Analysis of the Causes of the Murder of Social and Civic Leaders in Colombia

• In Event: Violence, crime and insecurity in Latin America from a subnational perspective

Abstract

Colombia’s prospects for peace after the successful agreement between the government and the FARC have been stained by the number of assassinated civic and social leaders. In 2017, around 190 civic leaders were murdered by criminal and neo-paramilitary groups. This number increased dramatically throughout 2018 in the midst of elections.
In this paper, we explore the connection between violence against civic leaders and dynamics of electoral competition at the municipal level. Although the presence of criminal groups and structural factors, such as inequality of land tenure or illegal mineral extraction, are important to understand the spatial distribution of assassinated leaders, we argue that the nature of local electoral competition impacts the likelihood that a civic leader will be assassinated. In particular, we contend that the instability of local political orders and/or the credible entry of new (competitive) political forces creates incentives for established politicians—in conjunction with criminal and neo-paramilitary groups—to use violence to sustain the local political status quo.
We use a cross-sectional data set of Colombian municipalities to assess our claims, as well as extensive fieldwork in three municipalities of Colombia’s pacific region: Bojayá (Chocó), Buenaventura (Valle), and Tumaco (Nariño). These municipalities have been afflicted by high levels of violence and have been the focus of interventions by the national government through its territorial development programs (PDETs). The paper sheds light into broader debates in the region, for example in Brazil and Mexico, about the conditions under which criminal groups engage in violence against civic and political leaders.

Author

• Juan G Albarracin Dierolf, Universidad Icesi