THE FARC-EP’S RELATION TO SOCIAL CHANGE
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and cultural activities; and the organization of cooperatives and labor exchanges. (Bagley and Edel, 1980: 260) A year later, Decree 1791 saw further services bestowed upon JACs, such as “adult education, reforestation, preparation of residents of overpopulated areas for migration, and the development of animal husbandry for dietary improvement” (Bagley and Edel, 1980: 260). Nevertheless, the state did not permit JACs to participate in politics or local decision making, which mattered little as authority appeared to be held at the level of the community. As time lapsed JACs became a façade of “power,” as they provided an image of local control while the political remained restricted. JACS AND POLITICAL PACIFICATION The official state line was that JACs were constructed under the premise of supporting rural “development, through community self-help” and to “alter the passivity of the Colombian campesino” (Dix, 1967: 151–2). The goal, however, was to sociopolitically pacify the rural population during the rise of agrarian capitalism (Zamosc, 1986: 38; Bagley and Edel, 1980: 258–60). Resembling the National Front in the cities, the state needed to appear sympathetic to the peasantry but restrict political control. The reasoning was threefold, to: • • •
pacify active state-antagonists in the countryside decrease PCC political work and alliances throughout the rural sector sever ties between peasants, the landless, indigenous groups, small producers, workers, and the militant revolutionary goals of the guerrillas.
In pursuit of these objectives, Colombia’s dominant class supported the implementation of JACs as a means to “make communities less receptive to anti-elite sentiments and movements” (Richardson, 1970: 44). As the local action boards spread, so too did “the presence of the state in the countryside” (Henderson, 2001: 400). Although they appeared to be rural-based peasant organizations, JACs were in fact strategic state-induced mechanisms created to pacify class-conscious peasants. Far from organic, they were “created by government officials” and used by the local elite to procure increased political clout and/or garnish centralized state funds (Pearce, 1990a: 149).10 In most cases JACs, completely guided by state-based development officials and the dominant class, rejected local input (Henderson, 1985: 231; Richardson, 1970: 44; Dix, 1967: 151–3). Robert H. Dix (1967: 153) suggested the action boards manufactured an image of social change; a “motivation to improve rural conditions without altering the real balance of social power in the countryside.” It is not difficult to see why the state greatly expanded JACs in the hopes of gaining a political foothold over the countryside.
