Slow violence and corporate greening in the war on drugs in Colombia

• Published in: International affairs (London) 2021-01, Vol.97 (1), p.57-79
• Main Authors: Vélez-Torres, Irene, Lugo-Vivas, Diego
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Armed forces; Crops; Delayed; Drug policy; Drug trafficking; Ethnography; Families & family life; Fieldwork; Guerrilla forces; Land reform; Political ecology; Technical assistance; Transformation; Violence
• ISSN: 0020-5850; 1468-2346
• DOI: 10.1093/ia/iiaa159

Abstract Next to a broader agrarian reform, the Peace Accord signed between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and the Colombian Government (2016) was designed to support the voluntary substitution of illicit crops in an attempt to fight drug trafficking. In the municipality of Miranda (Northern Cauca), over 1300 peasant families agreed to eradicate their coca crops and stop their work in coca fields as part of the National Comprehensive Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops (PNIS). Nearly three years later, the programme has shown little progress based on complementary evidence. First, it has only embraced 38% of the families who declared their will to replace illicit crops; and second, it has delayed commitments regarding access to land and financial and technical assistance for alternative projects. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this article brings an insightful and original political ecology perspective to environmental peacebuilding, showing that the promised transformation for marginalized peasant communities has been neglected. We argue that initial solutions for substitution have not only been redirected to benefit green corporate agrarian projects but have also been gradually abandoned by the state, creating different forms of slow environmental violence.