Impact of The Armed Conflict and Drug Trade On Civilians
Valle del Cauca has long been considered one of the epicenters of the Colombian armed conflict. It was here and in Tolima that Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, better known by the acronym FARC-EP, were founded in 1964, following the aftermath of La Violencia. Valle del Cauca is considered part of the guerrillas' traditional "heartland", which stretches across southern Colombia to Vichada in the east. In the 1970s the cultivation of illegal crops like coca (and the subsequent production of Cocaine) led to the rise of the Cali Cartel and the financial strengthening of the right-wing paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. In the 1980s the FARC became indirectly engaged in the drug trade through taxation of farmers, which quickly led to an escalation of the conflict between all parts involved. In the 1990s the department saw a number of displacement crises as tens of thousands of civilians, the majority of them of afro-Colombian and indigenous descent, were forced to flee the fighting between guerrillas, the army, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. The gradual downfall of the Cali Cartel and the demobilization of AUC between 2004 and 2006 led to a shift in the fighting in Valle del Cauca. Drug traffickers reorganized into smaller, more numerous and more effective "micro-cartels", while certain paramilitaries re-organized into "neo-paramilitary" groups, referred to as "BACRIM", or emergent criminal bands, by the government. The fracturing of the former paramilitary enemy allowed FARC and Ejército de Liberación Nacional to reclaim lost territory in the valley.
Read more about this topic: Valle Del Cauca Department
Famous quotes containing the words impact of the, impact of, impact, armed, conflict, drug and/or trade:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“It is a life-and-death conflict between all those grand, universal, man-respecting principles which we call by the comprehensive term democracy, and all those partial, person-respecting, class-favoring elements which we group together under that silver-slippered word aristocracy. If this war does not mean that, it means nothing.”
—Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825–1921)
“Behind the steering wheel
The boy took out his own forehead.
His girlfriend’s head was a green bag
Of narcissus stems. “OK you win
But meet me anyway at Cohen’s Drug Store
In 22 minutes.””
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)