Laura V. Caicedo Espinel, Bachelors in Conflict Studies and Human Rights
Host country : Colombia
Canadian NGO : Mines Action Canada (MAC)
Local NGO : Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines
In my previous blog post, I discussed the complexity of the Colombian Conflict: a rural-based insurgency involving numerous rivalries, not only between interconnected and opposing armed groups but also against the State, fueled by illegal economies such as drug trafficking and corruption.
What is most interesting though is the many dualities one witnessed on the daily. While many communities are being confined by the leading armed groups in their respective regions, the cities are full of life, culture, and tourism. In the news, there are images of children hiding under their desks, with teachers signaling to reassure them during confrontations between armed groups and the Colombian Army. In the next segment, the focus shifts to Karol G, a Colombian pop-reggaeton singer, and her 2024 world tour. While another national Health Provider Entity closes their doors due to bankruptcy or bad management, many people regardless of class or income struggle to find new health affiliations, and further marginalizing the most vulnerable communities. All the while, the Veneuelan exodus towards Colombia intensifies due to the electoral period and Maduro’s re-election in Venezuela.
When I was brought to Puerto Asís, Putumayo—one of the areas most affected by antipersonnel landmine contamination—I understood how this related to my organization’s mandate. The purpose of our visit was to conduct a quarterly impact evaluation, aimed at compiling information on demining targets, office operations, and the community’s perception of the work carried out by CCBL in their territories. During car rides, boat trips, community visits, and team meetings with the coordination and the Gender Focal Points (GFP), many insights about the conflict emerged.
The armed groups are semi-nomads, and they cover mostly the rural areas of Colombia, where its easier to hide, and where the coca cultivations are located. Despite the 2016 Peace Accords and its conditions, there is alway risk of further explosive ordnance contamination, and recontamination of already cleared areas. The violence is frequent, ranging from homicides, kidnappings, and crossfires to child recruitment, village confinements, and more. Consequently, the main victims are the locals—the poorest communities in Colombia, including farmers, Indigenous people, and 2 Afro-Colombian communities, as they are the main populations living in these hazardous zones.
This directly affects the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines' (CCBL) demining projects. In my previous blog, I had mentioned that due to these confrontations and the limits of the State reach, the CCBL has to depend on community authorization and cooperation to enter many of these territories, often only having their protection. This makes demining work high risk, particularly in zones where there is more density of Non-State Armed Groups (NSAG), such as Putumayo, Vichada, the Uraba Antioqueño, and Norte de Santander among others.
This limits their reach in terms of areas that can be investigated for explosive artefacts, their capacity to disseminate information about explosive ordnance risks and consequences to the most affected populations, and their ability to offer victim assistance. In turn, these limitations affect the many communities that remain trapped within their territories due to fear of movement, leading to reduced land use and impacting their economic sustainability. This further marginalizes them and increases their dependency on illegal economies, such as coca cultivation, which requires less land and generates more income. It also heightens their risk of voluntarily joining Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs) due to lack of alternatives, exemplifying a systemic force that perpetuates the cycle of conflict.
Furthermore, these locations share a commonality : they are border regions with Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama. Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this... These areas, being the most contaminated zones, are directly adjacent to territories where migrants must navigate through unfamiliar paths in dense jungles, making countless victims. This becomes an intersecting issue connecting the importance of disarmament and Integral Mine Action and migratory flows as well as the refugee crisis.
Moreover, it is important to highlight that conflict is also a gender issue that affects the communities and the institutional operations alike. Due to high rates of forced disappearances, mortality, and affiliation with NSAGs among men, racialized women often become heads of households, placing them at heightened risk of gender-based violence perpetrated by NSAGs, including child recruitment, rape, or forced displacements. This makes them the sole breadwinners not only for their families but also for entire communities sometimes. et, Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and mestiza women constitute some of the most illiterate populations in Colombia. Moreover, the farther these communities are located in the jungle, the fewer opportunities they have.
Interestingly, the CCBL has a gender department, and their commitments with donors often include numerical targets for gender 3 equity. Having translated a few gender activities reports and participated in the meeting with the Puerto Asis’ GFP, it is clear that there is an organizational effort – visible in its internal and external outputs– to disseminate information on the intersectional factors of the conflict, gender-based violence, and collective empowerment, all the while remaining culturally respectful. Indeed, the CCBL believes that in order to analyze the Colombian conflict through the principles of disarmament and peacebuilding, it is important to employ a gender approach. Consequently, they have developed several productive projects aimed at enhancing economic opportunities for Indigenous women and providing educational workshops on gender-related issues to raise community awareness. Internally, the CCBL conducts mandatory workshops and seminars at regional offices and headquarters to raise awareness among its teams. Additionally, they have established specialized teams such as the Gender Focal Points mentioned earlier, who oversee gender-related conflicts and are equipped to educate communities willing to receive such training. In brief, the daily dynamics intertwine with those that seem far away for urban spaces, the conflict affects everyone, even if it’s at different levels. The Colombian conflict is an ongoing cycle of violence, and marginalization. The rural communities and migrant are at the forefront of this issue, while I sit comfortably in one of the headquarters' chairs, reporting its characteristics to the international community in a first-world country. And it’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked.