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)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“The schoolmaster is abroad! And I trust to him armed with his primer against the soldier in full military array.”
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
“Whether outside work is done by choice or not, whether women seek their identity through work, whether women are searching for pleasure or survival through work, the integration of motherhood and the world of work is a source of ambivalence, struggle, and conflict for the great majority of women.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“He’d been numb a long time, years. All his nights down Ninsei, his nights with Linda, numb in bed and numb at the cold sweating center of every drug deal. But now he’d found this warm thing, this chip of murder. Meat, some part of him said. It’s the meat talking, ignore it.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“a highly respectable gondolier,
Who promised the Royal babe to rear
And teach him the trade of a timoneer
With his own beloved brattling.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)