Colombian conflict facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Colombian conflict |
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| Part of the Cold War (1964–1991) and the War on Drugs (1971–present) | |||||||||
 Millions of Colombians marching for the freedom of the people kidnapped by the FARC and the ELN. We want peace. |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
 Army and Police:4,908 killed since 2004 20,001 injured since 2004 |
 AUC:2,200 killed 35,000 demobilized BACRIM: 222 killed 18,506 captured Medellín Cartel: 2,100 killed |
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 FARC, ELN and other irregular military groups:11,484 killed since 2004 26,648 demobilized since 2002 34,065 captured since 2004 |
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The Colombian conflict (Spanish: Conflicto armado interno de Colombia) began on May 27, 1964, and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups and crime syndicates, and far-left guerrilla groups, fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory.
The conflict is historically rooted in the conflict known as La Violencia, which was triggered by the 1948 assassination of liberal political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and in the aftermath of the anti-communist repression in rural Colombia in the 1960s that led Liberal and Communist militants to re-organize into the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The reasons for fighting vary from group to group. The FARC and other guerrilla movements claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor in Colombia to protect them from government violence and to provide social justice through communism. The Colombian government claims to be fighting for order and stability, and to protect the rights and interests of its citizens. The paramilitary groups claim to be reacting to perceived threats by guerrilla movements.
According to a study by Colombia's National Centre for Historical Memory, 220,000 people have died in the conflict between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians (177,307 civilians and 40,787 fighters), and more than five million civilians were forced from their homes between 1985 and 2012, generating the world's second-largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs). 16.9% of the population in Colombia has been a direct victim of the war. 2.3 million children have been displaced from their homes, according to national figures cited by UNICEF. As of April 2022, the Single Registry of Victims reported 9,263,826 victims of the Colombian conflict.
The United Nations has estimated that 12% of all civilian deaths in the Colombian conflict were caused by FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, with 80% caused by right-wing paramilitaries, and the remaining 8% caused by Colombian security forces.
On June 23, 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC rebels signed a historic ceasefire deal, bringing them closer to ending more than five decades of conflict. Although the deal was rejected in the subsequent October plebiscite, the same month, President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end. A revised peace deal was signed the following month and submitted to Congress for approval. The House of Representatives unanimously approved the plan on November 30, a day after the Senate also gave its backing.
Background
The origin of the armed conflict in Colombia goes back to 1920 with agrarian disputes over the Sumapaz and Tequendama regions. Much of the background of Colombian conflict is rooted in La Violencia, a conflict in which liberal and leftist parties united against the dictator of Colombia, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Colombia at the time was a banana republic, dominated by foreign monopolies specifically the United Fruit Company.
The United Fruit Company existed to buy large amounts of agricultural products in Latin America at cheap prices, then resell the crops in foreign markets for inflated amounts. Local farmers were largely impoverished and were forced to grow specific crops creating a monoculture in which farmers depended on the company for all food, products and wages. The United Fruit Company would usually pay their workers in coupons, which was worthless outside company stores, the stores would charge extravagant prices compared to what workers earned. As well as this the system of employment was usually in which farmers would be forced to sell their property to the United Fruit Company and then be indebted to the company having to work on the land and pay back the company. The United Fruit Company would hire private militaries to enforce its power, their purpose was to put down worker calls for reform, destroy unions, and put down worker revolutions. Any potential threat to the United Fruit Company would be overturned in a company backed coups, which would prop up friendly puppet politicians and support right wing militias to maintain power.
Workers would often organize and strike against these conditions, and would form local militias against the United Fruit Company. This would often lead to conflict between the United Fruit Company and the workers. This culminated in a strike in November 1928 by farmers in Ciénaga for better working conditions. The striking workers called for an end to temporary contracts, the creation of mandatory worker insurance, the creation of compensation for work accidents, the creation of hygienic dormitories, the 6 day work weeks, the implementation of a minimum wage, the abolishment of wages through company coupons and office stores, and the recognition of farmers and tenets as employees with legal rights. The strike quickly grew becoming the largest strike in all of Colombia's history, with many Socialists, Anarchists, Marxists and Leftists joining and organizing the strike. The United Fruit Company demanded that the workers disband and the Union should disband. Following several weeks of failed negotiations, the Colombian government of Miguel Abadía Méndez sent the Colombian Army to Ciénaga. After a standoff with the strikers, the Colombian Army shot into the crowd of strikers, killing between 68 and 2,000 people in what became known as the Banana massacre.
This led to an outrage in the Colombian Public, creating an explosion of Leftists and Revolutionary organizations. In Bogota, leftist students protested and organized against the Colombian government, eventually hoping to overthrow it. This opposition to the Colombian Government exploded in 1948, upon hearing of the assassination of socialist candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, many poor workers saw the death of Gaitán as political assassination orchestrated by the rich. Workers began rioting and destroying the Colombian capital Bogota, leading to the death of 4,000 people. When news of the death of Gaitán reached the countryside, the local militias were furious and immediately started a civil war known as La Violencia. Joined by fellow Leftists a brutal war was fought for over 10 years leading to the death of 200,000 people and the destruction of much of the country, resulting in a peace settlement and the changing of power to the Colombian Conservative Party to the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Communist Party in 1958.
As La Violencia wound down, most self-defense and guerrilla units made up of Liberal Party supporters demobilized, but at the same time some former Liberals and active Communist groups continued operating in several rural enclaves. One of the Liberal bands was a group known as the "Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia" (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), or FARC, formed by Pedro Antonio Marin in 1964, FARC was founded out of fighters of unhappy with the peace settlement. The goal of the FARC, among other things, was redistribution of land that would benefit poor peasant farmers like Marin, along with the desire to establish a communist state.
In 1958, an exclusively bipartisan political alternation system, known as the National Front, resulted from an agreement between the Liberal and Conservative parties. The agreement had come as a result of the two parties attempting to find a final political solution to the decade of mutual violence and unrest, remaining in effect until 1974.
Emergence and repercussions of armed conflict
The armed conflict in Colombia emerged due to a combination of economic, political and social factors in the country. Various organizations and scholars that have studied the conflict trace it back to a long history of political violence, a high social and economic inequality, the lack of strong state capable of providing for its citizens (especially in the rural and remote areas of the country), conflict of political ideologies (mainly capitalist-right wing groups represented by the government against communist left wings groups represented by the armed groups), and an unequal distribution of land, power, and wealth in the country. The precise date of the conflict's beginning is still disputed, with some scholars claiming it started in 1958 with the start of the Frente Nacional ("National Front") and the end of La Violencia ("The Violence") meanwhile others believe it was in 1964 with the creation of the FARC and the end of the National Front. Some scholars even trace it back to the 1920s, with the unequal distribution of land in the country which has been one of the main causes and disputes of the conflict throughout the years.
In the early period (1970s), guerrilla groups like the FARC, the ELN and others adopted a slogan of greater equality through communism, which came to be supported by many people, mostly in low-income and rural areas of the country. During these years the violence was low in intensity and occurred mainly in remote parts of the country. However, the balance of power and influence shifted in the mid-1980s when Colombia granted greater political and fiscal autonomy to local governments, strengthening the position of the Colombian Government in more remote regions of the country. In 1985, during peace talks between President Belisario Betancur and the FARC, the armed group co-created the left-wing Patriotic Union (UP) political party as a path to leave violence behind and eventually move into politics. However, between 1985 and 2002 right-wing paramilitaries, with the help and support from parts of the government, murdered 4,153 members and supporters of the party, including two presidential candidates, six of 16 congressmen, 17 regional representatives and 163 councilmen. This decimated the organization and aggravated the broader conflict.
In the 1980s the level of violence increased in many parts of the country. Organized crime in Colombia grew increasingly powerful in the 1970s and 80s, financing paramilitaries and guerrillas with the money obtained from illegal activities.
During the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, the government applied more military pressure on the FARC and other outlawed far-left groups. After the offensive, many security indicators improved. As part of a controversial peace process, the AUC (right-wing paramilitaries) as a formal organization had ceased to function.
In February 2008, millions of Colombians demonstrated against the FARC and other outlawed groups. The Colombian Ministry of Defense reported 19,504 deserters from the FARC between August 2002 and their collective demobilization in 2017, peaking in the year 2008. During these years the military forces of the Republic of Colombia were strengthened.
The Peace process in Colombia, 2012 refers to the dialogue in Havana, Cuba between the Colombian government and guerrilla of FARC-EP with the aim to find a political solution to the armed conflict. After almost four years of peace negotiations, the Colombian state and the FARC announced consensus on a 6-point plan towards peace and reconciliation. The government also began a process of assistance and reparation for victims of conflict. Recently, U.P. supporters reconstituted the political party, within the process of reconciliation. Colombia's congress approved the revised peace accord.
See also
In Spanish: Conflicto armado interno de Colombia para niños
- Central American crisis
- Colombian peace process
- National Liberation Army (Colombia)
- Plan Colombia
- Internal conflict in Peru
