World Tour: Colombia's new wave of violence

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: a World Tour Special Report.

The South American nation of Colombia was once plagued by drug cartels and violent armed conflict. But by the early 2000s it became a relatively peaceful regional power.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: This summer, though, after the traumatic shooting of a popular opposition candidate, Colombians worry the country is returning to its violent past.

WORLD’s Jenny Lind Schmitt reports.

AUDIO: [Moment of Miguel’s shooting]

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe comes from a long line of leaders targeted for their work. His grandfather led Colombia in the 1980s at the height of the country’s security crisis. Uribe’s mother, a journalist, was taken hostage by the Medellin drug cartel and eventually killed during a rescue mission in the 1990s. Then in June, Uribe’s presidential campaign ground to a halt when he was shot in the head twice during a speech in the nation’s capital.

AUDIO: [People protesting]

Authorities charged a 15-year-old boy for carrying out the shooting, but continued investigating to find out who planned the attack. National Police Director Carlos Fernando Triana admitted in June that Colombia’s Armed Revolutionary Forces, also known as the FARC, was likely behind the attack.

TRIANA: Hoy tras esa captura importante, cobra relevancia esta hipótesis. Sin embargo no podemos descartar absolutamente nada… Ahí seguimos trabajando… para llegar hasta la última persona que participó de este hecho.

[TRANSLATION: After today’s important arrest, this hypothesis has gained relevance. However, we cannot rule out anything... We are here working... to track down every person who participated in this crime.]

FARC was once the deadliest rebel group in Colombia before signing a peace treaty with the government and disbanding in 2016. But some factions of the FARC rejected the terms of surrender and have increased their activity in the years since then.

Even more worrying is the rapid growth of other criminal actors competing for power inside Colombia. WORLD’s Carlos Paez spoke with Carlos Chacón, a security expert and executive director of the Hernán Echavarría Olózaga Political Science Institute in Bogotá.

CHACÓN: Todas son organizaciones de crimen organizado dedicadas a extraer rentas de forma ilícita, donde encontramos no solamente el narcotráfico y la extracción y comercialización ilícita de oro, sino otras economías como el contrabando, la trata y tráfico de personas de armas.  Y lo que han venido haciendo es enfrentar no solamente al estado…sino con otros grupos criminales, lo cual ha llevado a una crisis.

[TRANSLATION: They’re all organized crime organizations dedicated to illegal rents like drug trafficking , illegal gold mining, and also other economies such as smuggling, human and arms trafficking. And what they have been doing is confronting not only the State... but also other criminal groups, which has led to a crisis.]

Guerilla groups are also spreading across borders. Rebel factions like the National Liberation Army have expanded from Colombia into Venezuela to increase their numbers and black market trading.

CHACÓN: Sin un cambio democrático en Venezuela, la situación de amenazas a la seguridad de Colombia va a ser permanente.  Venezuela, especialmente desde la llegada de Hugo Chávez al poder se convirtió no solamente en un santuario y un retaguardia estratégico de organizaciones criminales como el ELN y las FARC, sino que además se convirtió en un teatro de operaciones.

[TRANSLATION: Without democratic change in Venezuela, threats to Colombian security will be permanent. Venezuela, especially since Hugo Chávez came to power, has become not only a sanctuary and strategic rear base for criminal organizations such as the ELN and the FARC, but also a theater of operations.]

But the conflict has expanded beyond guerilla groups and the military. It also increasingly affects Colombian civilians. On July 2nd, Colombia’s attorney general confirmed the murder of 8 civic and church leaders in Guaviare, in the south-central region of the country. FARC militants captured them earlier in the year.

Evangelicals are increasingly vulnerable to pressure from belligerent groups. Carlos Paez also spoke with Rosa Erazo. She’s the deputy officer for Colombia with Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

ROSA: ¿Pero cuando usted predica el Cristo de perdonar a los enemigos... entonces los enemigos que son paramilitares están acá, pero la guerrilla es la que está gobernando la región, ahí sí, no? Entonces ah, no, ese, ese evangelio no nos gusta, dice la guerrilla… porque usted está perdonando a los paramilitares enemigos de nosotros.”

[TRANSLATION: What when you preach about forgiving your enemies… and the enemies are here, but the guerrillas are the ones ruling the region, right? So, ah, no, we don't like that gospel, the guerrillas say... because you are forgiving our enemies, the paramilitaries.]

Complicating the issue is the fact that President Gustavo Petro was himself a former guerilla fighter with the Cuban-backed M-19 rebels. Petro initially promised “Total Peace” by resuming talks with the insurgents. But peace seems more distant than ever. Rebel groups this year boast 22,000 soldiers – a 45% increase since the start of Petro’s term in 20-22. According to the Global Peace Index deaths from armed conflict have more than doubled since 20-23.

Juan Rey-Rubio is a Colombian graduate student at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. He told Carlos Paez that Petro’s peace strategy was doomed to fail.

RUBIO: So you know, to have a president that at one point stood alongside and took up arms is obviously going to embolden these, these groups, to act and to continue fighting, because they feel like they are going to be backed up. And unfortunately, it kind of seems like they are.

President Petro’s gradual reduction of the Colombian military and his repeated attempts to pardon criminal bosses has raised concerns among many Colombians who no longer feel protected by the State. Here’s security expert Chacón again.

CHACÓN: Y entonces, si justificamos delitos de tipo político, pues eso lleva a que los grupos criminales tengan un incentivo para enfrentar al estado… lo cierto es que no hay paz si no hay imperio de la ley, no hay paz si no hay garantías de seguridad.

[TRANSLATION: And so, if we justify political crimes, this leads to criminal groups having an incentive to confront the State... the truth is that there can be no peace without the rule of law, there can be no peace without security guarantees.]

According to polls from Chacón’s organization, two-thirds of Colombians fear for the nation’s democracy under Gustavo Petro. Miguel Uribe has shown miraculous signs of recovering from his injuries, and leads the polls ahead of elections next May. But rehabilitation just started, and it's uncertain if he will fully recover. In the meantime, CSW officer Rosa Erazo says Colombians must fight to support each other.

ROSA: Tenemos que aprender a hacer las denuncias, tenemos que aprender a levantar la voz, tenemos que aprender a hacer redes donde podamos protegernos los unos a los otros…Si hay ese amor y esa confraternidad en medio de todo eso, de un momento a otro vuelve a levantarse algo bonito y Colombia en algún momento va a ver la luz.

[TRANSLATION: We have to learn to report crimes, we have to learn to raise our voices, we have to learn to build networks where we can protect each other... If there is love and brotherhood in the midst of all this, something beautiful will rise again from one moment to the next, and Colombia will eventually see the light again.]

For World Tour with reporting from Carlos Paez, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt.

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