Building Civil Society in the Context of Long Term Violence and Displacement: Lessons from Bogotá, Colombia
Open Access
- Author:
- Hitz, Greg M
- Area of Honors:
- Latin-American Studies
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Keywords:
- civil society
violence
Colombia
displacement - Abstract:
- The last five years has seen a sharp decline in political violence in Colombia. Former President Alvaro Uribe is credited for ending the widespread kidnappings, extortion and political terrorism of the Fuerzas Armadas de Revoluction de Colombia (FARC), and the first two years under President Manuel Miguel Santos look promising. Between 2002 and 2011, the murder rate halved, in large part due to the negotiated disarmament of Colombia’s largest paramilitary force: the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). There is new-born optimism in Colombia; a sense of victory. I am reluctant to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, this sense of victory may be premature. Colombia’s armed conflict has resulted in the second largest internally displaced population in the world behind only Rwanda, and paramilitaries continue to inflict harm and suffering throughout Colombia. Lacking the resources to go anywhere else, many of the displaced migrate to Colombia’s urban centers of Santiago de Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá. Violent crime, poverty and suspicion run rampant in these neighborhoods. Although the political conflict has subsided, decades of political violence have scarred the Colombian consciousness with a tangible sense of fear, paralyzing individual and collective agency, and more broadly, threatening prospects for a stable Colombian democracy. Colombian refugees face a long road of struggle and hardship. It is only recently that we see Colombians beginning to reconstruct civil society. Lingering problems of marginality and unresolved justice remain, however. The purpose of this thesis is to tell the story of rebuilding civil society in Colombia. The approach, which combines research and narrative, is nontraditional. Part I synthesizes a combination of field interviews, ethnographic observation, peer reviewed journals, Colombian newspaper articles, as well as other sources. Part II, a novella, follows Paola Vasquez and the cause, and consequence of her displacement. The approach is intended to humanize, for both the author and the reader, the decay and rebirth of civil society in Colombia. Part I traces the origin and nature of the Colombian internal conflict, arguing that violence is a product of top-down coercion designed to belittle individual and collective agency. Such a process carries the demise of civil society. The gradual rebirth of civil society epitomizes the work of Fundación Laudes Infantis, the organization where I volunteered for six weeks between January and March of 2011. Chapter 2 reviews the organization’s methodology, patterns of success, and prospects for long-term gain. Part II comprises the narrative aspect of my thesis. Chapter 3 is a fictionalized representation of the perpetrators and victims of the May 22, 2006 Jamundí massacre. The chapter follows the lives of ex-Colombian Senator, Alvaro Garcia Romero, currently serving a 40 year jail sentence in Colombia for his involvement in multiple massacres, and protagonist Paola Vasquez, wife of a police officer murdered in Jamundí. Chaper Four follows Vasquez’ displacement to Ciudad Bolivar and examines the challenges of marginalization she experiences. She migrates to the outskirts of Bogota, works hard for hardly anything in the informal economy, experiences street violence and family disintegration. Eventually, she is able to connect with Jackie Moreno, founder of the development NGO Laudes Infantis. Gradually, she begins to reestablish her social network, her piece of a civil society.