In Colombia, the Coronavirus Pandemic Provides Fertile Ground for Illegal Armed Groups - 0 views
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As the coronavirus pandemic crept up in villages across Colombia in March and the country locked down, illegal armed groups began informing communities that they would take the law into their own hands
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Rights groups warn that armed groups including the ELN are using the pandemic to expand their control, threatening those who break the curfew with punishments and even death
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Rather than granting a pause in Colombia’s protracted conflict, the pandemic has caused further unrest and anguish among residents across the country. The government’s historic absence in the remote territories where illegal trades such as drug trafficking and illegal mining thrive has long put communities in the crossfire. The coronavirus pandemic lockdown has left them further detached from basic health services and food supplies. Armed groups are now capitalizing on the fear caused by the pandemic to expand control over these vulnerable communities, as Human Rights Watch reported earlier this year.
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the hype around the disarmament of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group was short-lived. The government couldn’t effectively occupy the territories where former fighters operated, providing combatants with another opportunity to join dissident groups or create new groups with the aim of taking over illegal trades.
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Residents of the western department of Chocó are particularly vulnerable to displacement by armed groups. Deserted jungles and a network of rivers running to the Pacific Ocean make it a profitable region for illegal trades such as mining and drug trafficking, and a hotbed of conflict between armed groups including the ELN and the Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of Colombia.
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The statements by armed groups apparently siding with the government and threatening to enforce the curfew not only intimidate residents, but also compromise the credibility of the authorities. “They are trying to supplant the authorities,” said Col. Henry Galán of the Chocó police department
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Cauca is a remote and mountainous region on Colombia’s Pacific coast with limited state presence, where ethnic Indigenous communities have a long history of organizing themselves. “Everyone knows that if that disease reaches us, there is no possibility of survival because there is no medical infrastructure,” said Lisifrey Ararat, a leader from the town of Suárez. For Ararat and other leaders, the lack of hospitals, telecommunications, roads, and infrastructure in their region puts their communities at higher risk—forcing them to make difficult decisions such as placing biosecurity checkpoints and sealing off outsiders. Such measures have increased tensions with armed groups which fight to control the region, and further isolated the communities from basic health services and food supplies.