THE DYNAMICS OF VIOLENCE

Colombia's history of internal warfare is complex and often misunderstood,
and one must question whether just throwing more money into the conflict is
the answer

A political scientist, Laura Garces has worked extensively on U.S.
international affairs and is the author of the book, "The Globalization of
the Monroe Doctrine." She has lived in the United States since 1988 and has
taught at Rutgers and Johns Hopkins universities. For the past two years she
has been concentrating on the cultural and social dynamics that fuel
conflicts and currently is studying the situation in Colombia. She holds a
doctorate from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

(CNN) -- Colombia's geography, deeply fractured by the Andes and dense
forests, impaired the formation of a homogeneous nation. Communities
developed independently and often in relative isolation. The eradication of
most of the indigenous cultures likewise hindered social homogeneity. On the
other hand, Colombia's openness to the Pacific on the west and to the
Caribbean on the north made possible an early inclination for smuggling.

Insufficient revenues from taxes and trade accounted for the sparse presence
of the state in many areas. In other Latin American nations, the capitals
dominated politics. In Colombia, numerous mid-sized cities rivaled the
presence of central power.

In the first half of the 19th century, elites emerged among the privileged
classes and formed rival coalitions: the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Notwithstanding their differences, the basic goals of the parties were
identical -- assuring stability in their exercise of power.

Both feared the rise of a dictatorship, and unlike their counterparts in
neighboring countries in the 20th century, they shunned the military. The
largely illiterate peasants, who constituted most of the population, did not
represent a threat at least until the late 19th century and were manipulated
at will by each party's paternalistic rhetoric.

Given the physical absence of the state in many areas, expediency demanded
that peasants seek the protection of the local boss, or gamonal. Party
affiliations substituted for nationalism, cutting across classes. People
directed their energies toward partisan issues, since Colombia was never
involved in a prolonged external war.

La Violencia, An Unresolved Civil War

In the first century of its existence, Colombia was not a particularly
violent country, compared to its neighbors. There was no decisive struggle
that changed the political game. What happened is that as the two parties
struggled for power, social issues were neglected. Movements of unrest were
more often co-opted, exploited and reintegrated, mostly into the Liberal
Party, than were brutally suppressed.

A civil war broke out in 1946 when Conservatives won the presidency and
began reprisals against their rivals. Coalescing with previous unresolved
agrarian episodes of unrest, the war accelerated in 1948 with the
assassination of populist leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Perhaps as many as
300,000 people died before the war ended in the mid-1960s, hence the name La
Violencia.

After the brief dictatorship of Gen. Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957), Liberals and
Conservatives responded to the disorder by creating a "national front"
government whereby the two parties would share power and alternate the
presidency. This sharing of power by the elite factions persists to this
day.

Continuing unrest triggered successive administrations to invoke a "state of
siege" that gave them exceptional powers to govern. Simultaneously, citizens
started arming themselves, and the state gradually lost its monopoly of
force.

This privatization of defense began in the 1950s and emanated originally
within the parties. The private armed groups, however, were unable to
suppress the roots of protest that doggedly survived within various
insurgent affiliations.

In the mid-1960s, several leftist guerrilla groups arose, offering a
presence in spots where the state was absent. They relied initially to a
large extent on foreign aid from Communist countries such as Cuba. When
those sources dried up at the end of the Cold War, the guerrillas
increasingly resorted to kidnapping as a source of revenue.

In the 1980s, the rash of kidnappings by the guerrillas induced a backlash
among landowners, merchants and others that resulted in the emergence of the
paramilitaries. The overwhelmed armed forces were often accused of
collaborating with them.

In their determination to extinguish guerrillas, the paramilitaries
introduced large-scale killings. Revenues came from protection they offered
landlords, businessmen and drug lords, the latter having emerged in the
1980s as potent forces.

A Conflict Altered By Drug Money

The emergence of the drug lords in the late 1970s drastically adulterated
the conflict's political character. They insinuated themselves into
political venues (mainly to fight extradition to the United States) and
added the corrosive effect of drug money to the traditional client system,
bringing about widespread corruption and increasing impunity.

The FARC joined in the lucrative spoils of the drug trade by also offering
protection to the large estates of the drug lords.

This tacit abandonment of land reform, a key component of the guerrillas'
revolutionary program, marked a breaking point. The socio-political movement
then became just one more element in the struggle for power within the
state.

Violence gradually became endemic. Recent studies estimate that a large
portion of the homicides are not politically motivated and are only
indirectly related to the conflict.

The population, compelled to take a stance in a war it resists, is
intimidated and threatened. UNICEF reports that children as young as 8 are
forced into the ranks of the guerrillas and the paramilitaries. War-torn
areas breed economic distress for the peasantry, causing massive population
displacements, mostly of women and children under the age of 5.

A Brookings Institution report estimates that more than 1 million people
were displaced between 1985 and 1998, a process that continues. They are
hostages to a conflict that perpetuates itself without mercy, and in which
each protagonist competes for territorial control of the most vibrant
economic areas, since violence manifests itself in the country's richest,
not poorest, regions.

Peace negotiations, initiated by President Belisario Betancur after 1982,
had setbacks. In 1998, the presidential elections amounted to a plebiscite
for peace. Pastrana has been successful in restoring Colombia's credibility
abroad and in garnering financial assistance, both from the United States
and from Europe.

Plan Colombia, which includes $1.3 billion in U.S. aid, provides funds
mainly to eradicate coca crops. Large numbers of Colombians resent this kind
of intervention.

NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) protest that insufficient funds are
planned for the defense of human rights and for social initiatives.
Scientists and environmentalists argue that spraying herbicides to eradicate
the coca will lead to ecological ruin.

Drug specialists question the feasibility of developing alternative crops in
the poor soil where coca thrives. Some argue that the spraying begun in 1992
has not prevented the tripling of the coca acreage.

Finally, one should discuss the merits of fighting the drug problem
unilaterally and not within a regional context.

The targeting of Mexican drug production in the mid-1970s largely brought
about an increase of marijuana and coca production in Colombia. Recent
successful efforts in Peru and Bolivia have had similar effects. Colombia's
neighbors fear an exodus of people that probably will accompany eradication
of the coca crop.

It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the Colombian conundrum will yield
to current efforts of the international community.