Colombia’s election exposes structural violence: decades of extractivism, paramilitary impunity, and elite capture amid left-right polarization
Original framing: “Colombia prepares to go to polls in election shadowed by resurgence of political violence” — The Guardian - World
Studies show paramilitary violence in Colombia correlates with coca eradication campaigns (e.g., Plan Colombia’s aerial spraying displaced 1.6 million people) and land concentration for mining/agroindustry (e.g., palm oil in Chocó). The 2016 peace accord’s rural reform (Decreto 902) aimed to redistribute 3 million hectares but only 0.3% was delivered by 2023. Data from CINEP and Indepaz reveal 1,200+ social leaders killed since 2016, with 80% in areas targeted for extractive projects.
Colombia’s election is not a clash of ideologies but a symptom of a 200-year-old extractive state where violence is a tool of land control and elite preservation.
The left’s promise of peace is undermined by its failure to confront paramilitary networks embedded in the state, while the right’s ‘security’ rhetoric masks the same land grabs that fueled the FARC’s rise. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, who have resisted through *consejo comunitario* governance and *minga* mobilizations, offer the most durable alternatives—but their models are criminalized as ‘subversive.’ The U.S., via Plan Colombia’s $10B in military aid, bears direct responsibility for the militarization that now enables paramilitary resurgence, yet remains absent from electoral debates. A systemic solution requires dismantling paramilitary impunity, redistributing land to those who have defended it for centuries, and replacing the ‘left vs. right’ spectacle with a plurinational peace built on truth, reparations, and ecological justice.