ABOUT
The Colombian Conflict
Although Colombia’s conflict may feel a world away, its effects are in fact much closer than we might imagine.
In 2016, the government of Colombia negotiated a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ending over 50 years of civil war.
Nevertheless, demand for cocaine and its production and trafficking continues to destabilize the entire American region by diminishing the rule of law, transparency and the trust of citizens. The violence caused by the cocaine trade is linked to the changing patterns of migration in the region, and we see this with huge numbers of Central American migrants travelling north to the US-Mexico border to seek asylum.
The absence of peace is closely correlated with the lack of sustainable development and fair profits.
Colombian small farmers face the dilemma of either growing illicit crops as a means of survival because they are more lucrative, or farming legal crops in poverty. Indeed, the majority of Colombia’s cacao farmers operate on just three hectares of land, and many of these farmers live below the poverty line ($2 USD / day).
The 2016 Colombian peace agreement contains provisions to formalize land ownership for peasants, with a crop substitution programme to help them switch coca crops (the base ingredient in cocaine) for legal alternatives such as coffee and cacao (the base ingredient in chocolate).
Peace is fragile, and some FARC members took up arms again in August 2019, and this process only accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the intervening period, the vacuum left by the FARC had been filled by a myriad of other armed groups. Those factions have pressured coca farmers to steer clear of the peace process’s crop substitution program, often at the barrel of a gun, and targeted regional activists who campaign in favour of the peace process’s provisions. Beyond the additional logistical and governance challenges, the peace process will require the blending of public and private capital in order to succeed.
