Colombian forces kill FARC dissident leader
Fri, July 15, 2022 


Colombian forces have killed FARC dissident leader Nestor Vera and nine other rebels in a raid in the country's southwest, the defense minister said on Friday.

The operation "allowed us to neutralize nine individuals on the FARC dissident frontline as well as... Ivan Mordisco," minister Diego Molano told reporters, using Vera's nom de guerre.

"The last major leader of the FARC has fallen," Molano added, and described this as the "final blow" to the renegade movement.

Hundreds of dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have continued fighting after their comrades lay down arms under a 2016 peace accord that ended more than half a century of armed conflict.


Vera, one of Colombia's most wanted men, recently took command of a group of some 2,000 dissidents, the so-called Armando Rios front, after the presumed death of leader "Gentil Duarte" in fighting with a drug gang in neighboring Venezuela in May, according to Colombian intelligence.

A reward of $700,000 had been on offer for information on Vera's whereabouts.

Some 500 soldiers were deployed in the Colombian jungle several weeks ago on a mission to find Vera, according to General Luis Fernando Navarro.

Vera and his comrades were ultimately killed in an air force-led operation on July 8.

- 'Fundamental blow' -

Just months before the 2016 agreement was signed, Vera became the first FARC leader to renounce the peace process with several of his subordinates.

Despite the agreement, Colombia has seen a flare-up of violence due to fighting over territory and resources among the dissidents, the hold-out ELN rebel group, paramilitary forces and drug cartels.

The government says Vera and his men were engaged in a fierce dispute over drug trafficking routes with another dissident faction called Segunda Marquetalia, led by former FARC chief Ivan Marquez.

Marquez had signed the 2016 peace pact only to take up arms again, in 2019.

Bogota says Marquez was injured in a recent attack in Venezuela, and is hospitalized there, though Caracas said this was mere speculation.

"Today in Colombia there are none of the leaders, the big capos of the former FARC... it is a fundamental blow to the plans they had for regeneration," said the defense minister, Molano.

With no unified command, FARC dissident fighters are thought to number some 5,200 scattered around the country, according to the Indepaz monitoring group.

They are financed mainly by drug trafficking and illegal mining.

The majority are new recruits who were never FARC members, according to Indepaz.

jss/gm/mlr/dw

Dissident FARC leader killed in military raid in Colombia, defence ministry says

Issued on: 15/07/2022 - 
Text by:NEWS WIRES

Nestor Gregorio Vera, who commanded a group of former Colombian rebels who rejected a peace deal and was best known by his alias Ivan Mordisco, died in an armed forces bombing this week, Defense Minister Diego Molano said on Friday.

Mordisco was killed along with nine other fighters last weekend in a jungle area of southwestern Caqueta province, Molano told journalists.

Mordisco's death is the latest in a series of killings of ex-FARC leaders who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government and instead formed two dissident factions which officials say are involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.

"The operation had as an objective the neutralization of one of the top commanders of the FARC dissidents who never entered the Havana (peace) accord and whose criminal trajectory of more than 30 years in the south of the country was a scourge of that region," Molano said.

Mordisco was the last great FARC leader, Molano said, and his death is a final stab at the dissidents. Molano said Mordisco had been planning to expand his faction.

According to security sources, Mordisco replaced Gentil Duarte as the leader of their so-called FARC-EP dissident faction after the latter was killed at the end of May in Venezuela, the site of all other recent deaths of dissident commanders.

The FARC-EP faction and its rival the Segunda Marquetalia compete against each other and other armed groups for control of criminal activities in Colombia and Venezuela.

Segunda Marquetalia commander Ivan Marquez, who was a negotiator at peace talks before rejecting the accord, survived a recent attack in Venezuela, according to Colombia's armed forces.

Dissident leaders Jesus Santrich, Romana and El Paisa have also been killed recently in Venezuela.

The Colombian government accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of sheltering Colombian armed groups, which Maduro has vehemently denied.

FARC sentenced to pay US $ 36 million for Betancourt kidnapping

USA DENIES ICC RIGHT TO JUDGE IT BUT APPLIES US RULES AROUND THE GLOBE

Friday, January 14th 2022 

The case could be brought before the US Justice because Betancourt's son was a US citizen

A US court has sentenced the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and several of its leaders to pay US $ 36 million for the kidnapping of politician Ingrid Betancourt, it was announced Thursday.

The ruling, handed down Jan. 4 by Judge Matthew Bran, of the Pennsylvania federal court and announced Thursday by lawyers from the plaintiffs, mandates FARC must pay US $ 12 million for damages to the Betancourt's son, Lawrence Delloye, who filed the lawsuit in June 2018 and who was a teenager when his mother was abducted.

The US $ 12 million become US $ 36 million after legal fees are added, the dollars, Delloye's attorneys Scarinci Hollenbeck explained.

Delloye argued in his complaint that the FARC and its leaders had violated the Antiterrorist Law and that the kidnapping of his mother had caused him significant emotional stress.

“While no amount of money can replace the time Lawrence Delloye lost without his mother or heal the trauma suffered at the hands of the FARC, we are proud to have been able to achieve some form of justice,” attorney Robert Levy said in a statement.

The case could be brought before the US Justice because Delloye was a US citizen, born in San Bernardino, California, in 1988. “The FARC and its members led the plaintiff to suffer damages associated with the separation from his mother, as suffer emotional stress by not knowing if his mother was dead or alive, or if he would be reunited with her,” the lawyers had argued.

Of the 15 accused FARC leaders, only one, Juan José Martínez Vega, responded to the accusations, while the rest have not appeared in court in the last three and a half years.

Ingrid Betancourt, now 61 years old, was kidnapped in February 2002 during a part of her presidential campaign to an area of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC. In July 2008 she was rescued, along with 14 other FARC hostages, by Colombian troops posing as aid workers from an international humanitarian organization.

 The opportunity cost of conservation

Colombia becomes first case study on how to balance biodiversity goals with limited economic resources

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE DEFORESTATION RISK FOR COLOMBIA, FROM LOW TO HIGH RISK. THE PRESENCE OF FARC WAS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL VARIABLE DETERMINING THE FATE OF THE DEFORESTED AREA, AS THE ODDS OF FOREST CONVERSION TO COCA CROPS OVER CONVERSION TO CATTLE OR OTHER CROPS IN AREAS WITH PRESENCE OF FARC IS 308.04% HIGHER THAN THE ODDS IN AREAS WITHOUT FARC. view more 

CREDIT: CAMILA GUERRERO-PINEDA, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

In 2019, a landmark report gave the world its first report card on biodiversity loss. There was one crystal clear conclusion: human actions threaten more species with global extinction than ever before.

 

According to the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) report, currently 25 percent, or 1 million species, are threatened with extinction. The drivers of change have only accelerated in the past 50 years. The human population has doubled to 8 billion, contributing to climate change, land and sea-use change, overexploitation of resources and pollution. Two-thirds of the oceans are impacted. 85 percent of wetlands have been lost.

 

As a result of these stark data findings, the IPBES agreement fingered human land-use changes as the primary culprit.

 

Now, an ASU research team has developed the first-of-its-kind study that combines conservation with practical economic tools for a case study of Colombia, South America, a high priority but underfunded country for biodiversity conservation.  

 

“We focused on the case study of the country of Colombia to demonstrate an approach to maximize the biodiversity benefits from limited conservation funding while ensuring that landowners maintain economic returns equivalent to agriculture,” said Leah Gerber, who was lead author of the IPBES report, and is a professor of conservation science in the School of Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO) at Arizona State University.

 

While they found that Colombia would need to substantially increase its conservation spending,

the study developed a prioritization map that permits policymakers to target conservation actions toward regions where conservation benefits are the highest and economic impacts are low---giving the biggest ecological bang for the buck. 

 

To do so, Gerber teamed up with Colombia native Camila Guerrero-Pineda, who, just three years ago, left her home country to join ASU and be mentored as a graduate student by Gerber and Gwenllian D. Iacona, assistant research professor at the School of Life Sciences, to ultimately make a difference back home.

 

“It’s fair to categorize that Colombia is a megadiverse country” said Guerrero-Pineda. “It arguably has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world, given its size, and a lot of scientists and academics in Colombia fear the ecological consequences of human actions.”

 

Now, she is the first author and a first-year ASU School of Life Sciences and Conservation Innovation Lab graduate student who contributed their results in the prestigious journal Nature Sustainability.

 

Cattle, coca and biodiversity

Colombia ranks among one of just 17 megadiverse countries in the world.

 

Colombia possesses a unique geography and natural beauty as the only South American country with combined coastlines of the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Seas, along with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which at 13,000m, is the world’s highest coastal mountain range.

 

Human actions now threaten the only freshwater species of its kind, the pink river dolphin. The cotton-top tamarin. The Orinoco crocodile. The 100-pound, giant capybara rodent. The spectacled bear. Plants (flor de mayo orchid), amphibians (golden poison frog) and butterflies (Colombian eighty-eight) too.

 

All unique species to Colombia. And all could vanish.

 

In the South American continent, Colombia stands out as a region that has retained its biodiversity, one of the few silver linings due to a long history of violent, human conflicts. Prior to a 2016 peace agreement, Colombia had government instability and a decades long guerrilla war led by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and other minor groups.

 

“FARC had a lot of control over the forests, and it prevented a lot of economic development” said Guerrero-Pineda. Since the FARC controlled the forest for coca leaf (the plant used to produce cocaine) production and the drug trade to finance five decades of asymmetrical warfare, one effect was to prevent unbridled development ---and inadvertently preserve biodiversity. 

 

In the ASU-led study, they found that the probability of transformation to cattle and other crops decreases with distance to roads, while the probability of transformation to coca increases. These results suggest that coca crops are grown in more isolated areas, away from roads, compared with cattle.

 

The presence of FARC was the most influential variable determining the fate of the deforested area, as the odds of forest conversion to coca crops over conversion to cattle or other crops in areas with presence of FARC is 308.04% higher than the odds in areas without FARC.

 

“It also prevented a lot of scientific monitoring because scientists were afraid of going into the forests,” said Guerrero-Pineda.   

 

But Colombia now stands at a biodiversity crossroads. The 2016 peace agreement has now brought unprecedented development. During the past 5 years alone, GDP growth has been 5-6% every year.

 

During that time, the deforestation rate rose by 44% after the peace agreement. Palm oil production, logging, mining, and gas oil extraction are some of the leading culprits besides agriculture development.

 

Do nothing, and Gerber’s team estimates the current biodiversity loss rate could increase by 50% by 2033.

 

Paradise lost or opportunity cost?

But how does Colombia preserve its biodiversity while balancing the need for economic development? Gerber’s team thinks they found a new blueprint to not only aid Colombia, but also extend to other policymakers in other countries to help make a difference. 

 

For the first time, they applied a unique quantitative model that relates conservation investment to national biodiversity outcomes.

 

“The methods developed here offer an approach to identifying areas of greatest conservation returns on investment by balancing cost of conservation action, measured as opportunity cost for agriculture, and biodiversity impacts,” said study lead author Camila Guerrero-Pineda.

 

When it comes to development, everything economically comes down to opportunity costs.

 

An extreme example of the choices nations must make is often referred to as the “Guns versus butter” model of economics. It refers to whether a country is more interested in spending money on war or feeding their people---but it can’t do both, and there are always going to be tradeoffs.

 

In Colombia’s case, it’s economic development versus biodiversity outcomes. Or more colloquially, parks versus parking lots. Preservation versus development.

 

Their team modeled the opportunity cost of conservation (OCC) to agriculture as an approximation of the expected cost of compensating a landowner for avoiding conversion of their property.

 

“Opportunity cost is what you're missing out on or what you're not doing because of a decision to do something else,” said Guerrero-Pineda. “What that means is that someone is not going to be able to use the land that is going to be used for conservation.”

 

They assumed in the modeling of a protection cost that deforestation can be counteracted by compensating the land owner, either by purchase, such as the setting the sale value of a parcel equal to its expected future cash flow, or as continued payments for ecosystem services.

 

To avoid this additional biodiversity loss, Gerber’s groups estimated that Colombia would have to invest $37-39 million USD annually in the best and worst-case scenarios of deforestation. According to them, this means an increase in its conservation spending of 7.69-10.16 million USD per year. Avoiding this decline (preventing further loss) would require $61-63 million USD annually, which is more than twice the conservation spending before the peace agreement.

 

“Our strategy for targeting conservation funding involves first identifying regions with a high

risk of forest conversion to agriculture [such as cattle ranching or other crops],” said Gerber.

“More broadly, the research agenda is around incorporating cost into decision-making to achieve the most outcomes, given limited resources.”

 

They found that the Andean region contains the highest mean OCC, reflecting a very strong probability of agricultural conversion of the remaining forests. Following closely behind were the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Orinoquía regions. The Amazon region, the one with the lowest mean probability of agricultural conversion, had the greatest forest cover percentage and the greatest forest area, had a much lower OCC.

 

“One of the things we're excited about with this work is that it's a demonstration of the potential of this idea of using return on investment for thinking about allocated conservation resources,” said co-author Gwenllian D. Iacona.  “And so, we took these two high profile approaches that are out there, called the Waldron Model and the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric, and we put them together so country-level decision makers can make the best-informed decisions at that type of scale.”

 

Their results can also assist in the planning of land preservation and national parks. In Colombia, the National Natural Park System is working to declare five new protected areas, and to expand three more. This builds on evidence showing that more effective and lasting conservation outcomes are achieved when governance empowers local communities and support their environmental stewardship, including indigenous communities, reserves and Afro-Colombian lands.  

CAPTION

Their team modeled the opportunity cost of conservation (OCC) to agriculture as an approximation of the expected cost of compensating a landowner for avoiding conversion of property. To avoid this additional biodiversity loss, Gerber’s groups estimated that Colombia would have to invest $37-39 million USD annually in the best and worst-case scenarios of deforestation.

CREDIT

Camila Guerrero-Pineda

 VIDEO  Nova explosion [VIDEO] | EurekAlert! Science News Releases

More to come

“I think Camila’s work really sets us up to assist entities, whether they be countries or companies, in quantitatively measuring the impact of conservation interventions on different metrics, whether they need biodiversity or climate mitigation, or other types of conservation strategies,” said Gerber. “I'm optimistic that we'll be able to build and scale this to improve conservation outcomes more generally.”

 

“Camila, for example, in the summer, will be working on a collaborative USAID project with Conservation International in Peru and we're going to be applying a similar approach to identify green economic growth pathways.”

 

Their approach is another prime example of ASU’s commitment to advance research to finding practical solutions of social, economic and today’s urgent environmental challenges.

 

“So, in that sense, Camila’s foundational work is not only novel, but also represents a practical foundation for broad applications globally”, said Gerber.  “We're exploring applications in several other countries and for additional sustainable development goals.  By coupling this work with market-based incentives, this work offers to rapidly accelerate our ability to achieve sustainable development goals.”

---

JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41893-022-00871-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

An investment strategy to address biodiversity loss from agricultural expansion

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2022

‘Respect for our lives’: Colombia’s former FARC rebels march in Bogota to protest against murders


Issued on: 02/11/2020

Former guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) participate in a protest called "Pilgrimage for Life and Peace" demanding security guarantees and compliance with the peace agreements signed with the government in Bogota, Colombia on November 1, 2020. © Luisa Gonzalez, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Around 2,000 former FARC guerrillas rallied in the Colombian capital Sunday to protest the murder of 236 ex-combatants since signing a 2016 peace agreement.

Members of the former rebel movement turned political party arrived in Bogota after completing a 200-kilometre (125 miles) march from the southern town of Mesetas.

"We are mobilising to demand respect for our lives and also for compliance with the peace agreement," FARC Senator Victoria Sandino told AFP, faced with what she called a "genocide against the signatories" of the 2016 peace agreement that ended a half-century of conflict.

Sandino holds one of 10 Congress seats reserved for FARC under the peace deal, when the bulk of the movement laid down its weapons.

The march began in Mesetas on October 21, following the killing of two local ex-FARC combatants days before.

Two more ex-rebels were killed on October 24 as the delegation continued towards Bogota, in what Rodrigo Granda, one of the negotiators of the agreement and a leader of the party, described as "a low blow to peace."

'State responsibility'

On Sunday, the ex-rebels marched to Bolivar Square in the historic center of Bogota, converging with two other delegations from the south and north of the country to demand a meeting with right-wing President Ivan Duque.

Duque came to power in 2018 vowing to modify the peace agreement made by his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos, which he considered too lenient on former rebels accused of atrocities.

However, Congress has rejected the move.

The marchers banged drums, blew trumpets and waved banners, including one with the slogan, "Duque: we did not sign the peace deal to be killed."

"We are asking the president to meet with us so that we can talk about the challenges facing the Colombian state in guaranteeing the safety of its citizens," said Pastor Alape, a prominent FARC party leader.

According to the FARC, 236 signatories of the peace deal have been killed since it was signed.

"There is a state responsibility in these crimes," said Alape, adding that the killings have been motivated by "intolerance in the speeches of government officials, and the president of the republic himself."

The government says drug-trafficking organizations are behind most of the killings, as they fight a turf war over the production and export of cocaine through Central America to the United States.

(AFP)

Five years after peace pact, violence haunts Colombia

Soldiers still patrol Marquetalia, birthplace of the now-defunct FARC guerilla group

 (AFP/Raul ARBOLEDA)More

Hector Velasco
Mon, November 22, 2021, 

In 2016, the world hailed the peace accords that saw Latin America's most fearsome guerrilla group lay down arms to end a devastating, near six-decade conflict in Colombia.

But five years on, the peace remains fragile and violence endemic.

The accords dramatically slowed the national homicide rate.

Some 3,000 people per year were killed on average over more than five decades as a direct result of the conflict, according to Hernando Gomez Buendia of the Razon Publica news site.

In 2017, this number dropped to 78.

Overall, Colombia's homicide rate before 2012, when peace talks began, was about 12,000 per year -- those directly linked to the conflict and not, Juan Carlos Garzon of the Ideas for Peace Foundation told AFP.

From 2013 to 2016, it dropped to about 9,000 per year.

But the rate is on the rise again as Colombia experiences its most violent period in years.

"The bad news is that between January and September 2021, we are again at the level of 10,500 homicides," said Garzon.

Despite the dissolution of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), thousands of dissidents battle rivals for control of drug fields, illegal gold mines and lucrative smuggling routes.

According to the Indepaz peace research institute, there are 90 armed groups with some 10,000 members active in Colombia.

They include more than 5,000 FARC dissidents who rejected peace, some 2,500 members of the National Liberation Army or ELN -- the country's last active guerrilla group, and another 2,500 rightwing paramilitary fighters.

Last month, the UN warned that the deteriorating security situation represented a "considerable challenge" to the country's 2016 peace accords.

"The disarmament of FARC has produced a power void... that has benefited other armed actors," said Garzon.

- Narco wars -

The accords signed on November 24, 2016 promised to bring peace to a country traumatized by years of violence.

But things got off to a rocky start: Just days before the signing, 50.21 percent of Colombians rejected the deal in a referendum -- a setback that required last-minute adjustments to the document and deeply divided the country.

The justice promised in the more than 300-page peace deal for hundreds of thousands of victims of the conflict is yet to come.

A special tribunal set up to try the worst atrocities has charged former FARC commanders with the kidnapping of at least 21,000 people and the recruitment of 18,000 minors.

Senior military officials have been charged with killing some 6,400 civilians presented as guerillas.

No verdicts have yet been passed.

The tribunal has the authority to offer alternatives to jail time to people who confess their crimes and make reparations to victims -- a system some fear will let criminals get off scot-free.

"The peace process has served the culprits, but it has not served the victims of the FARC," police general Luis Mendieta, held hostage by the rebels for 12 years, told AFP.

"We are cooperating... but it was a war of more than 50 years and solving it in one, two or three years will not be possible," said ex-guerilla-turned senator Sandra Ramirez.

- Return to criminal life -

Former combatants of the FARC, which has since transformed itself into a minority political party, have also paid a heavy price: some 293 have been killed since the signing of the accords, either by rival groups or their dissident former brothers in arms.

Others, like FARC commander Ivan Marquez who helped negotiate the deal, took up arms again.

The deal also has not brought an end to Colombia's vast and violent narcotrafficking problem, with many of those who signed the pact having "returned to criminal life" as "coca grew exponentially," according to President Ivan Duque in a recent interview with AFP.

The document encouraged the voluntary substitution of illicit crops -- mainly coca used in cocaine-making -- with legal ones, but farmers complain that they have not received any help.

Colombia remains the world's biggest producer and exporter of cocaine.

In the cities, too, violence is rife amid high levels of unemployment and poverty, with a recent wave of often deadly robberies that prompted the government in September to deploy some 1,500 soldiers to assist police in crime prevention.

In May, violence also marred anti-government protests that were brutally put down by the police and soldiers.

More than 60 people were killed in weeks of clashes and a clampdown condemned by the UN, United States, European Union and international rights groups.

hec/vel/mlr/ec

FARC dissidents announce unilateral Christmas ceasefire in Colombia

Story by Daniel Stewart •

Dissidents of the now defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group announced Saturday a unilateral Christmas ceasefire that will last until January 7, although they stressed that they reserve the right to defend themselves against possible attacks.


Archive - Guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) - FARC© Provided by News 360

"We want to inform the population of nortesantandereana, south of Bolivar, northeast Antioquia and Magdalena Medio, our unilateral will to decree a ceasefire against military and police forces in our areas of operations from 06.00 hours on December 24 of this year," said a spokesman for the group through a video.

He also stressed that FARC dissidents reserve the right to defend themselves against attacks and called for progress in the peace dialogue with the Colombian government. "We must read the historic moment the country is going through and stop killing each other," he said, according to Colombian radio station Radio Caracol.

The FARC dissidents dissociated themselves from the peace agreement signed by the state and the guerrillas in 2016 and include historical figures of the militia such as Luciano Marín Arango, alias 'Iván Márquez'.

Following this, Petro has stated in his account on the social network Twitter that "at this moment, both the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the second Marquetalia, the Central General Staff, the armed groups of the Sierra Nevada and Buenaventura have begun a unilateral truce". "We hope that real peace processes will be consolidated," he said.

For his part, the High Commissioner for Peace has indicated on Twitter that "listening to the communities and organizational processes, the EMC FARC declare unilateral ceasefire". "The Government of Gustavo Petro remains firm in the construction of peace and awaits the appointment of spokespersons for dialogue," he added.

The FARC dissidents' announcement came just two days after the High Commissioner for Peace called for a cessation of hostilities during the Christmas period, after the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas announced a ceasefire for these dates.

The ELN clarified that the truce could be interrupted if its fighters consider that their lives are endangered by the actions of the forces of law and order. Thus, it will be in force between December 24 and the morning of January 2, in order to build "an atmosphere of peace".

Source: (EUROPA PRESS)

Cocaine, Guns And Gushers: Colombia’s Oil Industry Struggles To Reactivate

By Matthew Smith - Dec 26, 2021

• Rising security risk and rural violence, which is mostly fueled by the vast profits generated by the cocaine trade, is a key deterrent to attracting onshore oil investment in Colombia.
• 
  
• According to the UN, Colombia’s cocaine production during 2020 increased by 8% compared to a year earlier, despite a 7% decrease in the volume of land used for coca cropping. 
• 
  
• Despite the risks associated with operating in onshore Colombia, the Andean country’s 2021 bid round found some success.

Despite the groundbreaking 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the largest guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) there are fears that conflict is escalating once again. Colombia, which is Latin America’s third-largest petroleum producer and the world’s largest manufacturer of cocaine for nearly a century, has been caught in a simmering low-intensity asymmetric conflict that reached boiling point during the 1980s. The primary flashpoint for the civil conflict, which currently engulfs Colombia and failed to end with the 2016 FARC peace accord was the April 1948 assassination of Liberal Party leader Jorge Gaitan in Bogota. That sparked the Bogotazo, days of violent rioting that swept across Bogota resulting in up to 3,000 deaths, which eventually evolved into a vicious 10-year civil war between the Colombian Liberal and Conservative parties known as La Violencia. While that brutal struggle ended in a 1958 power-sharing agreement between Colombia’s leading political parties, it sowed the seeds for the current low-intensity multiparty asymmetric conflict.  In 1964 the Colombian Communist Party formed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia, a Communist peasant enclave established during the of La Violencia. That event saw the communist FARC emerge as the most powerful left-wing anti-government armed group during the conflict. The guerillas eventually cut ties with the Colombian Communist Party and increasingly relied upon kidnapping, extortion, and cocaine trafficking to fund their operations. Prior to these events, which cast Colombia into what appears to be a never-ending low-intensity asymmetric multiparty civil conflict, oil was discovered in 1918 at the La Cira-Infantas field in the Middle Magdalena Basin near the city of Barrancabermeja. Even after additional petroleum discoveries in the Middle Magdalena Basin, it was not until the giant Caño Limon, Cusiana, and Cupiagua oilfields were discovered between 1983 and 1993 that Colombia embarked on becoming a major oil producer. Those mega discoveries and a notable increase in foreign energy investment, as well as petroleum production, occurred despite violence surging because of the tremendous influx of profits from the booming cocaine trade.

Even the tremendous escalation of violence, homicides, kidnappings, and attacks on energy infrastructure which escalated in the late-1980s, lasting well into the early 21st century, had little material impact on Colombia’s hydrocarbon sector. By 1991 Colombia was pumping over 400,000 barrels per day, more than double its output in 1985, despite becoming the world’s murder capital with a homicide rate of 84 intentional killings per 100,000 people. That was more than eight times greater than the U.S. which reported 9.8 homicides per 100,000 head of population, 7-times higher than neighboring Venezuela’s murder rate of 12 and 8-times larger than Ecuador’s 11 homicides per 100,000 people.

Heightened insecurity and violence remained a persistent problem in Colombia, even after the collapse of the Medellin and Cali cartels, as the FARC and National Liberation Army ELN (Spanish initials) ramped-up operations as vast revenue flowed in from the drug trade. By 2000, after President Andres Pastrana’s peace negotiations with the FARC had failed, the leftist guerillas controlled a 42,000 square mile territory in southeastern Colombia and kidnappings had surged to a record high of 3,500 for the year. Even those events failed to have any material impact on Colombia’s oil boom. A combination of soaring oil prices and rapidly improving internal security during the early 2000s, because of Plan Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe’s military campaign against the FARC, saw foreign energy investment and hence crude oil production growth.

During 2003 when Brent averaged $28.83 per barrel, a 15% increase over 2002, Colombia pumped an average of 550,000 barrels of crude oil per day. When Brent had soared to over $140 per barrel during 2008, annual petroleum production averaged 600,000 barrels daily and kept growing to peak at a yearly record of just over 1 million barrels per day by 2013. Since 2016 Colombia’s petroleum output has been in terminal decline impacted at first by the late-2014 oil price crash, sharply rising violence, and finally because of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the 2017 demobilization of the largest leftist guerilla group the FARC, after a 2016 peace agreement was struck with the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, has done little if anything to arrest Colombia’s production decline. That in part can be blamed on current President Ivan Duque’s reluctance to fully implement the peace deal, contributing to an increase in violence and civil unrest in regional Colombia.

Related: Southeast Asia’s Oil And Gas Output May Never Recover To Pre-COVID Levels

During 2020, the crisis-driven Andean nation only pumped on average 781,300 barrels of crude oil per day as the COVID-19 pandemic, related national quarantine lockdown and sharply weaker oil prices impacted investment as well as production. More worrying, is that despite the pandemic lockdown ending by September 2020 and energy investment increasing, average petroleum output only reached 734,231 barrels per day for the first 10 months of 2021 which is 6% less than the full year 2020. That disappointing decline occurred because of heightened civil unrest with anti-government protests sweeping across Colombia during late- April 2021 lasting into May and early-June 2021. Falling crude oil output can also be attributed to rising insecurity in regional areas, where petroleum industry operations are concentrated, fueled by a marked uptick in violence related to the activities of illegal armed groups and cocaine production.

It is the cocaine trade that is an enduring problem for Colombia. The tremendous profits that the trade generates are responsible for fueling what is a near-perpetual low-level asymmetric conflict where only the illegal armed actors change as the various groups fragment and reform. Estimates vary, but Colombia’s government believes the civil conflict has claimed up to 260,000 lives and displaced at least 9 million people. According to the UN Colombia’s cocaine production during 2020 increased by 8% compared to a year earlier, despite a 7% decrease in the volume of land used for coca cropping and an 18% increase in seizures. The scale of massive profits generated by cocaine is highlighted by former finance minister Juan Carlos Echeverry’s estimate (Spanish) that the drug trade generates $8 to $12 billion annually, which is equivalent to 5 to 4% of Colombia’s gross domestic product. Using Echeverry’s numbers the cocaine trade is contributing the same amount, if not more, to Colombia’s GDP than the oil industry which based on DANE data (Spanish) for the first 3 quarters of 2021 was responsible for 3% of GDP.

Rising security risk and rural violence, which is mostly fueled by the vast profits generated by the cocaine trade, is a key deterrent to attracting onshore oil investment in Colombia. A combination of security risks and mature assets saw Occidental Petroleum, in October 2020, sell its Colombian onshore petroleum assets in an $825 million deal, although the company retained its offshore exploration blocks. Despite the risks associated with operating in onshore Colombia, the Andean country’s 2021 bid round found some success. Seven companies made offers for 30 of the 53 blocks (Spanish) on offer with initial investment expected to exceed $148 million. Five of the offers came from national oil company Ecopetrol or its subsidiaries and 21 from intermediate energy companies with existing operational presence in Colombia, Parex Resources, Frontera Energy, and Canacol Energy. This indicates that Colombia is struggling to attract foreign onshore energy investment because of the heightened security risks coupled with high breakeven prices and elevated carbon content of the sour heavy crude oil produced.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

Colombia says 10 armed groups agree to unilateral ceasefire


Gustavo Petro President of Colombia

Wed, September 28, 2022 
By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) -At least 10 armed groups in Colombia, including former members of the FARC rebels who reject a peace deal and the Clan del Golfo crime gang, have agreed to participate in unilateral ceasefires, the government said on Wednesday.

President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August, has promised to seek "total peace" with armed groups, fully implementing a 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and meeting with dissidents and gangs.

"Each group with its own identity, nature and motivation is expressing its disposition to be part of a total peace, in this exploration phase we've asked them not to kill, not to disappear people and not to torture," Danilo Rueda, the government's high peace commissioner, told journalists at an impromptu press conference. "We are moving ahead."

Among the groups are two FARC dissident groups - the Estado Mayor Central and Segunda Marquetalia - as well as the Clan del Golfo, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Auto-Defenses and others Rueda did not name.

Illegal armed groups in Colombia - whose six-decade conflict has killed at least 450,000 people - count some 6,000 fighters in their ranks, according to security sources.

Leftist rebels and crime gangs both participate in extortion, murder, drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.

Petro - himself a former member of the urban M-19 guerrilla - has said his government could offer reduced sentences to gang members who hand over ill-gotten assets and give information about drug trafficking.

"The office of peace is exploring the judicial mechanisms to permit the transition of armed groups to rule of law," said Rueda, who previously met with FARC dissidents.

Petro also wants to restart Havana-based peace talks with largest active rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), which were called off by his predecessor, and Rueda traveled there soon after the inauguration.

The ELN favors a bilateral ceasefire to pave the way for renewed talks, its top negotiator told Reuters this month.

The government has said it will suspend aerial bombings of armed groups in a bid to avoid collateral damage to civilians and deaths of forcibly-recruited minors.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Paul Simao and Nick Zieminski)

Colombia peace process must solve causes of conflict - ELN rebel commander


Antonio Garcia, head of the delegation of National Liberation Army (ELN) for formal peace talks with Colombian government, talks to the media during a news conference in Caracas

Thu, September 29, 2022 
By Luis Jaime Acosta

BOGOTA (Reuters) - The top commander of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group, which is exploring a resumption of peace talks with the leftist government, told Reuters any process must seek profound change for all of society and not political power for a few guerrilla commanders.

New President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 urban guerrillas, has promised to seek "total peace" by fully implementing a 2016 peace deal with the now-demobilized FARC rebels, restarting ELN talks and dialoguing with crime gangs.

"What is essential for a peace process is to overcome the causes which originated the armed conflict, to even think they are overcome with a few (congressional) seats for a handful of rebels would be miserly," said Eliecer Herlinto Chamorro, better known by his nom de guerre, Antonio Garcia.

He was answering questions sent by Reuters about whether the ELN will become a political party after a peace deal.

The FARC deal saw the demobilization of its 13,000 members and the creation of political party Comunes, which has 10 seats in congress guaranteed until 2026 which have been assigned to former guerrilla leaders.

"It's about achieving real change for the good of all society, real and participative democracy for communities and social organizations, making Colombian society more equitable, with social justice, respect for human rights, that political persecution of those who protest for just rights and the murders of leaders end definitively," said Garcia.

Lack of land access, deep economic inequality, historic persecution of leftists and lack of democratic participation are considered the principal causes of Colombia's six-decade conflict between the government, leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs, which has killed at least 450,000 people.

UNITED FRONT

Garcia, 66, said the demobilization of the ELN - accused of forcibly recruiting minors, drug trafficking, murders, kidnappings and bombing attacks - will be resolved at the negotiating table.

Though Petro has said talks should be carried out quickly, the quality of any agreements will be a variable when determining the negotiations' timeline, Garcia said.

The most recent talks with the ELN collapsed under Petro's predecessor, after the group refused to suspend armed action and killed 22 police cadets in an early 2019 bombing.

Other attempts at dialogue have failed to bear fruit because of a diffuse chain of command and dissent within the ranks of the ELN, which was founded by radical Catholic priests in 1964 and counts some 2,400 fighters.

There is precedent for rebel resistance to peace deals - several top FARC commanders reject that deal and remain armed in dissident groups, with whom Petro also wants to dialogue.

But Garcia said the eight ELN units operating in the jungles and mountains of Colombia are united with their negotiators - many of them elderly, unlike most fighters - who remained in Cuba after the collapse of previous talks.

"The ELN remains united by political identity and its democratic methods to construct policy in a constructive way and try to solve differences," he said, echoing recent comments by the group's head negotiator in Havana. "We will stay united, that is the decision of the last (rebel) congress, and we will face any challenge united."

Garcia said profound changes are needed in Colombia - where about half the population lives in some degree of poverty - but those in power must first be held to account.

"Even though the country requires adjustments to its fundamental laws, what most affects us is the lack of compliance with laws by those who hold power," he said.

(This story adds dropped word 'be' in third paragraph)

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Alistair Bell)