ARAUCA
THE
CURSE OF THE BORDER
A horror movie title…
 |
| OMAR COLMENARES TRUJILLO |
The Department of Arauca, is
one of the most extensive of the Colombian territory, has an average
temperature of 30 ° C. It limits by the north and by the east with Venezuela;
to the south with the departments of Casanare and Vichada; and for the west
with the department of Boyacá.
Arauca is the capital
municipality of the department of Arauca in Colombia. Its full name is Villa de
Santa Bárbara de Arauca (currently not used) and is located on the south bank
of the river of the same name. It borders the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
to the north, with which it is connected by the José Antonio Páez International
Bridge and communicates by land to the center of Colombia through the
Libertadores Route that joins the cities of Caracas and Bogotá.
The department includes three
major sub-regions: the piedmont, the jungle and the savannah.
Hydrography: Arauca
River, Casanare, Meta and large pipes.
Economy: It is
based on its oil wealth. In 1983, the Caño Limón well was discovered. The soils
of the region have shown good conditions for the cultivation of cocoa, bananas,
cassava, rice and fruits, as well as industrialized crops such as African palm,
cotton, sorghum, soybeans and sesame seeds. Livestock is another important item
in the economy of the department.
In this opportunity, I will
address, from the once existing policy of democratic security, to perhaps
demonstrate the cause, the causes of a peace that never arrived in this region.
that the peace process with the FARC was perhaps a trigger for violence in this
forgotten and isolated region of Colombia.
Arauca is a department that due
to its geographical condition and the wealth of economic resources it offers,
has historically been a geostrategic region for armed and unarmed, legal and
illegal actors.
From its physical-environmental
characteristics, the importance variety of energy and natural resources. The
plain has large areas of natural pastures suitable for livestock and vegetation
of floodplain savanna. The foothills and mountains, meanwhile, are fertile
lands for agricultural production, used today by guerrillas and paramilitaries
to plant and control crops for illicit use. It also has important water
resources to be surrounded by the Arauca, Casanare and Meta rivers and be
connected to the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy (CEC, 2003), which despite its
intrinsic benefits, have been at the mercy of the weak state presence .
In addition to the above, what
characterizes this department at a national level is its wealth of energy
resources, particularly its oil wells, which lie mostly in the area located
between the Sarare region and the Plain. Since its discovery, these natural
resources have been exploited, without rigorous state control, by national and
international oil companies. This situation has led to the economy of the department
having been centralized in oil production at the expense of the native
population, its territory and the environment, in which it has not been
invested in proportion to the high yields of the exploitation of the
hydrocarbons.
WAR
FOR TERRITORIAL CONTROL
Due to the geostrategic
importance of the department, Arauca has been a territory of constant dispute
of economic and political power over territorial control and land tenure. At
first, colonization, especially in the foothills, was led by the State through
the former Caja Agraria in the early years and by the Colombian Institute of
Agrarian Reform (INCORA) from 1962 to the 1980s.
Despite the fact that
colonization was promoted by the State, upon arrival, the settlers did not find
the necessary state support, nor the development of infrastructure or living
conditions that would allow an adequate settlement of the population. Faced
with the precariousness of institutional and infrastructure conditions, the
settlers "made themselves into a land, made it productive, without
schools, without health posts and above all without roads" (CNAI, 2012-a).
This meant that about twenty-five thousand people would be "trapped in
their dream of having a fnca, but without communication possibilities" (CNAI,
2012-a).
PETROLEUM
AND NARCOTRAFFIC
The discovery of the oil well
Caño Limón in Arauquita in the eighties, would mark the beginning of oil
exploration in the department. The operation of the field was in charge of the
American multinational Occidental Petroleum (OXY), which was linked through the
Cravo Norte partnership contract with the Colombian oil company Ecopetrol. From
198362 began the continuous extraction of crude oil from the region
(Observatory DDHH and DIH, 2008 and Alcaldía Municipal de Arauca, 2011) and as
a consequence of its exponential growth, during the last two decades, Arauca
has supported its economy on the industry extractive oil, which constitutes 61%
of the gross domestic product (Gobernación de Arauca, 2012).
However, this economy of
"distraction" has not generated the productive linkages necessary for
the construction of an endogenous economy that catalyzes opportunities for the
new generations of Araucanians. On the contrary, when generating internal
conflicts and a lack of opportunities, great budgetary efforts have been
necessary to provide them with State services (Governación de Arauca, 2012,
page 13). A clear example of this is presented in the municipality of
Arauquita, precisely where the Caño Limón deposit is located63. Due to the
great power of this legal economy, this municipality has faced members of the
military forces that are sent to protect oil complexes such as Caño Limón, and
guerrilla groups that attempt against the oil infrastructure as retaliation
against the oil companies that do not yield to extortion.
The huge royalties that oil
exploitation has left have not been allocated by government authorities to
social development and infrastructure plans, investment in agricultural
production projects and training to improve rural and livestock practices,
among others, that seek to effectively guarantee the rights of farmers. the
population.
The oil wealth has not
translated into improvements in the living conditions of the Araucanians, at
least in proportion to the wealth generated by oil exploitation. In effect, the
oil complex was increasing territories in a massive way and its growth was
simultaneous to the incursion of the illegal armed groups that sought to
benefit from the profits, for which they began to demand "vaccines"
and extortions.
THE
ABSENCE OF THE RULE OF LAW
The historical political
centralization of the Colombian State has made the border condition of the
department of Arauca one of the factors that has contributed to its weak
institutionality and the configuration of its political structures, which
prevents the guarantee of social, political and social rights. of its
inhabitants. Its history of late colonization, driven by the State itself, led
this department to develop an economic dynamic marked by the oil industry and
the exchange with Venezuela .
The abandonment of the social
State of law has then translated into the situation of poverty and social
inequality of its inhabitants, which, according to the 2005 census, places the
department at a multidimensional poverty rate of 79% (DANE, 2005). Despite
having one of the most important oil complexes in the country.
Revenues from hydrocarbon
royalties have not changed these parameters or promoted the state presence in
the area, on the contrary, "pro-oil development" has brought with it
a persistent situation of human rights violation and institutional weakness
(Social Organizations of the Center East 2012, November 21, 14 years after the
massacre of the Cabuya, in Tame-Arauca, recovered on April 2, 2014). In fact,
structural poverty has been deepened, among other reasons, by the incessant
violence among all the actors of the armed conflict, being particularly
dramatic the situation in the Sarare region (Human Rights Observatory and IHL,
2013, DANE 2005 and CNMH, 2013).
HISTORY
OF AN ENDLESS WAR
For more than three decades,
the department of Arauca has been the scene of the growing violence, both of
the armed conflict and of that product of sociopolitical and economic interests
that have hit the country as a whole. This violence, although constant and
latent, has not been the same in time, since it has been mutating depending on
the dynamics, interests and strategies of the armed conflict. For this reason,
the recount of the manifestations of the violence in Arauca will be made from
its current dynamics, taking as reference the year 1980, until 2013. These
manifestations will be analyzed from four periods66, which are based on the
changes in the public policies of attention to forced displacement in Colombia
and the milestones of the internal armed conflict.
DISCOVERY
OF OIL (1980-1988).
In the decade of the eighties,
the National Liberation Army (ELN), through the so-called Domingo Laín Front,
was the guerrilla group with the greatest presence in the area, a product of
the capitalization of the deep social discontent generated by the directed
colonization. Its strong presence coincided with the discovery of important oil
deposits in the area and the beginning of oil exploitation through the Caño
Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline, which at that time was the most important in the
country (Observatorio DDHH y DIH, 2002) . One of the main objectives of the ELN
in the department was to benefit from the oil economy, positioning itself along
the Caño Limón pipeline that crosses three of the departments bordering
Venezuela.
For its part, in the decade of
the eighties, the presence of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
in the department was incipient and exploratory in nature. The incursion of
this guerrilla group in Arauca began by strategic action north of the eastern
cordillera with the capture of Fortul in 1980. Although in this period the FARC
did not manage to position itself territorially towards the border of the
Arauca River, its incursion into This geostrategic zone allowed them to later
consolidate and control the foothills (Observatorio DDHH y DIH, 2002). During
this period, both the ELN and the FARC took advantage of the territories of the
Cocuy National Natural Park as a resting, replenishing and hiding area
(Observatorio DDHH y DIH, 2002-a).
TERRITORIAL
CONTROL (1989-1996)
Beginning in the 1990s, the
FARC strengthened militarily through the Frente 10, also known as the Guadalupe
Salcedo Bloc, consolidating its power by controlling the eastern cordillera
corridor from Ecuador to Venezuela. The ELN, on the other hand, maintained an
important presence in the region, which continued to be directed, mainly, to
the attack on the oil infrastructure. This situation produced an increasing
militarization of the area by the State, which brought with it an increase in
armed actions among all the actors of the armed conflict, in the midst of which
the civilian population was locked up and unprotected.
The dispute over territorial
control between the guerrillas of the FARC and the ELN, characteristic of this
period, contributed enormously to the escalation of the armed actions. Added to
this was the occurrence of paramilitary actions associated with the dirty war
dynamics that were being lived in the country at that time without the
existence of paramilitary groups based in the territory. Evidence of the above
is "the assassinations of civilians and left-wing activists [continued]
throughout the entire decade of the 1990s" (Observatory Human Rights and
International Humanitarian Law, 2002), which intensified in the following
period.
PARAMILITARISM
(1997-2004)
Facing a strengthened FARC and
a significant presence of the ELN, the paramilitary incursion in Arauca took
place in 2001 with the creation of the Vencedores de Arauca Bloc (BVA) of the
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), led by Miguel Ángel Mejía Múnera,
alias El Mellizo, alias Rubén and alias Cúcuta (Verdad Abierta, 2012, February
8, The delays in the investigation against Julio Acosta Bernal). The
paramilitary incursion, which occurred from the department of Casanare through
the municipalities of Tame, Cravo Norte and Puerto Rondón, came to
"determine the new scenario of the conflict" (Observatory Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law, 2002). The resurgence of the
territorial dispute after the introduction of a new armed actor resulted in an
escalation of attacks against the civilian population.
The BVA, led by the well-known drug traffickers known as Los Mellizos70 and whose men were mostly formed in the Casanare71 by the Centauros Bloc (Corte, 2012), entered Arauca with the objective of taking the profits of the economy from the guerrillas. oil and drug trafficking (Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bogotá, 2012). Its strategy focused on controlling the department from the mountain range of the piedmont, in the municipality of Tame, by the route that connects the capital of the department and thus be able to control municipalities of oil production and border crossings. In this way, the inhabitants of the region remember that the paramilitary objective of the ACCU (Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá) was dual, and for that they allied themselves with narcos: controlling the main economic routes internally and the connection route with Venezuela externally.
On the occasion of the violent
paramilitary incursion from the southwest of the department and the increasing
militarization of the border by the public force, the guerrilla groups began to
withdraw to border areas on the Arauca river bed. In this way, the guerrillas
retreated mainly in Saravena and Arauquita, where they had greater control over
the Araucanian territory, as well as in La Victoria and El Amparo in Venezuelan
territory. However, the paramilitary action managed to expand towards the north
of the department and its fronts penetrated and came to have a presence in the
Alto Apure area in Venezuelan territory.
The paramilitary plan with
which it aspired to conquer the so-called Route of the Liberators, which
connects the center of the country with the Venezuelan border, was marked with
blood and terror (IHR Court, 2012 and Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation, 2003).
Indeed, as of the decade of 200073, the BVA, like other structures of the AUC,
executed systematic and massive massacres in villages of the municipality of
Tame such as La Cabuya, Matal de Flor Amarillo, Piñalito, Cravo Charro, Caño
Seco and Caracoles , 74 among others. The massacres, accompanied by other
repertoires of violence75, "had one objective: to attack all those persons
designated as alleged members of the guerrilla and their families, journalists,
informants of the authorities, unionized teachers, officials, businessmen,
cattlemen and owners of large tracts of land "(Verdad Abierta, 2013,
October 18, The terror that planted the Vencedores Block in Arauca).
PARAMILITARY
TRUCE
The beginning of this period is
marked by the process of demobilization of the paramilitaries of the AUC,
within which the BVA78 Block was included in the framework of the so-called
Justice and Peace Law (Diario Ofcial, No. 45.980, 2005, 25 de July, Law 975 of
2005, "Whereby provisions are issued for the reinstatement of members of
armed groups organized outside the law, that contribute effectively to the
achievement of national peace and other provisions are issued for humanitarian
agreements" ). Following the paramilitary demobilization, the guerrillas
of the FARC and the ELN mutually declared war for control of the territories
and the parapolitical alliances that the AUC had abandoned in the region (CNAI,
2012). In addition, the two guerrilla groups had a presence in Arauquita when
new oil wells were found, a situation that triggered a conflict over the
control of company revenues (MOE CNAI, 2010).
THE
SUCCESS OF DEMOCRATIC SECURITY.
From the second half of the
government of President Pastrana, the state presence on the border with
Venezuela began to increase significantly with the development of an
inter-institutional offensive that aimed to regain control of the state over
the department of Arauca and its municipalities, whose The budget and policies
were co-administered by the ELN guerrillas.
This offensive is accompanied
by the strengthening of the military police device available in the department
with two primary objectives, to increase control of the roads-there were at the
moment almost under the absolute control of the illegal groups-and to
neutralize any war action against the pipeline. lemon coveñas that until then
had suffered almost 500 attacks, with a catastrophic environmental and economic
impact for that region.
The strengthening of the public
force in Arauca was given by the military cooperation of the United States that
in the framework of the global war on terrorism assigned at least US $ 100
million for the equipment of the brigade XVIII and deployment of carabineros
mobile squads, thus strengthening the device assigned to the protection of the
oil pipeline that connects one of the oil fields of Colombia with the export
port located in the Caribbean.
The plan for Arauca begins to
yield results at the end of the Pastrana government and the progressive
recovery of the institutional space gives rise to the fact that, once the
mandate of President Uribe was inaugurated, he deepens his work in this area;
This is how the public force is dedicated to regain absolute control of the
urban areas of the Arauca, Arauquita and Saravena populations, contributing in
turn to broaden the range of action of the state control agencies and the
judicial system, blocking maximum funding of illegal groups with official
budgets.
In that order of ideas, the
government decides to strengthen the actions in that region with the creation
of a rehabilitation and consolidation zone defined as a geographical area
affected by actions of illegal armed groups, in order to guarantee
institutional stability, re-establish order constitutional, the integrity of
the national territory and the protection of the civilian population, it is
necessary to apply one or more exceptional measures.
This denomination for the
territory of Arauca sought to guarantee a preponderant participation of the
central government in the administration of the department and the
municipalities through military authorities, when in this way a definitive blow
is formed to the corruption networks built among local public officials. and
illegal armed groups.
The Ministry of Defense gave
continuity to the programs launched by the previous government and in the rural
areas of this department were placed mobile squadrons of carabineros- police
forces specialized in the control of rural areas- at least three platoons were
deployed. peasant soldiers in what can be called the prime envion government
for the recovery of territorial control in the framework of democratic security
policy.
The Constitutional Court
subsequently declared unconstitutional the decree regulating the operation of
the rehabilitation and consolidation zones, sustaining the strategies
implemented by the previous government began to give immediate results,
ratifying that the key variables to recover Arauca were the decrease in access
to the public budget by the guerrilla organizations and the sustained presence
of military and police units in the areas of action, the first results proved
it.
The attacks against the
pipeline began to show a dramatic reduction; In a biannual review we can see a
decrease of at least 50 percent between the last two governments of Pastrana
and the first two years of the Uribe government, going from 89 attacks in the
period 2000-2001 to 43 in 2002- 2003.
However, the intervention plan
in Arauca is not repeated in the same way throughout the border, several areas
did not allow it to do so, firstly, the serious situation in Araucania was not
replicated in the same proportion in the other departments or did not have the
same visibility, as well as limited availability of budgetary and military
resources.
The combination of strategies
in development from the Pastrana government with the democratic security policy
allowed the government of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez to take the initiative
away from the guerrilla groups in this department in just two years,
restricting his actions progressively to acts isolated terrorists.
This progress was based on a 1994
percent increase in military operations in the department during the first two
years of the Uribe government compared to the last two years of the previous
mandate, which represent the fulfillment in the field of the government's
objective to develop sustained operations. at the time that they did not give
the guerrilla forces the possibility of reorganizing or regrouping.
The summation of the increase
of the state military initiative, the location of Emcar territorial control
forces and soldiers of my people and the judicial and intelligence offensive
against the sources of guerrilla financing, ended up putting the indicators in
favor of the state and locating the guerrillas of the ELN through a path of no
return, by reducing its capacity for action to the minimum, so much so that
some areas were absorbed by the FARC and in others they entered into confrontation
with that subvertion organization.
In the early hours of October
21, 2003, about 31 public officials were captured in the department of Arauca,
apparently because they formed a support network for the ELN service, in which
the former government secretary of the current Governor Ricardo Alvarado Bestene
stands out. , Mercedes Rincón Espinel, as well as Edna Benítez, former
Departmental Secretary, Ana Emma Mojica, ex-manager of Enelar. And the
president of the departmental assembly at that time, Ramón del Carmen Garcés
for links with the ELN and allocate resources through contractors to these
illegal groups.
The impact of the strategy
against the ELN is of such magnitude that the public force was able to relocate
resources in the offensive against the FARC in this department, without this
meaning a space for the ELENO rearrangement. In fact, for this organization the
loss of Arauca meant the reduction of its actions to a historical minimum, by
mid-2004 the ELN had lost one of its main sources of financing the Araucan oil
royalties.
The need that the state faced
to combat a force that increased its presence in this border department, from
the annexation of armed structures of the ELN and the administration of drug
trafficking routes to Venezuela, meant that, in addition to the recovery of the
territory, the security forces keep the siege on the structures of the Farc,
minimizing the spaces available for rest, regrouping and coordination of
offensives. The above definitely forced the guerrilla group to move their rear
to Venezuelan territory, in the Apure state, where camps were located very close
to the border, a proof of this is the murder of Venezuelan civilians and
military members of the PDVSA commission in 2004 .
Regarding the pipeline's area,
the general armed offensive of the illegal armed groups decreased considerably.
In the case of sabotage, a reduction was achieved in all acts except those
against the energy infrastructure that increased in an atypical manner, during
the two years of the great government offensive, these acts ended up being an
alternative for the guerrilla groups to obstruct the production and transport
of oil, and send contradictory signals to the civilian population.
In 2004 and 2005 11 and 14
power towers of ISA were demolished and between 10 and 13 of ENELAR, (Arauca
Energy Company) according to the same
ISA; for 2007 the sabotage indicators reached 0.
Armed strikes and checkpoints
are two variables that had a negative behavior. In the first aspect, Arauca is
the only department on the Border Strip where there were armed strikes, and in
2007 two of the four occurred since 2003; However, these armed strikes did not
mean the resumption of control by the Güerilla of the border territory.
The illegal roadblocks, the
number stopped being significant.
The data thrown up by the
follow-up to acts of sabotage in the department of Arauca that passed in 2000
from 48 to 4 in 2007, reveal what the government strategy in that department
turned out to be a success, with that section of the strip remaining for 2008
border under the control of the Colombian state and the guerrillas far from
being able to undertake an articulated offensive.
The enumeration of these events
may lead me to elaborate an argument whose main purpose is to argue that
without strengthening the rule of law it is impossible for the department of
Arauca to rise from the deplorable situation in which it finds itself, since it
is the weakening of the state one of the triggers of violence and terrorism.
But of course, that this state
of law, which I advocate so much, as that Leviathan capable of guaranteeing
peace and order to all through arms, could not acquire its true dimension
without the social and democratic, therefore public policies are required to
stop the vertiginous ascent of poverty in our villages, which facilitate the
economic growth, development and modernization of agriculture in this region
separated from the eastern plains of Colombia.
THE SCOPE OF DEMOCRATIC
SECURITY AND THE RECURRENCE OF THE WAR
With the coming to power of
President Juan Manuel Sants Calderón, and the peace agreement with the Farc
begins the gradual dismantling of a questioned and criticized policy from the
interior of the country, as well as from neighboring countries, the democratic
security policy according to the contractors only managed to corner the
subversives, but did not settle the conflict, so the new president was given
the task of undertaking a negotiation, the search for a true, peace, but his
sickly obsession led him to commit the worst errors of state , he knelt to
terrorism and yielded all the power of the state in order to achieve the
signature.
He managed to convince public
opinion that this peace agreement with the Frac was the best, led to an
unprecedented jam in history, contracts and public money to the media,
journalists, congressmen and even judges just to give endorsement of a process
that would later have disastrous consequences for the regions and Aparatados
peoples of Colombia such as Arauca.
Forgiveness and forgetfulness
of the subversives, absolute impunity in disguise, the crime of drug
trafficking related to the politician, the lack of truth, led the Colombians
through the plebiscite on October 2, 2016, to say no to that agreement. peace,
however, was so obsessed with that agreement that Juan Manuel Santos imposed it
anyway, and dragged in its wake the rule of law and institutions.
The peace agreement was a
success, if it was, so much that they awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the
president of Colombia, but that agreement would prove its flaws with the
passage of months, that is, the increase of the military power of the Army. of
National Liberation (ELN), the same Farc disguised as dissidences, because they
gave us all the weapons, even after the signing of the agreement terrorist
actions continued, as well as their drug trafficking activities.
Today Arauca continues to be
besieged by the wildest terrorism of the FARC and ELN, as well as by
paramilitary groups and criminal gangs, extortion, threats, armed strikes,
murders and crimes, they are daily in a region that did not know peace, despite
being Arauca considered a special area for the regrouping of the frac and
special policies for reintegration, the truth is that the implementation was
left without a budget and without clear regulatory decrees that allow
consolidating what in principle a stable peace was wanted. and lasting.
Bibliography:
My thanks to:
-National Center of Historical Memory of
Colombia: Cruzando la frontera: Memorias del éxodo hacia Venezuela caso del rio
Arauca.(2015).
-Security and Democracy Foundation, Special
report, Democratic Security Policy. (2004-2005).
