Colombian state reactions to peace: the legacies of the narcoguerrilla-narcoterrorist discourses

ABSTRACT

For years, the Colombian state maintained its position about how the guerrillas’ involvement with drug trafficking has made them lose their political and/or ideological nature. Political and military sectors supported this approach and used the term narco-guerrilla or narco-terrorists. The peace process initiated in 2012 during the Santos administration seemed to alter this narrative. This article analyzes how Colombia’s peace process had a contradictory effect on the ‘narco-terrorist’ characterization of the FARC-EP: it opened windows of opportunity both for more peace-prone discourses and for an even more virulent version of the criminalization of the guerrillas.

KEYWORDS:

• Colombia
• narcoterrorism
• peace process
• FARC-EP
• illegal economies

Disclosure statement

This research is supported by SOAS, University of London and the ESRC. I have no direct or indirect connections to any company or state agency interested in this work. In addition, the article contains a series of interviews that had an ethical protocol and they had the permission of the interviewees to be used.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by SOAS, University of London and the ESRC. ‘Drugs & (dis)order: building sustainable peacetime economies in the aftermath of war’; UKRI award no. ES/P011543/1 as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund.

Notes on contributors

Diana Ximena Machuca Pérez

Diana Ximena Machuca Pérez has a bachelor’s degree in political sciences and a master’s in political studies, both from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Her research interests include the Colombian armed conflict, peasant movements and organizations, conflicts over land and resources, land restitution, land dispossession, and land grabbing. Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Diana-Machuca-Perez.