COLOMBIA: Surviving the Long Conflict

Implications for the Elite Theory

By: Val Karanxha

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

War and conflict in Colombia, for almost four decades, have cost the country thousands of lives, communities ravaged by violence, indigenous population and small farmers expelled from their land, and a divided country by rogue politics and impunity. Civil war is the last resort to solving failed policies by using violence and revolutionary means. It inflicts pain and suffering on millions affected by it. The conflict in Colombia was a mere case of “bellum omnium contra omnes.” The state, the paramilitary, the drug cartels, and the left-wing guerrillas – were entangled in one of the most violent conflicts in Latin America from 1966 to 2016. The loss of innocent life was substantial. More than two hundred thousand people vanished, and many were never found. Impunity and government corruption reigned supreme. The country was decimated and balkanized in zones of influence between the guerrilla and the paramilitary. The state was fragile, and the threat of a possible collapse, at times, became a reality. The drug trafficking and the guerrilla warfare made Colombia a state and an institutional failure.