del Frente Nacional a la Posguerra Fría (Bogotá: Uniandes-Flacso-Alfaomega, 2002), 58.
- 36.
Ibid., 59.
- 37.
ASFADDES, Veinte Años de Historia y Lucha (Bogotá: Rodríguez Quito Editores, 2003), 27.
- 38.
Winifred Tate, Counting the Death: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 80.
- 39.
Ibid., 82.
- 40.
Carlos Medina Gallego, Autodefensas, Paramilitares y Narcotráfico en Colombia: Origen, Desarrollo y Consolidación el Caso de Puerto Boyacá (Bogotá: Documentos Periodísticos Editorial, 1990).
- 41.
“Acuerdo entre la Comisión de Paz y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC-EP), Uribe, Meta, Marzo 28 de 1984,” in Alvaro Villarraga Sarmiento, Biblioteca Pública de Paz 1982–1986 (Bogotá: Fundación Cultura Democrática-USAID-OIM, 2008).
- 42.
Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks, 38.
- 43.
Quoted in Socorro Ramírez and Luis Alberto Restrepo, Actores en Conflicto por la Paz: el Proceso de Paz Durante el Gobierno de Belisario Betancur, 1982–1986 (Bogotá: Siglo Veintiuno Editores-CINEP, 1988), 211.
- 44.
Medina Gallego, Autodefensas, Paramilitares y Narcotráfico en Colombia, 148–242.
- 45.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, “Perpetrator Blocs, Genocidal Mentalities and Geographies: The Destruction of the Union Patriotica in Colombia and Its Lessons for Genocide Studies,” Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 4 (2007), 637–660.
- 46.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, “US–Colombian Relations in the 1980s: Political Violence and the Onset of the UP Genocide,” chap. 7 in State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years (London: Routledge, 2010).
- 47.
Gomez-Suarez, Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks, 51.
- 48.
Rafael Pardo Rueda, De Primera Mano: Colombia entre 1986–1994, entre Conflictos y Esperanzas (Bogotá: CEREC-Grupo Editorial Norma, 1996), 505–512.
- 49.
Mauricio Aranguren Molina, Mi Confesión: Carlos Castaño Revela sus Secretos (Bogotá: Editorial Oveja Negra, 2002), 221–233.
- 50.
Aguilera Peña, Las FARC Guerrilla Campesina.
- 51.
Iván Cepeda and Jorge Rojas, A las Puertas del Ubérrimo (Bogotá; Random House Mondadori, 2008), 47–53.
- 52.
Mauricio Romero, Paramilitares y Autodefensas 1982–2003 (Bogotá: National University-IEPRI, 2003).
- 53.
María Clemencia Ramírez, Between the Guerrillas and the State: The Cocalero Movement, Citizenship, and Identity in the Colombian Amazon (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
- 54.
Ibid., 207.
- 55.
León Valencia, “Los Caminos de la Alianza entre los Paramilitares y los Políticos” in Romero Mauricio, ed., Parapolítica: la Ruta de la Expansión Paramilitar y los Acuerdos Políticos (Bogotá: Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris-Intermedio Editores, 2007), 13–47.
- 56.
Fabio Lopez de la Roche, Las Ficciones del Poder: Patriotismo, Medios de Comunicación y Reorientación Afectiva de los Colombianos bajo Uribe Vélez (2002–2010) (Bogotá: IEPRI-Debate-National University, 2014).
- 57.
Alexandra Guaqueta and Gerson Arias, “Impactos de los Programas de Desmovilización y Reinserción sobre la Sostenibilidad de la Paz: el caso de Colombia” in Elvira Restrepo and Bruce Bagley, La Desmovilización de los Paramilitares en Colombia: entre el Escepticismo y la Esperanza (Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2011).
- 58.
Patricia Lara, Adios a la Guerra (Bogotá: Planeta 2018).
- 59.
María MacFarland Sánchez-Moreno, There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia (New York: Nation Books, 2018), 230.
- 60.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, “La Coyuntura Geopolítica Genocida de la Destrucción de la Unión Patriótica (1985–2010),” Estudios Políticos, no. 43, (June–December 2013), 180–204.
- 61.
Pablo Angarita, et al., La Construcción del Enemigo en el Conflicto Armado Colombiano, 1998–2010 (Medellín: Universidad de Antioquía-INER-Sílaba, 2016), 78–101.
- 62.
Carlos Alfonso Velásquez Romero, La Esquiva Terminación del Conflicto Armado en Colombia: una Mirada Político-Estratégica a la Confrontación con las FARC Durante las tres Últimas Décadas (Medellín: La Carreta Editores E. U, 2011).
- 63.
Eduardo Pizarro, De la Guerra a la Paz: Las Fuerzas Militares entre 1996 y 2018 (Bogotá: Planeta, 2018), 240–286.
- 64.
Quoted in O’Hagan Eleanor, “Colombia Activists Denounce Rights Violations,” aljazeera.com, last modified May 24, 2014, accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/05/colombia-activists-denounce-rights-violations-20145247301869837.html.
- 65.
National Center for Historical Memory, Basta Ya.
- 66.
Gomez-Suarez, El Triunfo del No: la Paradoja Emocional detrás del Plebiscito, 41.
- 67.
Ibid., 44–58.
- 68.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, “Dispositivos retóricos y marcos de referencia emocional: un análisis del triunfo del No en el plebiscito y su impacto en la construcción de paz,” in Clara Rocio Rodríguez, ed., Gano el No, Perdió Colombia. El Plebiscito por la Paz cuatro años Después (Bogotá: IEPRI, forthcoming).
- 69.
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, “Logros del Proceso de Paz y Retos para la Sociedad Civil: una Con-textualización de la Negociación entre el Gobierno Santos y las FARC,” chap. 1 in Paz, Víctimas y Posconflicto (Armenia: Universidad del Quindío, 2016).
- 70.
María Jimena Duzán, Santos: Paradojas de la Paz y del Poder (Bogotá: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, 2018).
- 71.
Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz, Biblioteca del Proceso de Paz con las FARC-EP Tomo VII (Bogotá: Presidencia de la República, 2018), 63.
- 72.
Ibid., 72.
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- 76.
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- 77.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Gwen Burnyeat for her sharp comments, which helped me to streamline the history of anti-communist violence in Colombia, and for her dedicated editing made this chapter far more intelligible for an English audience. The mistakes that remain are my own.
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Gomez-Suarez, A. (2020). A Short History of Anti-Communist Violence in Colombia (1930–2018): Rupture with the Past or Rebranding?. In: Gerlach, C., Six, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anti-Communist Persecutions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54963-3_18
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