Violence in Colombia: Update
Much of the violence last week was related to the Sunday June 20th presidential election in which former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos beat two-time Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus in a landslide victory. While both candidates pledged throughout their campaigns to continue the government’s fight against the FARC, Santos’ win means the extension of current president Álvaro Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, which has weakened the insurgency since its implementation in 2003.
Following the vote last Sunday, Santos declared that, “the FARC’s time has run out” and reiterated the sitting administration’s policy, asserting, “as long as [the FARC] insist on using their terrorist methods, there will be no dialogue.” In response, in a statement released on June 21st, the FARC declared Santos’ victory as the “illegal triumph of continuity,” and claimed that the country’s “political fight has entered a phase of radicalization.” The document said that Colombians “condemned” the president-elect through their “abstention,” referring to statistics that place less than 50% of citizens at the polls last Sunday.
In eight of Colombia’s 32 departments, rebels are reported to have burned ballots or otherwise disturbed voting. Although this election was the least violent in four decades, there were smatterings of violence in various regions leading up to the elections, culminating in the death of at least 16 on Election Day.
On Sunday, June 20th, as Colombians cast their votes, in a rural area of the Meta department, FARC members killed three soldiers transporting voting papers while in another part of the department the military shot six FARC members who were allegedly planning to attack local polling stations. Also on Sunday, in the Norte de Santander province near the Venezuelan border, seven policemen were killed in a minefield and another eight went missing. An additional nine FARC members were arrested in the port city of Buenaventura, before they could carry out any attacks, authorities said.
In Tolima, the governor encouraged people to get out to the polls despite FARC intimidation tactics. According to the governor, the rebel group was threatening voters particularly in the more rural zones of the region. Additionally, in many parts of Tolima on Sunday there was no public transport between cities and throughout the countryside, as many proprietors feared left-wing insurgency groups would incinerate their vehicles.
On June 17th, the Thursday before the election, in Suaza in the Huila province, the army found a metric ton of explosives, including various antipersonnel landmines, in a cove along the ‘Alto Brasil’ roadway connecting the Huila and Caqueta departments. According to authorities, the FARC intended to use the materials to attack the route, dissuading voters from traveling. Similarly, just north of Neiva, police found a carton of explosives after receiving a call that a ‘suspicious man’ had left a package along the road connecting the El Cortijo neighborhood to Galindo. Supposedly the materials were to be transported to Neiva before Sunday.
On June 23rd, just two days after the FARC denounced Santos’ win, in Algeciras, a town located in the central region of the Huila department, the rebel group announced an armed strike against public transport in protest of president-elected Juan Manuel Santos. In response, police escorted buses from the city of Neiva to Algeciras while military forces manned the roadways. The governor of the department encouraged travel despite FARC threats, and guaranteed that the government would incur “100 percent” of the cost of any damages to residents’ vehicles. However, many were still hesitant as similar promises were left unfulfilled during the last FARC strike.
Yesterday, June 28th the FARC issued a statement that announced a 24-hour hiatus in the armed transportation strike. The statement gave farmers and transportation workers from Algeciras until today at noon to distribute all agricultural products to the rest of the country, at which time they would reinstate the strike. Despite the truce, today, June 29th, the FARC incinerated a truck transporting green beans on the roadway between El Toro and Betania.
Looking at violence unrelated to the election:
- On June 23, a 15-year-old girl was injured in a bombing at her home in Chaparral, in the Tolima department. Authorities believe the FARC was behind the incident, as they commonly use such intimidation tactics as a means of extortion. This was the rebel’s second attack against the family’s house.
- As described in last week’s update, recently in the Arauca department, violent clashes have broken out between ELN and FARC groups. In an undated document released this month, the FARC announced the termination of their cease-fire with the ELN that leaders from both groups had agreed to on December 13, 2009. The document accuses the ELN of “assassinating, displacing, and torturing” populations in “FARC territory” and charges the ELN with a series of murders and other intimidation tactics such as making phone calls and sending “threatening pamphlets.” The region has experienced a steady stream of violence throughout the conflict.
- According to a survey recently reported on by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, residents of Medellín feel markedly more insecure than in 2008. Antioquia’s governor’s office describes the increase in insecurity as “a consequence of clashes between criminal structures,” many of which arose out of the 2005 paramilitary demobilization.
- On Thursday June 24th, in el Valle de Aburrá, Antioquia, authorities captured fifteen members of a band of land pirates that also operated throughout Medellín. The group would hijack vehicles by blocking a road, or dressing as police or military and stop cars asking for documentation and then robbing them.
- Following the region’s trend, in Yalí, Antioquia, authorities arrested a minor for possession of an AK47. While not an unusual occurrence in the conflict, the incident is indicative of larger bouts of violence that have recently flared up between newly emerging criminal groups fighting for territory throughout the city. The two main groups are Los Rastrojos, who are responsible for the majority of narcotrafficking in the city, and Los Urabeños, who fund themselves through violent extortion.
- Over the weekend, Medellín city assembly president, Jhon Jaime Moncada Ospina, was shot in an attack on Saturday night in the Laureles neighborhood. According to reports Mr. Moncada had just pulled up to a stoplight, when four men on motorcycles assaulted his vehicle, issuing him five shots to the chest. While the assemblyman is currently in stable condition, President Uribe has offered a compensation of 100 million Colombian pesos ($50,000) to anyone with any information about the motivations behind the attack or that leads to the detainment of the assailants.
- On Sunday June 27, the FARC killed a policeman in Silvania, Huila, where various factions of the FARC are reported to operate. The policeman was apparently shot while traveling from the police station to his house.
This post was written by CIP intern Sarah Kinosian