144
REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE IN COLOMBIA
“polarization of civil war proportions between the oligarchy and military, on one side, and the guerrilla and the peasantry, on the other” has been established (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 122). Such tactics are explicitly designed to combat revolutionary objectives. As expressed in Chapter 2, it can only be with the people that the FARC-EP can generate emancipatory and transformative action, hence the real war that is taking place in Colombia is not against drugs, but against the consequential threat of the people implementing a socialist revolution from below. Contrary to popular reports, the result of class reactionism has been an increase in the FARC-EP’s numbers and support base in many locales. Without protection peasants have understood all too well the realities of extermination, thus the guerrillas have proven to be “the only ones left who can protect the campesinos” (Braun, 2003: 68; see also FARC-EP, 2002b: 28–9; 2001–02: 5, 14). This being the case populations periodically flock to, or remain in, FARCEP-held territory. Inadvertently, broad numbers of people become involved in reflecting/conversing about social conditions, political circumstance, the history of US interference in Latin America, and the overall situation of their country. Such conditions arguably foster an environment of “heightened anti-imperialist consciousness,” leading segments to unify with the FARC-EP (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2003a: 179). This goes to the heart of class analysis and the contemporary geopolitical relevance of Marxism. Because of Washington’s fear of a Marxist insurgency actually taking power55 – coupled with the possibility of it happening – the very structure of imperialism may be threatened. A third consequence has been the rapid increase in coca growing. Several years after NSDD 221, Washington alleged coca levels had decreased as a result of their involvement. To their embarrassment and discredit, external findings revealed that cocaine productivity was 2.5 times higher than previously speculated (Scott, 2003: 83n.35). None of this is surprising in light of the fact that the AUC was now deriving four-fifths of its income from trafficking, and had control of just under half of all narcotics activity in the country (Richani, 2007: 409; 2005b: 102n.77; 2002a: 108–9; Scott, 2003: 39). THE AUC’S STRUCTURAL CONNECTION TO COCA Since the implementation of NSDD 221, a considerable rise in coca cultivation has shadowed the comparative growth of paramilitarism (Avila et al, 1997). The most significant jumps took place during US/Colombian counternarcotic and counterinsurgency campaigns alongside the formal inception of the AUC, around 1997 (see Figure 6.2). As Washington and Bogotá increasingly focused on defeating the FARC-EP, they simultaneously provided leeway for the AUC to expand its economic and militaristic activities. This cost–benefit approach has been regularly shown in US foreign policy, whereby one set of actors are targeted while others enrich themselves provided their activities benefit the United States in some form, political or otherwise (Peceny and Durnan, 2006: 96, 112).56
