State, military and violence on the Colombian Amazon frontier: Historical referents for the regional interpretation of the conflict

• Main Author: Carlos Gilberto Zárate Botía
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 2015-10-01
• Series: Mundo Amazónico
• Subjects: Amazonia; fronteras; conflicto; relaciones internacionales; guerrillas
• Online Access: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/imanimundo/article/view/50059

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-size: 8.000000pt; font-family: 'CharisSIL';">The current Colombian conflict has had a particular manifestation in the Amazon region in the frontier area between Brazil and the Andean countries. This has been little studied and analyzed. The role and the possibilities of the region and its borders, as well as the design and implementation of public policies of the Colombian state (almost exclusively aimed at the exercise of sovereignty and territorial control, with an excessive emphasis in its military aspects), have been wrongly conceptualized. This has led to very poor outcomes in terms of the social, economic and political integration of Amazonia with the rest of the nation. The violence and social conflicts that the region and its border zones have suffered during the last decades have a lot to do with this situation. An eventual agreement within the current peace process could help to solve these problems, inasmuch as other conditions are fulfilled and simultaneously long due reforms are implemented. </span></p></div></div></div>