Colombia has a high crime rate due to being a center for the cultivation and trafficking of cocaine. The Colombian conflict began in the mid-1960s and is a low-intensity conflict between Colombian governments, paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and left-wing guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN), fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Two of the most important international actors that have contributed to the Colombian conflict are multinational companies and the United States.[1][2][3]
Elements of all the armed groups have been involved in drug trafficking. In a country where state capacity has been weak in some regions, the result has been a grinding war on multiple fronts, with the civilian population caught in between and often deliberately targeted for "collaborating". Human rights advocates blame paramilitaries for massacres, "disappearances", and cases of torture and forced displacement. Rebel groups are behind assassinations, kidnapping and extortion.[4]
In 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos launched the "Borders for Prosperity" plan[5] to fight poverty and combat violence from illegal armed groups along Colombia's borders through social and economic development.[6] The plan received praise from the International Crisis Group.[7] Colombia registered a homicide rate of 24.4 per 100,000 in 2016, the lowest since 1974. The 40-year low in murders came the same year the government signed a peace agreement with the FARC.[8] The murder rate further decreased to 22.6 in 2020, though still among the highest in the world, it decreased 73% from 84 in 1991. In the 1980s and 1990s it regularly ranked as number one.
Since the beginning of the crisis in Venezuela and the mass emigration of Venezuelans during the Venezuelan refugee crisis, desperate Venezuelans have been recruited into gangs in order to survive.[9] Venezuelan women have also resorted to prostitution in order to make a living in Colombia.[9]
- ^ Historical Commission on the Conflict and Its Victims (CHCV) (February 2015). "Contribution to an Understanding of the Armed Conflict in Colombia" (PDF) (in Spanish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
- ^ Mario A. Murillo; Jesús Rey Avirama (2004). Colombia and the United States: war, unrest, and destabilization. Seven Stories Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-58322-606-3.
- ^ "Understanding Colombia's armed conflict: International actors". colombiareports.com. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- ^ "Q&A: Colombia's civil conflict". BBC News. December 23, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2010.
- ^ Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Colombia. "Borders for Prosperity Plan". Retrieved 1 August 2014.
- ^ International Crisis Group. "Dismantling Colombia's New Illegal Armed Groups: Lessons from a Surrender", CrisisGroup.org. 8 June 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
- ^ International Crisis Group. "Corridor of Violence: The Guatemala-Honduras Border". CrisisGroup.org. 4 June 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
- ^ "InSight Crime's 2016 Homicide Round-up". insightcrime.org. 16 January 2017.
- ^ a b Venezuela: A Mafia State?. Medellin, Colombia: InSight Crime. 2018. pp. 3–84.