Cesar: Inequality and absence of State allows violence against social leaders

Cesar faces violence against social leaders

Over the years, Colombia has faced different problems such as the war between the state and the guerrilla forces and the inequality among its inhabitants; in recent years, after the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the FARC in 2016, other problems have been unleashed, such as the assassination of social leaders who have been threatened for defending their communities rights by armed groups which want to take control of the zones where in the past were the guerrilla forces of the FARC.

The department of Cesar is an example of this situation because of the different dynamics that are evident in the territory. It is one of the 32 departments of Colombia, and it is located in the northeast of the country. Cesar reaches its limits in the north with the departments of La Guajira and Magdalena; to the south, with Bolivar, Santander and Norte de Santander; and to the east, with Norte de Santander and Venezuela. Cesar  has become one of the Colombian territories with the lowest levels of economic and social development, and with a strong presence of illegality in many of its senses; factors which have caused the murder of many social leaders who have demanded better management of the situation. This article will explore topics like poverty, illegality, underdevelopment and of course the murder of social leaders in this department. Cesar is one of the departments with the greatest presence of illegality, despite not being one of the largest. The illegality present in the department includes illegal mining, illegal groups and political clans who contribute to practices of corruption. 

The first issue is illegal mining, which is affecting 24 of the 25 municipalities in Cesar. The department is projected today as the primary coal producer in Colombia. Mining went from representing 8% of the departmental gross domestic product in 1990 to 33.1% in 2005. For 2018, according to the Colombian Ministry of Commerce, in the gross domestic product of the department, mining represents 44% of the total, and because of that we can see a maintenance in Cesar’s economy, even if in general the GDP of the department is notoriously lower than the GDP of the country. Despite this, 58 illegal mining companies that devastate rivers and forests have been identified. In the same way, 680 families subsist from illegal mining in 33 brickyards and 31 quarries.

The next issue concerns the illegal groups which are another critical factor in the department. Due to the position of the department and its proximity to the Venezuelan border, the absence of the state has allowed illegal groups to fill this power vacuum. Before the Peace Agreement, armed groups like the FARC and the ELN, in addition to paramilitaries, had established a presence in this department. The FARC arrived in the 1980s and consolidated to the north and center, while the ELN, which arrived in the 1970s, dominated the south. For their part, the paramilitaries, with groups such as the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) and the AUSC (Autodefensas Campesinas del Sur del Cesar) managed to locate themselves throughout the territory. Currently, the FARC have demobilized, but there remains some of its members who rejected the peace deal and are still doing the things that they did before, in addition to the presence of other criminal organisations made up of former paramilitaries. These groups even intervene in democratic exercises such as the local elections threatening candidates and intimidating the community in order to prevent them from voting. In the same way they have carried out massacres and displaced people from their lands; all this to gain power and control zones through violence.

The final factor to highlight regards the political clans such as the Gneccos, the Araujos and the Castros, who are generally the ones who take turns in the public offices of the department. These clans want to gain power and money and because of that try to control the territory in political matters and also economically under corrupt and illegal practices but they do not make a significant enough contribution for the community despite running candidates in every local election. Furthermore, they configure a political factor that does not allow the free political development of the territory. These peculiarities are the result of the weak presence of the state in this territory and an expression of a questionable democracy. It makes it difficult for these municipalities and departments to interact competitively with all other regions of the country in social, political and economic terms.

Cesar shows a problematic social situation that places it as one of the least developed regions and one of the regions with the greatest challenges in Colombia, despite having an important mining reserve that is the power of its entire economy. In this sense, we can mention the inequity within their society and the backwardness of basic services, infrastructure, health and education in which much of the population lives in the face of the country’s development possibilities. Also, Cesarean society, traditionally a rural society, poor and isolated from trade flows, has been slowly transforming and in recent decades the community has been migrating towards populated centers. Cesar’s urbanization process, however, has been slower than the national one.

According to The National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE, for its initials in Spanish) dimensional poverty in the department, although it has decreased compared to 2005, which showed 55%, as opposed to 33.2% in 2018, is still higher than the national total that was for that year 19.6%. It is necessary to specify that this index is made up of 5 dimensions: health, work, the conditions of childhood and youth, educational conditions, and the conditions of housing and public services, although national government statistics show that there has been an increase in the department’s GDP, thanks especially to the exploitation of coal. When the GINI indicator, which shows the inequality index in a given population in terms of their incomes, is observed, it is seen that it is not being distributed, with a percentage of 0,488%. (DANE,2018). These dynamics present in the department make the absence of the state increasingly noticeable and how this has meant a lack of opportunities and social development for the department and the quality of life for the citizens. Here, where the State has not reached, illegality has played at its whim with citizens doing with them what they want regardless of anything, and citizens have had to endure all this to be able to have at least their basic needs satisfied.

The situation in the department has made many people claim and demand the presence of the State in this area that has been characteristically forgotten. However, the actions of this group of people (activists, human rights defenders and social leaders) have often been abruptly and violently interrupted. The presence of illegal groups and interests, coupled with a lack of true state presence and a problematic social situation, is leaving social leaders and rights defenders in a vulnerable situation in Cesar. The assassination of social leaders is a huge problem that crosses the department, and in the last years since the peace agreement the situation of violence against leaders in Cesar is increasing.

There are three cases to highlight. In first place, the case of Luis Vera Gamboa who was a peasant leader and was also the vice-president of the Communal Action Board in the village of El Desengaño. He was shot dead alongside another man in Chimichagua, Cesar on August 23rd, 2018. His partner was wounded in the attack and his 13 year old step-daughter survived the attack by hiding under a bed. In second place, Wilson Chaustre Parada, a demobilized ex-paramilitary, was shot dead on September 26th 2018 at his farm in the municipality of Pueblo Bello, Cesar. Wilson was the president of the Communal Action Board in the area of Casa de Zinc. According to his sister he was threatened many times through intimidating calls telling him to leave the area because they were going to kill him but he ignored these threats. Finally, the case of Luis Carlos Hernandez, a social leader of the municipality of Curumaní, who was a representative of the Departmental Table of Participation of Victims, and a former candidate for the council of Curumani. He was shot dead by unknown subjects in the hamlet of Los Ranchos, on December 12th 2019.

All of them have some things in common, like that they held an important position representing their community; an example being their representative position on the community action board. It is understood therefore that they represent and support the well-being of the population. They educate people about what is right and what is wrong in order to delegitimize violence and illegal practices. Community action boards also pressure the state to create efficient public policies and fight corruption. This could lead to the state taking actions against the illegal groups in the zone and can make those groups feel pressured and threatened, and this is one reason why leaders like these are being killed.

In the same way, these systematic murders demonstrate that there are groups interested in maintaining a specific order in Cesar and that they will not allow claims of any kind which might threaten their status quo. This has made the situation in the department increasingly stressful. It can be said that illegal practices in Colombia are more than notorious, especially in territories like Cesar that have a huge lack of State that allows the presence of other dynamics like illegalities; for example armed groups, political clans and illegal mining. Also the risk in the territory and for the citizens increases when we focus on the social situation of the department with a high level of poverty and undevelopment.

The combination of all these factors brings a difficult situation for some people that want to fight against the corruption and the irregularities. Social leaders in Cesar who rise up to fight are brutally assassinated in the department and suffer the worst consequences for trying to bring a better quality life.

*Article written by Franchesca Collante, Elissa Medel & Claudeth Ospina

Bibliography

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