![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the legacies of paramilitary governance in the Colombian civil war. Using a local case study, we show that former militia strongholds have been shaped by the lasting effects of armed rule on the ability of impoverished peasants and rural workers to challenge existing forms of land tenure and labour organisation. Our case highlights the need to adopt a local view to understand the embeddedness of armed governance in existing socio-economic orders. Our conclusion emphasises the importance of integrating a political economy perspective when studying the legacies of armed governance.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Georg Frerks, Toon Dirkx, Martina Santschi, Nelson Kasfir, Didier Péclard, and Niels Terpstra, as well as the Civil Wars Editors and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on previous versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Source: Tribunal Superior de Bogotá, José Gregorio Mangones Lugo, decision no. 2007–82,791, 31 July 2015.
2. The structure of armed rule is well described by legal sources. For instance: Tribunal Superior de Barranquilla, Jose Ospino Pacheco et al, case no. 08-001-22-52-000-2013 83,639.
3. These descriptions are based on a focus group of five forcibly displaced peasants from the municipalities of Remolino and Sitio Nuevo (Ciénaga, 15 March 2009), as well as interviews with the head of the local human rights division at the inspector general’s office (19 March 2009) and a project manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council (18 March 2009).
4. Focus group, forcibly displaced peasant, Santa Marta, 15 March 2009.
5. Source: Tribunal Superior de Bogotá, José Gregorio Mangones Lugo, decision no. 2007–82,791, 31 July 2015.
6. Interview, Santa Marta, 9 March 2009.
7. Interview, Santa Marta, 7 June 2011.
8. Source: Comunicado a la opinión pública del departamento del Magdalena y Colombia, 28 September 2000. Private archives (authors’ possession).
9. Interview, former politician, Santa Marta, 7 June 2011.
10. Source: Corte Suprema de Justicia, Jorge Aurelio Noguera Cotes, case no. 32000. A detailed account of this case is available in Grajales (Citation2017, p. 81–2).
11. Interview, Sintrainagro union activist, Ciénaga, 4 July 2019.
12. The cases are identified through the names of the estates: Las Franciscas, Diana María, La Marcela, La Isla, Chimborazo, and Tierra Grata. We examined the legal records for all six cases and interviewed officials at the land restitution unit directly involved in the demands. In three of the six cases, we also interviewed members of the community, individually (Diana María and Tierra Grata, in July 2018 and La Isla in August 2021) or in a focus group (Las Franciscas, July 2018). More information about this is available in Grajales (Citation2021, p. 83–95) and Lévy (Citation2023). The files for the six cases are registered in the following jurisdictions: Juzgado segundo civil del circuito especializado en restitución de tierras de Santa Marta (land restitution court), case no. 2017–00,067 (La Marcela); Juzgado segundo civil del circuito especializado en restitución de tierras de Santa Marta, case no. 2016–0048 (Diana María); Tribunal superior de Cartagena, Sala de restitución de tierras (chamber of land restitution, high tribunal of Cartagena) case no. 2014–0009 (Las Franciscas); UAEGRTD (land restitution unit), decision no. RM00925, 7 December 2015 (Tierra Grata); Juzgado cuarto civil del circuito especializado en restitución de tierras de Sincelejo en Santa Marta, 2016, case no. 2016–00,030–00 (Chimborazo); UAERGTD, (land restitution unit), decision no. RM01036, 30 November 2016 (La Isla).
13. Source: Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Evaluaciones Agropecuarias Municipales. Oficina de planeacion y prospectiva. Available online: http://www.agronet.gov.co [consulted on 5 August 2023].
14. Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (National Correctional Agency), Declaration of José Gregorio Mangones Lugo, Barranquilla, 29 October 2009. Private archives (authors’ possession).
15. Interview, Sintrainagro union activist, Ciénaga, 4 July 2019.
16. Interview, former lawyer of one of the affected communities, Bogota, 19 October 2017.
17. Statistics about land restitution in Colombia are constantly updated by the NGO Forjando Futuros. See www.forjandofuturos.org.
18. State institutions and NGOs in Magdalena had consistent evidence of this new breed of armed groups as early as 2009, as illustrated by our interviews in March of that year: Interviews, Santa Marta, head of the local demobilisation office (9 March), head of the local human rights division at the inspector’s general office (19 March), project manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council (18 March).
19. While state institutions in charge of human rights protection received dozens of complaints against military units deployed in the Sierra in the early years of the 2000s, legal action has been very rare. Source: Interview, former analyst at the Land Restitution Unit of Santa Marta, Santa Marta, 27 July 2018.
20. Interview, former land division manager at the Colombian Institute for Rural Development, Bogota, 22 July 2015. Interview, former head of the URT’s Magdalena office, Bogota, 19 October 2017. Interview, former analysts at the URT, Santa Marta, 23 and 27 July 2018. Interview, lawyers at the URT, Santa Marta, 1 and 2 August 2018.
21. Field notebook, September 2019.
22. Beyond land restitution claimants, the murder of peasant and environmental activists in Colombia has remained very high, even after the 2016 peace agreement. See Hristov (Citation2021).
23. Interview, Fundación, 24 July 2018.
24. Interview, Guacamayal, 24 July 2018.
25. Interviews with two community leaders and their lawyer: Santa Marta and Guacamayal, July 2018. Information complemented by the legal archives kept by the lawyer: UAEGRTD (land restitution unit), decision no. RM00925, 7 December 2015
26. This was corroborated through satellite images. More information available in Grajales (Citation2021, p. 148).
27. Interview, Sintragrancol member, Ciénaga, 4 August 2019.
28. Interview, Sintragrancol member, Ciénaga, 4 August 2019.
29. Traditionally, pamphlets were small papers scattered in the streets, which paramilitary groups used to announce their rules and military targets. Today, this kind of information mostly circulates through social media and WhatsApp messages.
30. Interview, Sintragrancol member, Ciénaga, 4 August 2019.
31. Interview, Sintragrancol member, Ciénaga, 22 August 2019. Unlawful dismissal is also documented by journalists (Voz Citation2012, Citation2014).
32. Source: Voz (Citation2014) and Interview, Sintragrancol member, Ciénaga, 4 August 2019.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jacobo Grajales
Jacobo Grajales is Professor of Political Science at Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Paris, France, and a fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. Having previously conducted research on the relationship between the state and armed groups in Colombia, he is now using a comparative perspective to examine the links between post-conflict politics and land policies through field research in Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia. His latest book, published by Routledge in 2021, is entitled Agrarian Capitalism, War and Peace in Colombia: Beyond dispossession. Email: [email protected]
Benjamin Lévy
Benjamin Lévy is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Lille, France and he holds a PhD in geography from Grenoble-Alpes University, Grenoble, France. His research focuses on the interactions between the agrarian economy, conservation and political violence in Colombia. It examines how social conflicts over land, labour and natural resources relate to the dynamics of armed conflict in forested areas and plantations. Email: [email protected]