colombia - recruitment and civil war

Greed vs Grievance

• grievance - rebels motivated by grievances against the gov that they view as oppressive

  • Emphasized in early times

  • especially true for issues related to race, religion, ethnicity

• Greed: motivated by looting, getting natural resources

  • “Kalashnikov lifestyle”

  • started to be seen more after Cold War

colombia “La Violencia”

1960s - Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Arm (ELN) emerge

• grievance vs propety seen as primary motivation

1980s - Colombia hub of western hemisphere drug trade

Gender and FARC

• claimed to fight on behalf of the poor

• women prominant members

• advocated for weomens rights, idigenous rights, LGBTQ rights

Gov sponsored parmilitaries

• colombian army troops could win battles but not occupy and hold territory

• paramilitaries in right-winge armed units fought guerrillas and punished civilians for supporting them

why use paramilitaries

• army could outsource a key aspect of war against rebels

• gave gov plausible deniability for massacres

• formed by powerful land-owners

US role

• Gen Yarborough earliest US proponent of using paramilitaries

• 2000: impliments plan colombia a strategy to combat drug gangs and leftist rebels

• called a plan to increase its military presence

• still 1000 Us Marines based in Colombia

Motivating joining guerrilla and parqamilitary (Arjona and Kalyvas)

• they interviewed 400 ex-guerrillas

• most joined under 25

• looking for better life, or thought they were fighting for a just cause

• greed and grievance not mutually exclusive

Theories of human decision-making

Contingent choice: making decisions as situations evolve, based on circumstances or conditions that may be unknown at the time of the decision

Rational choice: risk-averse utility-maximizer who make decisions on logical assessment and cost benefit analysis

why did they join the groups

• 1/3 thought it was a small commitement

• suggests contingent choice not made by rational actors

• cant look for a single reason for joining

armed conflict and recruitment

• absence of state control facilitates rebel recruitment

• where armed groups’ presence is entrenched, it becomes a driver of locals joining

• poeple join from areas, communities and families who have been victimized by war

2016 peace deal

• after 57 years of fighting, gov and FARC had peace deal

• deal ended hostilities, ensured amnesty and lower sentences for rebels accused of crime

• FARC gets 10 congressional seats

post-transition

• post-accord violence continued

• FARC accused gov of failing in protecting them

• over 1K rebels have joined various dissident groups

• paramilitary violence has persisted in resource-ruch areas

Violence and insecurity (Moser)

• violence in developing countries exists along a continuum

• includes

  • political violence btw state and non-state actors

  • institutional ciolence by the state informal institutionand the private sector (extrajudicial killings ect)

Dynamics of violence and insecurity

• economic and economic/social violence

  • organized crime, drug trafficking , robbery and theft

• social violence

  • intimate partner viokencce and family violence

• Often overlap in terms of perpetrator and cause

• leave violent legacies