chargedaffairs.org<\/p>\n
Colombia is the\u00a0only<\/a>\u00a0country in the world that has had 10 peace processes in the past 30 years. The recent agreements signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the\u00a0oldest<\/a>guerrilla group in Latin America and largest in Colombia, led to the group\u00a0handing over<\/a>\u00a0all of its weapons on June 27th and ceasing to exist as a guerrilla group. However, as the FARC demobilizes, different\u00a0armed groups<\/a>\u00a0are fighting for control over its old territories and threatening to keep Colombia in conflict.<\/p>\n The FARC\u2019s armed conflict with Colombia has lasted for more than 50 years, leaving more than 60,000 people\u00a0missing<\/a>, more than 6.6 million people\u00a0displaced<\/a>\u00a0(making Colombia the country with the most internally displaced people in the world), and more than 260,000 people\u00a0killed<\/a>. In its inception, the FARC was a rural, self-defense guerrilla group that sought agricultural reform. However, over the years, the organization began to use methods like kidnapping and drug trafficking to finance its activities, making it one of the main causes for violence and displacement in the country.<\/p>\n Due to the high profitability of drug trafficking, these resurgent armed groups view control over the drug trafficking routes in the country as essential, especially in the Colombian Pacific and the border with Venezuela. According to the\u00a0UN Refugee Agency in Colombia<\/a>, 7,371 people have had to flee their territories in the first five months this year due to these groups occupying lands to secure the drug trafficking routes.<\/p>\n The\u00a0main<\/a>\u00a0groups pushing to destabilize the country are predominantly the National Liberation Army (ELN), criminal gangs (BACRIM), FARC dissidents, and other minor groups.<\/p>\n The ELN was\u00a0created<\/a>\u00a0in 1964 by students and intellectuals influenced by the Cuban revolution. They seek a real independence from the country and are in opposition to the exploitation of Colombian oil by foreign companies. Their main\u00a0sources of funding<\/a>\u00a0are extortion, kidnapping, illegal mining, and drug trafficking. They also are known for forced recruitment of new members and planting landmines. There are around 2,000 ELN\u00a0militants<\/a>\u00a0and the group is negotiating with the Colombian government in Ecuador to reach a\u00a0peace accord<\/a>. Nevertheless, they kidnapped two\u00a0Dutch journalists<\/a>\u00a0for almost a week in June; they bombed the\u00a0Ca\u00f1o Lim\u00f3n Cove\u00f1as oil pipeline<\/a>\u00a0on June 20, and have increased their\u00a0presence<\/a>\u00a0in territories once under FARC control.<\/p>\n Criminal gangs (BACRIM) make up another large source of opposition to government control. Inside this grouping are different sub-groups, the largest being the Gulf Clan, which has around\u00a02,500 militants<\/a>. The BACRIM are\u00a0composed<\/a>\u00a0of former paramilitaries that either have never demobilized, demobilized and have taken up arms again, or former paramilitaries that have emerged recently. Some of these gangs have\u00a0moved<\/a>\u00a0recently to former FARC and ELN territories and it is\u00a0believed<\/a>\u00a0that it is these groups who are responsible for the crimes against left-wing social leaders in alliance with Colombian far-right politicians to avoid the return of lands or the establishment of the truth. Since last year, more than\u00a0150 social leaders<\/a>\u00a0have been assassinated in Colombia<\/p>\n A third group is made up of\u00a0FARC dissidents<\/a>\u00a0who didn\u2019t agree to the peace agreements and demobilization process; one of which is known as the First Front had\u00a0kidnapped<\/a>\u00a0a UN representative in Colombia for more than two months. They operate mainly in the southwest of the country and are made up of around\u00a0300 militants<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, there are other groups like the dissidents from the Popular Liberation Army (EPL<\/a>), which was a guerrilla movement influenced by Mao\u2019s revolution in China and almost totally demobilized themselves in 1991. Another is the Popular Revolutionary Movement (MRP), an extreme right-wing group with an urban presence that has executed three terrorist attacks in the country, including a\u00a0bomb<\/a>\u00a0that exploded in June at a popular shopping mall in Bogota.<\/p>\n While it is disconcerting to see these various groups moving into former FARC territories and threatening stability, it is important to\u00a0remember<\/a>\u00a0that the last two years have been the least violent the country has lived through in the past half century. Also, the rate of homicides is the\u00a0lowest<\/a>\u00a0it has been in 40 years. Kidnapping, extortion, massacres, village occupations, and terrorism have gone in afreefall<\/a>\u00a0and while there was an average of 500 soldiers dying each year over the past decade, 113 died in 2016. These statistics reveal that the FARC were indeed the main factor of violence in Colombia and their disarmament means a great deal to the security of the country. Additionally,\u00a0transitions<\/a>\u00a0from war to peace are always difficult and\u00a0normally<\/a>\u00a0happen at the same time new types of violence emerge.<\/p>\n In total, Colombia has made gains with the enactment of the peace agreement with the FARC. However, the fact that drug trafficking is still profitable and the fact that various armed groups in the country wish to carry out their own agendas, Colombia still has a distance to go to achieve peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" chargedaffairs.org Colombia is the\u00a0only\u00a0country in the world that has had 10 peace processes in the past 30 years. The recent agreements signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the\u00a0oldestguerrilla group in Latin America and largest in Colombia, led to the group\u00a0handing over\u00a0all of its weapons on June 27th and ceasing to exist as a guerrilla group. However, as… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}