Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It by Magnus Linton, John Eason
Authors: Magnus Linton, John Eason
Ads: Link
Combos, the cartel’s private armies, began killing off FARC men, and it was not long before Putumayo was an ever-expanding war zone.
While the FARC were certainly leeches, sucking the blood out of a lucrative but illegal financial endeavour, the private armies strictly protected the owners’ profit interests. A classic Marxist conflict consequently took root in the narcotics-driven war in Colombia, and to this day it continues to play a crucial role in the understanding of what is happening and why it never ends. The guerrillas not only took payment in order to be able to buy arms, but also, more or less, raised costs by playing the roles of both the trade union, attempting to negotiate the workers’ conditions, and of the state, investing in infrastructure, while the function of paramilitary groups was and continues to be the opposite: to eliminate everything that drives up production costs. This tension between labour and capital, going back to pioneer days in Putumayo, has intensified over the years and today continues to play a significant role in the dynamics of relations between the drug mafia, the paramilitaries, the guerrillas, and the coca farmers.
In the 1990s the FARC finally fought back with a vengeance when it instigated a violent attack against the Los Masetos camp in El Azul, leaving 77 paramilitaries dead. As a result the guerrillas regained control of the area, and yet another tragic tradition was spawned and later integrated into the dynamics of Colombian violence: the FARC’s strategic games with the civilian population, often coca farmers, in the circles of war. From this point, one of the guerrillas’ most common tactics became forcing the farmers, usually at gunpoint, to participate in various demonstrations against the central government — supposedly under the banner of ‘social justice’ , when it was actually about defending ‘the right to grow coca’. The Medellín Cartel lost control over Putumayo, and the more coca was cultivated, the better it was for the FARC, for two reasons: first, the ‘taxes’ they now charged the farmers helped to strengthen the movement monetarily and militarily; and second, expansion in coca cultivation showed that the government was losing control of the nation — which is what the guerrillas always have to demonstrate to reinforce their own legitimacy.
Both the guerrillas and paramilitaries in Colombia build their identity around a populist rhetoric about ‘victims’. Although they often employ the same methods and their warriors come from similar social backgrounds, they represent completely different interests and worldviews. The FARC sees itself as representing an excluded, marginalised peasant farming population, stripped of their economic and civil rights by capitalism, and thus believe it is ‘protecting’ the right of the oppressed to grow coca, owing to the absence of other means of livelihood. The paramilitaries also offer protection, but based on a completely different logic: their ‘victims’ are ambitious entrepreneurs whose financially rewarding business ventures are sabotaged by guerrilla kidnappings, extortion, murders, and ‘taxes’. What the two groups have in common is their conviction that the government is incapable of protecting its citizens or their property; this is, in their view, what legitimises armed groups, and they see their violent methods as not only justifiable but also completely necessary.
Between 1993 and 1996 the FARC grew at a record pace, and it did not take long before southern Putumayo found itself entirely under guerrilla control. Police officers, mayors, and farmers weren’t able to take on any initiative without consulting the rebels — who not only gradually permitted the farmers to grow as much coca as they could but demanded they do so, and because coca cultivation was an effective instrument in their revolutionary project, this practice was repeated all over rural Colombia. According to their
While the FARC were certainly leeches, sucking the blood out of a lucrative but illegal financial endeavour, the private armies strictly protected the owners’ profit interests. A classic Marxist conflict consequently took root in the narcotics-driven war in Colombia, and to this day it continues to play a crucial role in the understanding of what is happening and why it never ends. The guerrillas not only took payment in order to be able to buy arms, but also, more or less, raised costs by playing the roles of both the trade union, attempting to negotiate the workers’ conditions, and of the state, investing in infrastructure, while the function of paramilitary groups was and continues to be the opposite: to eliminate everything that drives up production costs. This tension between labour and capital, going back to pioneer days in Putumayo, has intensified over the years and today continues to play a significant role in the dynamics of relations between the drug mafia, the paramilitaries, the guerrillas, and the coca farmers.
In the 1990s the FARC finally fought back with a vengeance when it instigated a violent attack against the Los Masetos camp in El Azul, leaving 77 paramilitaries dead. As a result the guerrillas regained control of the area, and yet another tragic tradition was spawned and later integrated into the dynamics of Colombian violence: the FARC’s strategic games with the civilian population, often coca farmers, in the circles of war. From this point, one of the guerrillas’ most common tactics became forcing the farmers, usually at gunpoint, to participate in various demonstrations against the central government — supposedly under the banner of ‘social justice’ , when it was actually about defending ‘the right to grow coca’. The Medellín Cartel lost control over Putumayo, and the more coca was cultivated, the better it was for the FARC, for two reasons: first, the ‘taxes’ they now charged the farmers helped to strengthen the movement monetarily and militarily; and second, expansion in coca cultivation showed that the government was losing control of the nation — which is what the guerrillas always have to demonstrate to reinforce their own legitimacy.
Both the guerrillas and paramilitaries in Colombia build their identity around a populist rhetoric about ‘victims’. Although they often employ the same methods and their warriors come from similar social backgrounds, they represent completely different interests and worldviews. The FARC sees itself as representing an excluded, marginalised peasant farming population, stripped of their economic and civil rights by capitalism, and thus believe it is ‘protecting’ the right of the oppressed to grow coca, owing to the absence of other means of livelihood. The paramilitaries also offer protection, but based on a completely different logic: their ‘victims’ are ambitious entrepreneurs whose financially rewarding business ventures are sabotaged by guerrilla kidnappings, extortion, murders, and ‘taxes’. What the two groups have in common is their conviction that the government is incapable of protecting its citizens or their property; this is, in their view, what legitimises armed groups, and they see their violent methods as not only justifiable but also completely necessary.
Between 1993 and 1996 the FARC grew at a record pace, and it did not take long before southern Putumayo found itself entirely under guerrilla control. Police officers, mayors, and farmers weren’t able to take on any initiative without consulting the rebels — who not only gradually permitted the farmers to grow as much coca as they could but demanded they do so, and because coca cultivation was an effective instrument in their revolutionary project, this practice was repeated all over rural Colombia. According to their
Similar Books
