Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Civilian Autonomy in Civil War
- 2 A Theory of Civilian Decision-Making in Civil War
- 3 The History of Conflict and Local Autonomy in Colombia
- 4 Living to Tell About It: Research in Conflict Settings
- 5 How Civilian Organizations Affect Civil War Violence
- 6 Why Some Communities Are More Organized than Others
- 7 The Institution of the ATCC: Protection through Conciliation
- 8 Discovering Civilian Autonomy in Cundinamarca
- 9 Civilian Autonomy around the World
- 10 Conclusions and Policy Implications
- Appendix A Archives Consulted
- Appendix B Supplementary Documentation on the ATCC
- Glossary
- References
- Index
8 - Discovering Civilian Autonomy in Cundinamarca
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2017
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Civilian Autonomy in Civil War
- 2 A Theory of Civilian Decision-Making in Civil War
- 3 The History of Conflict and Local Autonomy in Colombia
- 4 Living to Tell About It: Research in Conflict Settings
- 5 How Civilian Organizations Affect Civil War Violence
- 6 Why Some Communities Are More Organized than Others
- 7 The Institution of the ATCC: Protection through Conciliation
- 8 Discovering Civilian Autonomy in Cundinamarca
- 9 Civilian Autonomy around the World
- 10 Conclusions and Policy Implications
- Appendix A Archives Consulted
- Appendix B Supplementary Documentation on the ATCC
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
I'm going to tell you a story/ about why my town cried/ It happened in the early morning/ disturbing a deep quiet/ The uniformed troops/ knocking as they could/ awakened many people/ according to them guerrillas/ They broke into homes/ of whom they never should have/ asking for papers/ along with the prosecutor/ hurting feelings/ and opening many wounds …
We struggle to keep ourselves/ united in love/ and forget that the State/ scarred our heart/ May the experience we lived/ help us not falter/ We ask the God of all/ give us your grace and strength/ so Quipile won't cry/ and that way is reborn.
– “The Day Quipile Cried” Berenice Cabra JímenezPara adelante cuando unidos; solos jodidos.
United we move ahead; alone, we're screwed.
– Resident of Vianí (V#1, Vianí, 3/2009)If you head west from the Colombian capital of Bogotá, just after dropping off the central plateau you will find a number of small, isolated, mountainous coffee-growing towns. In the 1990s, FARC guerrillas came to these towns, massing their forces as part of their strategy to eventually cordon off and lay siege to the capital. These towns were subjected to pressures and violence that many had not experienced since the bipartisan violence of the 1950s. No known formal civil society peace organizations emerged to respond to the conflict. Yet even in this region, could the variation in the social and organizational landscape have impacted how this new period of armed conflict would affect the civilian population?
This chapter explores additional town cases in the department of Cundinamarca that were selected with the aid of universal data and statistical models (as discussed in Chapter 6). The cases are similar or “matched” on many of their characteristics except for differences in their historical densities of junta councils. The goal of this exercise is to further test theory as well as assess the accuracy of the statistical analysis.
I compare here the neighboring rural towns between Bogotá and the Magdalena River of Quipile (key-PEE-lay), which historically had a low number of junta councils, with Vianí (vee-ah-NEE) and Bituima (bee-TWEE-mah), which together are similar in size and population to Quipile (and were historically the same county) but had many more juntas in 1985 relative to their populations.
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- Information
- Resisting WarHow Communities Protect Themselves, pp. 219 - 269Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017