Regional report Meta
| Autor | Gustavo Salazar y Ana María Cristancho Amaya |
| Cargo del Autor | Abogado, magister en Ciencia Política e Historia profesor instructor del Departamento de Ciencia Política de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Relaciones Internacionales de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana/Socióloga, magister en Estudios Políticos y Relaciones internacionales. Actualmente es profesora de cátedra del Departamento de Ciencia... |
| Páginas | 735-804 |
CHAPTER 6
REGIONAL REPORT: META
INTRODUCTION
is chapter seeks to explain the interaction between contextual elements and the armed conict dynamic
in Meta during the 1998-2014 period, where the gradual strategic weakening of the main illegal conict
actor in the department becomes evident, the FARC-EP, as a consequence of the strategic adjustments of
the Law Enforcement agencies and, particularly, by the starring role of the Colombian Air Force as of the
operational changes, and the implementation of new technologies that allowed for further eciency and
impact in furtherance of their tasks. e aerial superiority changed the correlation of forces, a situation
that the GAOI could not revert, not just for the impossibility to conduct air attacks, but also because they
lacked the weapons or the means to counteract them1.
Furthermore, despite the ruptures and evident transformations in the region, drug tracking- a
longstanding situation, and closely related from its onset with the emerald maa, still plays in 2016 a
leading role in both, the economic environment, and during periods of violence. e powerful mobsters,
owners of large areas of livestock and important interests in African palm areas and crops; they shelter and
oer security from armed groups - the Illegal Paramilitary Groups and death squads, who struggle for the
illegal activities (from the drug processing to micro-tracking) and establish partnerships with regional
and local elites, which inuence electoral processes and public administration. In the background, a weak
civil society overwhelmed by the violence of illegal groups, which translates into weak social movements,
the annihilation of partisan alternatives detached from the chiefdoms of the traditional parties, such as
the Unión Patriótica (Patriotic Union), and a peasant movement threatened by all sides.
Driven, and driving the transformation of the actors, there is a very changing economic activity
that ranges from cattle-farming and subsistence crops, to cattle-farming and illegal activities in the 80’s
and 90’s, to a point that a privileged place has been granted to extractive activities, agro-industrial crops
like palm, to the detriment of coca crops and traditional extensive cattle-farming on a large estate re-
arranged with the dispossession led by organized armed groups. e current rule of law in Meta, more
solid than that experienced early in the XXI century, a consequence of the substantial progress in the
compliance of objectives and principles set out in the National Constitution, is currently facing one of its
greatest challenges.
1 Aguilera, 2013.
736 Regional report Meta
To present the prior argument, the text is divided into ve sections. e rst, contextualization and back-
ground, clearly set out both geographical features, and the historical processes that shape the development
of the population, State building, economic, legal and illegal activities, the political map and the presence
of armed actors. en, in a timeline, there are four sub-chapters corresponding to dierent periods, based
on critical regional junctures: 1998 to 2002, 2003 to 2006, 2007 to 2011 and 2012 to 2014. In turn, each
one is divided into three sections aimed at explaining how the political, economical and social factors
inuence, or are inuenced by the conict dynamics on each period. e security dynamics characterized
by the action of the Law Enforcement institutions in scenarios with coca crop presence determines modes
of action, where Law Enforcement institutions must adapt to the strategies of each actor and, lastly, the
processes, consequences and transformations that led to the confrontation in the sub-regions established.
e rst period, 1998-2002, is determined by the declaration of the Demilitarized Zone early
in the government of Andrés Pastrana and the development of a peace process with FARC-EP, as a con-
sequence of the force pulse that favored, at that time, such organized armed group. e attacks against
the Military Forces led the FARC-EP to seek continuity in their strategic plans, which resulted in higher
military benets, on one side, and on the attempt to turn their military progress into a political conso-
lidation. e misreading of a collapsing, decaying state, extended to the point that authors like Eduardo
Pizarro indicated that “the FARC-EP had an unlimited capacity- given its endless nancial resources and
the strength of his central command- to expand and control large areas”, to the point that “institutional
stability becomes threatened”. e Demilitarized Zone could be understood as a measure that adheres to
its strategic plan, and within the so-called “nal oensive”2, which corresponds to the last growth stage
and the highest boom of the illegal organized armed group (GAOI in Spanish)3. However, and contrary to
this opinion, Camilo Echandía sustained from the onset that the Demilitarized Zone actually constitutes,
from its very beginning, the breakeven point of the military strengthening strategy of the FARC-EP4.
e other three periods correspond to the Law Enforcement repositioning, the gradual decline of
the FARC-EP due to the sustained state activity and the transformation of Illegal Paramilitary groups and
their entrenchment in the local and regional political power, within a context of accelerated transforma-
tion of economic activities. During the second period, three parallel processes converged: e positioning
of the AUC, Illegal Paramilitary groups in the sub-region of the Meta River, using their strategy to syste-
matically attack the civil population in order to control territories, appropriate from income and avoid ar-
med competition, specially from the FARC-EP; the impact of the Law Enforcement agency actions, which
started from Cundinamarca, specially objecting from the guerrilla the control they had consolidated in
the foothills; and, nally, the FARC-EP’s reluctance to retreat.
e third period (2007-2011) was marked, on the one hand, by the closure of the partial demo-
bilization of the illegal Paramilitary Groups, the struggles among their heirs, the permanence of drug
tracking activities and the emergence and consolidation of criminal gangs (BACRIM), groups that con-
tinued within the paramilitary phenomenon. Furthermore, the sustained qualication of the Military
Forces and the change in strategy of the FARC-EP, aimed at minimizing losses, maintaining control over
the area and avoiding the dismantling of fronts and companies. e pressure of the Law Enforcement
institutions on the organizational structure of the FARC-EP forced it to return to the “guerrilla warfare”
tactic5 and prioritize mobility. On the background, the expansion and consolidation of the African palm
agro-industrial cultivation.
Finally, the fourth period, 2011-2014 is prelude to the death in combat of Victor Suarez Bri-
ceño, alias Mono Jojoy, head of the Eastern bloc, and the start of the secret negotiations of the peace
process. During this period the security forces continued operations against front and middle-command
commanders aimed at dismantling structures and demoralizing ghters, while the FARC-EP prioritized
low-military eort actions mainly against the infrastructure and not against civilians6. At the same time,
2 Aguilera, 2013.
3 Ibid., p. 100.
4 Pizarro, 2006, p. 193.
5 Aguilera, 2013, p. 92.
6 CERAC, 2015.
Regional report Meta 737
and despite the attacks suered, the capture and / or death of its top leaders, the BACRIM remain in the
territory, capturing the income from drug tracking, both in processing and retailing and aecting legal
economic activities and local political power.
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
To understand the armed conict in Meta, we must base ourselves on the sub-regions and their morpho-
logy characteristics, and how they have aected or determined their population, the main economic ac-
tivity, State presence and practical possibilities to undertake the confrontation7. e FARC-EP organized
armed group, in accordance with its characteristics, granted each of the regions dierent functions and
relevance within their strategic plan8.
e provincial department of Meta, with a surface of 85,635 km2, representing 7.5% of the natio-
nal territory, mainly located in the region of Orinoquía, has 29 municipalities and 115 police inspections9,
located in three physiographic sub-regions: e western one, mountain, up to 4,000 meters, also includes
transition zones to the plains, and the La Macarena mountain range. Its peasant population from the
Cundinamarca or Boyaca area has been kept isolated from the economic boom, and only during short
periods of time, the territory became a war scenario. In foothills municipalities like Villavicencio –the
capital city–, Barranca de Upía, Acacías, Castilla la Nueva, Cubarral, El Calvario, Guamal, Restrepo, San
Carlos de Guaroa and San Martín, there is more state presence, and they are devoted to agriculture and
cattle-farming activities10. An important part in this territory was prioritized within the framework of
directed settlement processes11 since the 70s, and the FARC-EP incorporated these territories into their
strategic plans as natural expansion zone for its core groups, and as a path to approach Bogotá12, known
as “gravity center” by the Illegal Organized Armed Group13.
e second one, starts from the Guianan Shield, with essentially at plains and poor-quality
lands, has seen the blooming of extensive cattle-farming, large estates and armed organizations allied to
drug tracking. e Meta riverside subregion –comprised of Puerto Gaitán, Cubayaro and Puerto Ló-
pez– has a small, ancient indigenous population, specially the Sikuani and the Piapocos (nearly 8000)14,
and a peasant population from the spread and disorganized settlements, given the low fertility of the
plateau s oil15. e main funding source of the FARC-EP was derived from extortion and kidnapping16.
e third one, corresponding to the south zone of the Provincial department, which covers
nearly 60% of its territory, includes high-mountain lands, the plains of rivers such as the Ariari and
Guaviare, with important areas from the National Natural Parks System such as PNN Páramo de Su-
mapaz, PNN Cordillera de los Picachos, PNN Tinigua and PNN Serranía de la Macarena17, 2,073,314
7 In such regard, the classic text Hart, 1991, provides the means to understand the relevance of forests, mountains and areas
with little roads for the development of an irregular war.
8 Aguilera, p. 55.
9 Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, 2009
10 Instituto Geográco Agustín Codazzi, p. 97.
11 González Arias, 2014, p. 10.
12 Colombian Air Force Working Groups.
13 “Gravity Center” must be understood as a point that, if considered, will paralyze an entire system. Refer to Aguilera, 2013,
p. 100.
14 Refer to the current situation of the Alcaldía de Puerto Gaitán, 2011. Report within the framework of Auto 004 de la Corte
Constitucional.
15 Instituto Geográco Agustín Codazzi, 2013. p 97. In Meta, indigenous groups are located in 20 reservations, 3 indigenous
councils and 4 settlements in the municipalities of Granada, La Macarena, Mapiripán, Mesetas, Puerto Concordia, Puerto Gai-
tán, Puerto López, Uribe and Villavicencio, corresponding to the Sikuani, Piapoco, Achagua, Saliba, Guayabero, Guanano, Wi-
toto, Inga, Tucano, Curripaco, Cubeo and Siriano ethnic groups, as well as communities resulting from settling processes, such
as the Nasa, Emberakatio and Coyaima.
16 Aguilera, 2013, p. 56.
17 Web page Department of Meta: http://www.meta.gov.co
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