Extractive Democracy and Paramilitary Control in Colombia

Key Insight

Colombia, despite a long history of democratic elections since 1958, lacks inclusive institutions, leading to decades of civil war, violence, and violations of civil liberties. This contrasts with a fully failed state like Sierra Leone, but still results in significant casualties and an absence of state authority in large parts of the country. The civil war, known as 'La Violencia' in the 1950s, paved the way for a range of insurgent groups, including communist revolutionaries like the FARC, who engaged in kidnapping and murder, forcing rural populations to pay 'vacuna' (vaccination) fees for protection.

In response to guerrilla actions, such as the 1981 kidnapping and murder of dairy farmer Jesus Castaño by FARC, paramilitary groups emerged. Castaño's sons founded Los Tangueros, which expanded and merged with other groups to form the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) by 1997, growing to an estimated 30000 armed men by 2001. These paramilitaries not only fought guerrillas but also engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, murder of civilians, and exerted immense political influence, fixing elections and ensuring the election of favored candidates, with approximately one-third of the 2002 Congress and Senate owing their seats to paramilitary support.

The AUC effectively took over governmental functions in large regions, collecting 'taxes' (expropriations for their own pockets), delivering 'justice,' and controlling territory. An extraordinary pact in Casanare, an oil-rich department, required mayors to give 50 percent of their municipality budget, 10 percent of every contract, and affiliate with the paramilitary's political party. This systematic expropriation included land, with estimates as high as 10 percent of all rural land expropriated by paramilitaries. The conflict led to nearly 4.5 million internally displaced people by 2010, around 10 percent of Colombia's population, highlighting the state's incomplete authority and the symbiotic relationship between national politicians and regional lawlessness, which allows politicians to exploit the situation and paramilitaries to operate with leniency.