critical theory approach to the 'war on terrorism' in colombia
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A fourth-year international relations essay employing a first- and second-order immanent critique of the 'war on terrorism' in Colombia.Got an A grade. DO NOT REFERENCE.TRANSCRIPT
How do Dominant Definitions of ‘Terrorism’ Reflect Elite Interests and Legitimise Violence in Defence Thereof? A Critical Study of the ‘War on
Terrorism’ in Colombia
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the ways in which dominant constructions of what constitutes ‘terrorism’ serve to legitimise violence in the defence of elite interests whilst delegitimising counter-hegemonic and non-violent approaches in the context of the ‘war on terrorism’ in Colombia. Employing an ‘immanent critique’ methodology, inconsistencies within the United States’ and Colombian governmental definitions of terrorism, which preclude designation of acts of the Colombian armed forces as ‘terrorist’ are explored. The governments’ representations of what constitutes ‘terrorism’ and whom constitutes a ‘terrorist’ are seen to legitimise the continuation of conflict in the defence of elite interests and the demonisation of progressive elements of civil society.
I. Introduction
This paper will explore the ways in which constructions of ‘legitimate’ and
‘illegitimate’ political violence through the designation of certain acts and groups as
‘terrorist’ serves very particular functions useful to dominant societal groups, through
an exploration of the case of Colombia.
Particularly since 2001, the forty-year-long conflict in Colombia has come to be
framed by both the Colombian and United States governments as a part of the larger
‘war against terrorism’. This paper will employ a methodology of ‘immanent
critique’, as used by scholars of the ‘Welsh School’ of Critical Security Studies and
Critical Terrorism Studies (Jackson, 2008; McDonald, 2009; Booth, 2007) which
seeks to expose inconsistencies in dominant and mainstream accounts of (of
‘terrorism’, in this case) with a view to revealing the political functions which these
inconsistent representations serve and locating solidarist, non-violent and inclusive
approaches which are silenced or marginalised. I hope to show that through
monopolising the mainstream position of who defines ‘terrorism’, ‘terrorists’, and the
appropriate response to the ‘terrorist threat’ in a manner which precludes the
possibility of state terrorism, the US and Colombian governments legitimise the
continuance of a brutal armed campaign not only against guerrilla insurgencies, but
also against progressive elements of civil society whom oppose human rights abuses
and neoliberal economic reform. The subjugation of alternative approaches to the
conflict, which aim to expose state terrorism and espouse non-violent solutions, is
vital for the continuation of the conflict in defence of elite interests.
After introducing the present-day situation in Colombia and the literary context and
details of the theoretical approach of the paper, I will analyse the definitions of
terrorism upon which the U.S and Colombian governments base their framing of the
conflict, before subjecting these definitions to a first-order and second-order
immanent critique.
II. Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia
Colombia has been torn apart by conflict since the late 1940s. What began as a war
between rival liberal and conservative elites evolved, in the 1950s, into class conflict
between those same elites on the one hand and peasant colonisers who would go on to
form the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC – Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia). Joined by fellow Marxists of the Ejercito de Liberación
Nacional (ELN – National Liberation Army), the FARC would engage in what
became an archetypal Cold-War conflict against the Colombian armed forces, aided
by right-wing paramilitary groups, and with the training, equipment and tuition of the
United States1. During the 1980s all sides, particularly the paramilitaries2, deepened
their involvement in Colombia’s booming narcotrafficking trade, a fact which has
made more difficult the resolution of the conflict.
1 Stokes, 2005:71-792 ibid p102
The support of the United States to the Colombian military effort against the FARC
and ELN has been nothing short of integral; it was US counter-insurgency doctrine
which guided the army and paramilitaries in their fight against ‘communists’ during
the cold war, and which has continued since under the auspices of a ‘war on drugs’
and, in recent years’ a ‘war on terrorism’; Colombia remains one of the biggest
recipients of US military and police aid in the world.
After decades of armed conflict, the situation in Colombia today is particularly grave.
The FARC and ELN continue to be responsible for grievous human rights abuses;
right-wing paramilitaries, despite supposedly being opposed by the government, carry
out regular and brutal attacks against progressive elements of civil society such as
indigenous organisations, journalists, and human rights groups, and have made
Colombia the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. These same
organisations are also subject to a constant barrage of attacks from government
officials, whom reject their criticisms of the conduct of the conflict or the continued
imposition of neoliberal reform and accuse them of working in the service of the
‘terrorists’.
The real price for the decades of conflict is paid by the civilian population, whom are
subject to constant violence and the threat thereof by all sides. Colombia now enjoys
the second-highest rate of internal displacement in the world3.
III. Literary Context and Theoretical Approach
Analyses of the conflict in Colombia in the aftermath of the Cold War have, by and
large, remained innocent of post-positivist analysis, much less so the literature which
could be seen as belonging to the field of ‘terrorism studies’ or ‘security studies’.
Since 2001, the issue of ‘terrorism’ in Colombia has received comparatively little
attention by contrast to that which has been lavished upon ‘terrorist’ groups which are
3 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2008
more religious in their ideological orientation or disposed towards suicide attacks in
their strategies. Nonetheless, there does exist a literature which for the most part could
be described as pertaining to an ‘orthodox’ or problem-solving approach to ‘terrorism
studies’ which tend to adhere to what Stokes4 calls a ‘discontinuity thesis’, which
claims that US policy in Colombia has shifted from a focus on communism during the
cold war to drugs in the 1990s and now ‘terrorism’. Such approaches thus typically
focus on the dynamics of the supposed ‘crime-terror nexus’5 or ‘narco-terrorist’
phenomenon6, often with the intention of drawing policy-relevant conclusions in
terms of the greater ‘war on terrorism’7.
A notable exception – at least in the English-language literature – to the dominant
‘problem-solving’ approach is represented by the work of Doug Stokes8 who has
launched a series of vitriolic attacks upon the predominant discourses offered by
various United States administrations to justify their policies in Colombia.
Recent years have seen the emergence of something of a bifurcation within the field
of ‘terrorism studies’ generally, a field which had not previously been known for its
heterogeneity of theoretical approaches, and which had witnessed significant growth
in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 attacks in the United States as a result of
‘terrorism’ coming to dominate the foreign and internal policy agendas of the U.S and
several other states. Until recently, much of the scholarly work on ‘terrorism’
conformed to the characteristics of what Richard Jackson9 and others refer to as
‘Orthodox Terrorism Studies’10. A sub-field of Policy Studies with its roots in
Security Studies, this dominant ‘orthodox’ literature has tended to take a positivist,
4 Stokes, 2005, 1-185 see for example Hutchinson & O’Malley, 20076 see for Example Bjornehed, 20047 ibid; Vaicius and Isacson, 20038 Stokes, 2005, 20069 see Jackson, 200710 ‘Orthodox’ literature is, however, not quite as homogenous as the label may imply: see Horgan and Boyle (2008)
rational, and ‘problem-solving’ orientation towards the issue of ‘terrorism’ and tends
to be designed to be policy-relevant. It is in reaction to the nature of this ‘orthodox’
literature that, in the last few years, the new research agenda of ‘Critical Terrorism
Studies’ (CTS) emerged, initially focusing upon heavily criticising the
epistemological and methodological foundations and institutional contexts of the
predominant ‘orthodox’ approach. Some of the strongest criticisms stem from the fact
that ‘Orthodox’ Terrorism Studies was an academic field “not dominated
institutionally by universities so much as by think tanks, policy institutes, intelligence
agencies, militaries, media organisations, and the ideological activity of political
parties and ministers”11; links between governments, research institutes and think
tanks – such as those which have existed between the RAND Corporation and
successive US governments – has resulted in ‘embedded expertise’12, which is
charged with cementing the state-centric bias of research, and this state-centrism has
led to a ‘problem-solving’ literature which, according to Ruth Blakely “considers the
problem of terrorism within the context of…existing institutions and power
dynamics”13; what’s more, research associated with this “embedded expertise”, such
as the propagation of the ‘new terrorism’ concept, is charged with serving specific
functions advantageous to certain elite groups14.
A major problem – not just confined to ‘Orthodox Terrorism Studies’, but perhaps to
the entire ‘terrorism’ discourse, both governmental and scholarly – is the lack of a
widely accepted definition of terrorism. Research which tends to look at the ‘problem’
of the ‘terrorist-other’ from within state-centric paradigms, then, would tend naturally
to focus upon non-state actors acting against the state; the net result of this is a severe
11 Burke, 2008:3712 Burnett and Whyte, 200513 Blakely 2007:22914 Burnett and Whyte, 2005:13-15
lack of research into the issue of state terrorism which as Ruth Blakely points out, has
become something of an ‘elephant in the room’15.
More generally, the very category of ‘terrorist’ now presents itself as something
which needs to be dealt with; it is accepted by scholars on both sides of the
orthodox/critical divide that the labelling of an individual, group, or action as
‘terrorist’ is an inherently delegitimising act16. Eric Herring, in looking at CTS from
an activist-scholar perspective, asserts that the ‘terrorism’ category is something
which needs to be moved beyond as part of a general strategy of rights-based
opposition to all forms of political violence; the political act of labelling a particular
group as ‘terrorist’ is a barrier to understanding (understood as comprehension and
empathy) and a – perhaps deliberate – barrier to dialogue and conflict resolution, and
thus an obstruction to emancipation17. Indeed, in exploring an emancipatory approach
to CTS, Matt McDonald points out the importance of inquiring as to which voices are
privileged over others in defining what is ‘terrorism’, who are ‘terrorists’, and what
the best response to the ‘terrorist threat’ is, with a view to locating the functions this
serves and the voices espousing potentially emancipatory non-violent solutions which
are actively marginalised18. It is primarily with these questions, in the Colombian
contexts, which this paper will concern itself, through employing a methodology of
‘immanent critique’ as expanded below.
Theoretical Approach
This paper will hope to explore the ways in which the definition of what constitutes
‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ groups and activities affects the legitimacy of the
aforementioned groups and activities, as well as responses to them, with a view to
15see Blakely 2008; see also Jackson 200816 Herring, 2008:20617 ibid p20718 McDonald, 2009:114-116
identifying the ways in which some voices are amplified over others in this process,
and thus the ways in which it reflects the interests of particular groups. The approach
will broadly follow the ‘immanent critique’ method popular within the ‘Welsh school’
of Critical Security Studies and recommended by McDonald19 as a strong
methodology for developing an emancipatory approach to CTS. ‘Immanent critique’
is a method of inquiry which “engages with the core commitments of particular
discourses, ideologies, or institutional arrangements on their own terms, in the process
of locating possibilities for radical change within a particular existing order”20
Following from this, our task in this paper is to explore whose voices are privileged
(and what perspectives are silenced?) in determining what constitutes ‘terrorism’; who
are ‘terrorists’; and what are the appropriate actions to be taken against them. Thus, in
this case, the texts to be analysed will be the legal definitions of ‘terrorism’ and what
constitutes a ‘terrorist organisation’ employed by the Governments of the United
States and Colombia which consequently lay the legal foundations for various forms
of action against them.
The given discourse, ideology or institutional arrangement is then subjected to two
phases of critique ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’. A first-order critique focuses on
“internal contradictions, mistakes, misconceptions and omissions” of the discourse
(etc) in question “in order to criticise it on its own terms and expose the events and
perspectives that…[it] fails to acknowledge or address”21. This paper will therefore
seek to denaturalise the governments’ definitions of terrorism through exploring the
possibility of state terrorism in Colombia.
A second-order critique, then, steps back from the discourse itself in order to reflect
upon the “broader political and ethical consequences” of the naturalisation of one
19 ibid20 ibid p11321 Jackson, 2008:379
particular representation and the silencing of others; in particular, the ways in which it
is used by elites to “structure the primary subject positions, accepted knowledge,
commonsense and legitimate policy responses to the actors and events being
described; exclude and de-legitimise alternative knowledge and practice; naturalise a
particular political and social order; and construct and sustain a hegemonic regime of
truth”22 .
Through engagement with this technique I will argue that the choice of a particular
representation of what constitutes ‘terrorism’ by both governments is a deliberate
choice with significant political consequences in the Colombian context.
IV. State Definitions of ‘Terrorism’ in the United States and Colombia
Successive Colombian and United States’ administrations have reiterated that the
conflict in Colombia is one between a government and ‘terrorists’ with strong
connections to the narcotrafficking industry; the power of the word ‘terrorism’ being
what it is, this is a strategy which deliberately and with great ease places the conflict
in terms of a ‘good’ state and ‘bad’ terrorists. With the extent of U.S hegemony
nowadays, such presentations of the conflict can become so easily naturalised that we
may lose track of the fact that this is the viewpoint presented not by neutral observers
but by belligerents in a conflict, despite the substantial efforts of both governments to
present ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ as an objective category with criteria which must
be met. This section will outline these criteria with a view to denaturalising them
through first- and second-order immanent critiques at a later point.
The U.S. State Department’s ‘Terrorism’ Criteria
The two main left-wing armed insurgent groups in Colombia - the FARC and ELN -
have been on the United States’ Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) since 1997,
22 ibid
whilst the right-wing umbrella group for paramilitaries, the Autodefensas Unidas de
Colombia (AUC – Unided Self-Defence Forces of Colombia) was added in 2001.
Three criteria must be fulfilled before an organisation may be placed on the FTO list:
firstly, it must be a foreign organisation. Secondly, it must engage in terrorist activity
as defined in Section 213 (a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, (INA) or
terrorism as defined by section 140(d)(2) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act,
Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989, or “retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorist
activity or terrorism”23. The INA gives an extensive list of actions which qualify as
terrorist activity:
“[A]ny activity which is unlawful under the laws of the place where it is
committed (or which, if committed in the United States, would be unlawful
under the laws of the United States or any State) and which involves any
of the following:
(I) The highjacking [sic] or sabotage of any conveyance (including an
aircraft, vessel, or vehicle).
(II) The seizing or detaining, and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to
detain, another individual in order to compel a third person (including a
governmental organization) to do or abstain from doing any act as an
explicit or implicit condition for the release of the individual seized or
detained.
(III) A violent attack upon an internationally protected person (as defined
in section 1116(b)(4) of title 18, United States Code) or upon the liberty of
such a person.
(IV) An assassination.
(V) The use of any--
23 US State Department, 2009
(a) biological agent, chemical agent, or nuclear weapon or device, or
(b) explosive, firearm, or other weapon or dangerous device (other
than for mere personal monetary gain), with intent to endanger, directly
or indirectly, the safety of one or more individuals or to cause substantial
damage to property.
(VI) A threat, attempt, or conspiracy to do any of the foregoing.”24
To engage in terrorist activity, then, is defined as to carry out, prepare or plan, solicit
any individual for involvement in, knowingly afford material support for, or gather
information for potential targets of the above actions. The Foreign Relations
Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989 defines terrorism as:
[P]remeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents”.25
The third and final criterion is that “[t]he organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism
must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense,
foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States”26.
‘Terrorism’ in Colombian Penal Law
Colombian anti-terrorist legislation (upon which, presumably, subsequent statutes and
rhetoric are built) refers to ‘terrorism’ and ‘acts of terrorism’ as defined in Articles
144 and 343 of the Colombian Penal Code (legislación penal). Article 144 states:
“Acts of terrorism. (S)He whom, in the course of armed conflict,
carries out or orders to be carried out indiscriminate or excessive
attacks or makes the civil population the object of attacks, reprisals,
24 US State Department Archive: Immigration and Nationality Act25 US State Department Archive: Foreign Relations Authorization Act 1988 and 198926 US State Department, 2009
acts or threats of violence whose final purpose is to terrorise [the civil
population]27
Article 343 states:
“Terrorism. He who provokes or maintains in a state of anxiety or terror
the population or a sector thereof, through acts which endanger the life,
physical integrity, or the freedom of people or buildings or means of
communication, transport, processing or transport of fluids or prime
movers using means capable of causing havoc…”28
The two United States’ definitions can be seen to vary greatly in both content and
orientation: the first focuses entirely on methods and means and makes practically no
mention of the agency or intent, whereas the second explicitly states that the groups
are non-state actors, perpetrating politically motivated ‘violence against non-
combatant targets’. Whilst the first does not explicitly state that the actors involved
are non-state, it is implied somewhat by the criteria that the action be considered
illegal in the state in which it takes place. The Colombian definitions, by virtue of
being official state documents, can be assumed to exclude official actions of the State.
Both States, based upon these definitions, have designated the FARC, ELN and AUC
as terrorist organisations. Since it is the States that dominate the agenda in defining
what and whom constitutes ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’, they also clearly dominate the
agenda in defining the appropriate response; accordingly, they espouse a military
solution combined with destruction of illicit crops in order to drain revenue, and the
deepening of neoliberal economic reform29.
V. First-Order Critique
27 Congress of Colombia: Colombian Penal Code, available at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/colombia/doc/penal.html [in Spanish; this and all translations by the author]28 ibid29 Stokes, 2005, 105-122
A first-order critique will engage with these definitions on their own terms in order to
expose inconsistencies, practical problems and hypocrisies. First of all, the implicit
(and in the case of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, explicit) notion present in
the States’ definitions that terrorism can only be carried out by sub-national groups
(ergo not the state itself) is, as Richard Jackson states, absurd30. As we shall explore
below, despite governmental denials and claims to the contrary, actions taken by
representatives of the Colombian state, even in recent years, easily satisfy the criteria
necessary, as outlined above, to be classified as ‘acts of terrorism’.
We shall begin by looking at the actions of the Colombian security forces themselves.
With the partial demobilisation of paramilitary groups in recent years, the number of
extrajudicial killings carried out by the Colombian armed forces has increased
substantially. According to Amnesty International31, in 2007 alone over 330 people
were reportedly subjected to extrajudicial killings by the security forces; victims, who
are often campesinos or community organisers, are “typically taken from their home
or place of work in front of witnesses and taken to another location to be killed. The
body is presented wearing army fatigues by the security forces…[and] often show
signs of torture”32; the victims are generally later alleged by the security forces to be
“guerrillas killed in combat”.
Acts by civilians as simple as an explicit statement of non-involvement in the conflict
are apparently sufficient justification for suspicion and attacks. A particularly
pertinent example of this is provided by the killing of five members of the Comunidad
de Paz de San José de Apartadó (Peace Community of San José de Apartadó), - a
‘humanitarian zone’ wherein the community has pledged not to be drawn into either
side of the conflict – in 2005. The security forces, who still claim that the community
30 Jackson, 2008:38331 Amnesty 2008:2532 ibid
is subversive, have been implicated in the killings33. Communities such as these,
particularly in the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó River Basins, are under constant threat
of attack from all sides, who are competing for control of palm oil reservations in the
area.
Aside from their own activities, and despite supposed efforts by the government to
prosecute such behaviour, there remains strong evidence of significant linkages
between elements of the armed forces and right-wing paramilitaries, who remain
responsible for the majority of human rights abuses in Colombia. A UN report from
2005 noted a character of military operations whereby areas are taken by regular
Colombian military personnel, and paramilitaries subsequently arrive to control the
captured territory with at least the acquiescence of the armed forces34. Furthermore,
according to Amnesty, members of the security forces have occasionally made
explicit threats to civilian populations that, once they had moved on, they would be
replaced by paramilitaries35. The full extent of collusion between state and military
officials has been evidenced, at least in part, by the ‘para-politics’ scandal of recent
years, wherein it was revealed that some 60 parliamentarians – most of whom were
part of Uribe’s governing coalition – and over 100 other public officials had alleged
links to paramilitary activity36. Despite Uribe’s ostensibly anti-paramilitary stance, the
facts on the ground tell an alarmingly different story, as perhaps best summed up by
the declaration of an AUC regional commander in 2003: “Uribe is like heaven
compared to [former President] Pastrana”37.
In spite of governmental rhetoric, then, there remains apparently systematic and
widespread use of extrajudicial killings and close collusion with right-wing
33 Indymedia, 2005; Amnesty, 200934 Stokes, 2005:11335 Amnesty 2008:35-3636 ibid p1937 Stokes, 2005:112
paramilitaries within the Colombian military, with quite obvious political motives,
which easily satisfy the criteria for ‘terrorism’ as set out by the US State Department
and Colombian Penal Laws – if, that is, they did not preclude the classification of
government actions as ‘terrorist’. Nonetheless, both governments present the conflict
as one between a ‘legitimate’ state and the ‘illegitimate’ FARC, ELN and the very
paramilitaries which appear not only to be closely related to state and government
officials at all levels, but appear to some large extent to act in their interests.
The purpose of a first-order critique, as Jackson states, is to destabilise dominant
understandings of accepted knowledge, expose biases and imbalances, and suggest
that other ways of ‘knowing’ are possible38. In this case, I have attempted to
destabilise the dominant understanding of the ‘terrorist problem’ in Colombia as
portrayed by the US and Colombian governments through demonstrating that,
although their definitions of ‘terrorist acts’ preclude state involvement, actions of
Colombian state representatives clearly qualify as acts of ‘terrorism’.
VI. Second-Order Critique
By means of a second-order critique, I will now attempt to explore the ethical,
ideological and political functions of the particular representation of ‘terrorism’ and
‘terrorists’ in the Colombian context espoused by the governments of Colombia and
the United States. It is my contention that this particular representation serves specific
political and ideological purposes beneficial to both the Colombian ruling elites and
the economic interests of the United States.
Since 2001 the U.S has shifted its rhetoric regarding its involvement in Colombia
from one of ‘counter-narcotics’ to one of ‘counter-terrorism’, thus bringing the
38 Jackson, 2008:386
conflict under the umbrella of the ‘Global War on Terrorism’. FARC – despite being
responsible for less human rights atrocities than the AUC and other paramilitaries –
was designated the ‘most dangerous terrorist group in the Western Hemisphere’ by
Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Senator John McCain asserted that the U.S had
‘dispensed with the illusion’ that a qualitative difference existed between drug
traffickers and ‘domestic terrorists’39. Former Assistant Secretary of State, Rand
Beers, even went so far as to allege that FARC members had received training in ‘Al
Qaeda terrorist camps’, a statement which he later withdrew40. Through situating the
Colombian conflict and narckotrafficking problem in terms of the greater ‘War on
Terrorism’, the US has been able to greatly increase police and military assistance
under the Andean Regional Assistance in the years 2003-2008 to between $597
million and $632 million, compared to around $398 million in 2002, compared to
economic and social aid ranging from around $132 million to $139 million in the
same period41.
Framing the conflict in terms of ‘terrorism’, complete with recognition thereof by the
United States, has been an indispensable political tool for the Uribe governments, and
has been utilised extensively to demonise sections of civil society whom question
government policies or oppose continued neoliberal reform of the economy.
The policy of the Uribe administrations has been to consistently deny – despite the
last 40 years of conflict - that what exists in Colombia is an internal armed conflict;
according to the President, “in Colombia there is no war. War contains elements of
legitimacy between contenders. In Colombia there are not legitimate contenders, there
is a democratic State within which lives a population mistreated by terrorism”42; such
39 Stokes, 2006:37840 Stokes, 2005:10641 Center for International Policy, 200842 Uribe, as quoted by the Colombian Ministry of Defence (2004)
a sentiment has been echoed by other government officials43. Defining the conflict in
these terms has significant consequences: it implies a rejection of the principle of
distinction between civilians and combatants, forces the civilian population to be at
the service of the military, and negates the need to respect the norms of Humanitarian
Law which would otherwise apply to an internal armed conflict. Uribe’s primary
policy regarding terrorism, the Politica de Seguridad Democrática, or ‘Democratic
Security Policy’, which has been promoted since 2002, takes as its objective “to
reinforce and ensure the rule of law in the entire territory, through the strengthening
of democratic authority: the free exercise of the authority of the institutions, of the
rule of law and of the active participation of citizens in matters of common interest”44.
Thus, a clear bifurcation in terms of legitimacy is created and reinforced through the
implication that citizens must become involved in the fight against ‘terrorism’:
essentially, you are either with the government, or with the ‘terrorists’. In practice,
this policy has been utilised to crack down on internal dissent and systematically
demonise citizens or organisations who voice concerns as regarding government
policies, particularly human rights organisations, trade unions, and media outlets. As
early as 2002 the policy was invoked in order to temporarily suspend public rallies
due to a state of ‘internal commotion’. Civil society organisations – particularly those
involved in Human Rights, Trade Unions, or indigenous organisations – have been
subjected to vitriolic attacks and claims that they are supporters or accomplices of the
‘terrorists’,45 as part of a clear campaign to stigmatise their work. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, precisely the same accusations are made by the paramilitaries, whom
continue to regularly attack the same trade unionists, media outlets, human rights
activists, community organisers, and so forth which the government claims work in
43 International Commission of Jurists, 2006:444 República De Colombia, 2003:1245 see for example Amnesty, 2008b
favour of the ‘terrorists’. Whilst the government supposedly opposes paramilitaries, in
practice, little is done to protect progressive elements of civil society. ‘Good citizens’,
by contrast, are those who join the fight against the terrorists by joining one of the
local part-time army brigades, or the paid informant network set up under the
Democratic Security Policy.
The maintenance of the dominant neoliberal order through state terrorism and
paramilitary attacks against progressive elements of Colombian civil society has been
of significant benefit to the United States. Successive administrations have explicitly
tied the need for the deepening of neoliberal market reform with the fight against
narcotraffickers and ‘terrorism’; indeed, economic considerations can be observed to
be central to US policy in the region. As a former chief of the US Southern Command
asserted, “maintenance of a stability geared towards the preservation of capitalist
socioeconomic relations and the continued and unhindered access to Latin American
markets by US transnationals in the post-cold war period” are vital to US interests46.
Indeed, U.S access to oil in the region has become vital in recent years, as perhaps
evidenced by the $98 million included in the ARI in 2003 dedicated to the formation
and training of a military unit which would be dedicated solely to defend the Caño
Limón oil pipeline, owned by American company Occidental, which perhaps speaks
volumes about U.S interests in the region47.
We can see, then, that the representation of the conflict by the U.S and Colombian
governments as one between a ‘legitimate’ state and ‘illegitimate’ ‘terrorists’ and
their supporters in the human rights, trade union, anti-war and other organisations
serves very specific ends; the alternative representations of, and non-violent solutions
to the conflict espoused by groups such as the Movement of Victims of State Crimes
46 Stokes, 2006:37947 ibid p378
(MOVICE)48, or the Peace Community of San José must, along with traditional
groups, such as trade unions, whom oppose the continued imposition of a disciplinary
form of neoliberalism, be silenced in order to legitimise continued conflict in the
name of these interests.
VII. Conclusions
This paper has examined the ways in which the definitions of terrorism used by the
United States and Colombia, which preclude designation of the Colombian military or
its actions as ‘terrorist’, serve to frame the Colombian conflict in a particular way
which is advantageous to both the Colombian ruling elite and the United States as it
facilitates the silencing of internal dissent and the continuation of conflict in defence
of economic interests. This comes at a cost to elements of civil society who espouse a
non-violent solution to the conflict and those whom oppose neoliberal economic
reforms alike. It is my contention that if an emancipatory solution to the conflict is to
be achieved, the voices of the moderate majority in Colombia must be amplified,
above those for whom the conflict has become profitable. Furthermore, the ‘terrorist’
designation must be moved beyond as it is integral to the justification espoused by
both governments for the continuation of said conflict. Perhaps a comprehensive
discourse-analytic approach, however, would have been somewhat more enlightening
in demonstrating more completely the ways in which the ‘terrorism/counter-terrorism’
dichotomy functions to legitimise elite interests and delegitimise counter-hegemonic
and non-violent discourses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amnesty International (2009a) “Colombia: Thousands of Civilians Punished for Not Participating in Conflict”
48 see www.movimientodevictimas.org
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/colombia-thousands-civilians-punished-not-participating-conflict-2009022
Amnesty International (2008a) ‘Leave Us in Peace! Targeting Civilians in Colombia’s Internal Armed Conflict’
Amnesty International (2008b) “Colombian President Should Stop False Accusations Against Human Rights Groups”, 20 November 2008, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/colombian-president-should-stop-false-accusations-against-human-rights-groups-20081120
Björnehed, Emma(2004)'Narco-Terrorism: The Merger of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror', Global Crime,6:3,305 — 324
Blakely, Ruth (2007) ‘Bringing the State back into Terrorism Studies’ European Political Science 6 228-235
Blakely, Ruth (2008): ‘The Elephant in the Room: A Reply to John Horgan and Michael J. Boyle’ Critical Studies on Terrorism 1:2 151-165
Booth, Ken (2007) Theory of World Society Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Burke, Anthony (2008) ‘The End of Terrorism Studies’ Critical Studies on Terrorism1:1 37-49
Burnett, Johnny & Dave Whyte (2005) “Embedded Expertise and the New Terrorism” Journal for Crime, Conflict and the Media 1 (4) 1-18
Center for International Policy: ‘US aid to Colombia since 1997: Summary Tables’ http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/aidtable.htm
Gunning, Jeroen (2007): “A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies?” Government and
Opposition Vol. 42 No. 3 pp.363-393
Herring, Eric (2008): “Critical Terrorism Studies: An Activist Scholar Perspective”
Critical Studies on Terrorism 1:2, 197-211
Horgan, John and Boyle, Michael J. (2008) ‘A case against Critical TerrorismStudies’ Critical Studies on Terrorism 1:2 51-64
Hutchinson, Steven & O’Malley, Pat (2007) “A Crime-Terror Nexus? Thinking on Some of the Links between Terrorism and Criminality” Studies in Conflict and Terorrism, 30:12 1095-1107
Indymedia Colombia: “Ultima Version Masacre San José de Apartadó” http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/2005/03/22797.php
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (2008) “Internally Displaced People in Colombia” http://www.internal-displacement.org/
International Commission of Jurists ‘Eminent Jurists Panel: Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights’ (2006) “Executive Summary of the Colombia Hearing, Bogotá, Colombia, 8-10 February 2006”
Jackson, Richard (2007) ‘The Core Commitments of Critical Terrorism Studies’European Political Science 6 pp244-251
Jackson, Richard (2008) ‘The Ghosts of State Terror: Knowledge, Politics and Terrorism Studies’ Critical Studies on Terrorism 1:3, 377-392
McDonald, Matt (2009) ‘Emancipation and Critical Terrorism Studies’ in Jackson et al (eds) Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (London & New York: Routledge)
Ministry of Defence, Republic of Colombia (2004) “En Colombia no hay Guerra, hay un Desafío Terrorista: Uribe” [“In Colombia there is no War, there is a Terrorist Challenge: Uribe] http://www.mindefensa.gov.co/index.php?page=181&id=356
Movimiento de Victimas de Crimines del Estado (Movement of Victims of State Crimes): www.movimientodevictimas.org
República de Colombia (2003) Política de Defensa y Seguridad Democrática, (Defence and Democratic Security Policy) accessed on-line http://mindefensa.gov.co/dayTemplates/images/seguridad_democratica.pdf
Stokes, Doug (2005) America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (Zed Books)
Stokes, Doug (2006) “Iron Fists in Iron Gloves: The Political Economy of US Terrorocracy Promotion in Colombia” British Journal of Politics and International Relations Vol. 8 368-387
US Department of State: Foreign Terrorist Organisations Fact Sheet http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/08/103392.htm
Vaicius, Ingrid & Isacson, Adam (2003) “The ‘War on Drugs’ meets the ‘War on Terror’: The United Stats’ Military Involvement in Colombia Climbs to the Next Level” Center for International Policy International Policy Report, February 2003
Legal Texts
Congress of Colombia: Colombian Penal Code, available at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/colombia/doc/penal.html
US Department of State Archive: Immigration and Nationality Act Section 212 http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/08/103399.htm
US Department of State Archive: Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989: Terrorism Definitionhttp://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/08/103401.htm