Elusive Peace: International, National, and Local Dimensions of Conflict in Colombia (review)

Cristina Rojas and Judy Meltzer have edited and together prepared an introduction to another of the various collaborative volumes that have appeared in recent years on the Colombian crisis or "conflict" (or whatever term one prefers). The title is well chosen, since no one has yet come close to devising a solution. As Rojas points out in the conclusion, the continuing violence in Colombia is itself no less "elusive"––both "multidimensional" and of uneven temporal and territorial scope.

The 11 contributors to the volume include several scholars, for example, Bruce Bagley, Albert Berry, Francisco Thoumi, who are well known even to Colombianists working in disciplines different from theirs. All, however, are fully knowledgeable about the particular aspects of conflict that they discuss. At the same time, as is normal in such cases, the contributions are somewhat uneven in style and approach. And unfortunately, as well as surprisingly for a work from a serious publisher, they reveal a consistently abysmal quality of copyediting and proofreading. How can a book on Colombia steadily omit the written accent on Bogotá, save in the index at the end? Or any presumably scholarly publication commit such abuses as "leaved little" for "left little" (p. 46), "principle" for "principal" (passim), "reign or die" for "resign or die" (p. 222), and so forth, on and on. Even that notorious undergraduate misspelling of Colombia as "Columbia" appears on the reverse of the title page, where Library of Congress cataloging data are given.

Provided that readers are not put off by those editing and printing lapses, they will find in the volume as a whole, slim though it is, a great deal of valuable information and analysis on recent developments in Colombia. The contents are divided into four broad, somewhat overlapping sections: Part 1, "U.S. Intervention: From the 'War on Drugs' to the 'War on Terror'"; Part 2, "Ripples Through the Region"; Part 3, "New Perspectives on Drugs"; and Part 4, "Cultural and Local Consequences." The first part begins with Bagley's chapter on the rise of the illicit drug industry, its relation to political violence, and the course of U.S. policy toward the drug problem, particularly during the Clinton administration. This is a detailed, straightforward exposition, taking the story up to the transition from one "war" to the other and concluding quite naturally with a skeptical assessment of the long-term prospects for success.

Insofar as it deals with the drug problem and measures taken to combat it, Bagley's contribution could just as well, or perhaps even better, have been grouped with the essays in part 3, by Albert Berry and Jackeline Barragán on "Winners and Losers from the Illicit Drug Industry in Colombia" and Francisco Thoumi on possible reasons for Colombia's prominence in that line of business and the resulting implications for framing effective countermeasures. The analysis by Berry and Barragán of the costs and benefits of the drug industry (and their recipients) is necessarily hedged with qualifications and a generous margin of error, in view of the complex and illegal nature of the industry itself; but they have taken all significant factors into account, from the increased opportunities for urban workers in drug-financed construction projects to the diversion of public finances to an unproductive "war" against drugs at a time when the nation had so many pressing needs. Although they also note that most acts of violence in Colombia are unrelated to the drug industry, they emphasize that the most negative single effect of its operations has been the flow of drug money to support paramilitary and guerrilla groups, either in return for protection or because "paras" and guerrillas are themselves direct participants in the industry.

The balance, in any case, they see as negative for Colombia, and it is then left for Thoumi to try to explain why Colombia assumed such a leading role as a supplier first of...