Civil Society Peacebuilding on Colombia's Borders
Publisher: Building Peace Across Borders
Author(s): Socorro Ramirez
Date: 2009
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Economic Recovery, Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Colombia
Since the escalation of the Colombian civil war in the mid- 1990s, the spread of violence across Colombia’s borders has severely tested diplomatic relations with neighbouring Ecuador and especially Venezuela. But the impact of crossborder violence is felt most keenly among local communities living in borderlands in all three countries. Civil society has developed links across national boundaries between Colombia and Ecuador, and Colombia and Venezuela to respond directly to peacebuilding priorities in borderlands and to promote better relations between capitals. There are three main components to the cross-border dynamics of violence associated with the Colombian internal war. First, limited state presence in borderland areas has allowed non-state armed groups – guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels – to encroach across national boundaries in order to access supplies, to rest or receive medical treatment and to prepare military operations. Inadequate structures for administering justice in peripheral borderlands, combined with widespread impunity, mean that irregular groups impose their own law – by force, extortion or corruption. High unemployment and underdevelopment has further fuelled the informal or illegal economy, including a wide range of smuggling networks. There are only three checkpoints on Colombia’s 2,219 km border with Venezuela and two on its 586 km border with Ecuador, and such lack of regulated frontier controls allows armed groups to move quite freely across borders. Second, there are links between armed conflict and drug trafficking. Colombian drug cartels are not contained by national boundaries and Venezuela and Ecuador have become key routes for international drug traffic networks. People from neighbouring countries participate in harvesting coca leaf crops on the Colombian side of the border, act as middlemen in trafficking materials for cocaine production, or provide liaison in illegal asset-laundering systems through the dollarised economy in Ecuador or through the currency exchange market in Venezuela. Weapons and explosives are also smuggled across borders. Third, Colombian national counter-insurgency or counternarcotics actions have crossed borders as the Colombian military has pursued irregular armed groups into neighbouring territories, and coca crop spraying operations have affected fields across borders and have compounded local displacement problems. Although the cross-border nature of these problems suggests the need for cross-border solutions, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador have failed to pursue joint responses. Conflicting analyses and approaches, and diplomatic tensions have encouraged all three states to indulge in ultimately pointless recrimination over violations of national sovereignty, or failures to control frontiers which have allowed armed groups free transit. Presidential leadership in all three countries over the last ten years has served to exacerbate friction. Leaders have had personal differences and have tended to be distrustful of diplomacy. National strategies have been correspondingly divisive, such as taking unilateral actions, placing restrictions on freedom of movement, imposing economic sanctions, undertaking international legal actions, militarising mutual borders and sometimes making threats of war. Marginalised borderland populations have paid the highest price for cross-border tensions. Fighting among armed groups over 60 | Accord | ISSUE 22 territory and resources, and between armed groups and the Colombian army, has displaced countless borderland villagers. Many borderland communities rely on crossing borders for survival, using small pathways and handmade bridges for transit to exchange goods and services. But armed groups also use these routes and many have consequently been bombed by Ecuador or Venezuela, or have been subject to severe controls by Colombian authorities. Retaliatory restrictions on Colombian exports by Quito and Caracas has contributed to unemployment in Colombia, and to shortages and inflated prices in Venezuela and Ecuador. This has further encouraged smuggling networks and hindered regional integration.