Preventing conflict upstream: impunity and illicit governance across Colombia’s borders

Abstract

This article explores how transnational borderlands matter for conflict prevention and, in particular, so-called upstream engagement, which aims to reduce threats to global stability and security that arise from the world’s increasing interconnectedness. Accounting for transnational borderlands in vulnerable regions is crucial for conflict prevention as pursued by the defence and security sector because borderlands are catalysts of the negative side of global interconnectedness: they are business hubs for transnational organised crime, sites of retreat for conflict actors, and safe havens for terrorists. The border areas’ proneness to impunity and the ability of violent non-state actors to govern these spaces illicitly contribute to the emergence of these characteristics. I therefore argue that upstream conflict prevention needs to do two things to address these risks: first, to overcome a national security approach centred on the borderline and instead acknowledge transnational security dynamics in borderlands on both sides of the border; second, to overcome the state-centred governance lens to also consider governance exerted by non-state actors. The article draws on empirical data from a six-year study including over a year of fieldwork in and on Colombia’s borderlands.

Keywords:

• Borderlands
• governance
• conflict prevention
• impunity
• FARC
• Colombia

Acknowledgments

The author further wishes to extend gratitude to Dr Timothy Clack and Dr Robert Johnson for their support through the 2015 “Upstream Effects Workshop” at the University of Oxford, and to the British Army for funding the workshop. A book chapter derived in part from this article has appeared as Idler, Annette, 2019, “Improving Responses to Protracted Conflict: Why Borderlands Matter for Upstream Engagement”, in Clack, Timothy and Johnson, Robert, eds., Before Military Intervention: Upstream Stabilisation in Theory and Practice, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 123-143.

Notes

1. See United Nations A/RES/60/180 and S/RES/1645 (2005).

2. The term “upstream” is commonly used in the oil and gas industry where it refers to the exploration and production stage of the industry, as opposed to midstream – transport – and downstream – the refining, processing, marketing, and distribution of the product.

3. While the FARC signed a peace deal, as of January 2018, the Colombian government and the country’s second-largest rebel group, the ELN, have agreed to a ceasefire, but no peace deal. Hence, this article considers armed conflict in Colombia as ongoing.

4. This is a general phenomenon of borders. At the Irish-British border for example, “there are instances in the south Fermanagh area where terrorists literally walked from one side of the border to the other, carried out their heinous murders and then walked back, believing that they would be afforded a form of safe passage and sanctuary” (Patterson 2013).

5. Interviews with local community members, Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and Nariño, Colombia, 2011 and 2012.

6. Interviews with local community members, La Guajira, Colombia, 2016.

7. Interviews with local community members, La Guajira, Colombia, 2016.

8. Interviews with local community members, Sucumbíos, Ecuador, 2012. See ICG (2009, p. 8) and Alston (2010) for discussions of false positives.

9. See Picciotto, Olonisakin, and Clarke (2007) conceptualisation of Hirschman’s (1972) “Exit, Voice and Loyalty”.

10. Interviews with local community members, Nariño and Putumayo, Colombia, 2011 and 2012.

11. Interviews with local community members, Zulia, Venezuela, 2012.

12. Interviews with local community members, Norte de Santander, Colombia, 2012.

13. Interviews with local community members, Zulia, Venezuela, 2012.

14. Interviews with local community members, Carchi, Ecuador, 2012.

15. Interviews with local community members, Sucumbíos, Ecuador, 2012.