gems, beryl, emerald, Colombia, drug wars

Within the set of regional violence affecting Colombia, the case of the emerald region stands out for its forms, contents and relations with national phenomena such as smuggling, armed subversion, drug trafficking, paramilitarism and criminal organizations. In an area close to Bogotá, an illegal market grew from the 1960s onwards, linked to the trafficking and smuggling of emeralds, thanks to which certain groups accumulated large surpluses. The accumulation of capital around the illegal emerald market was an essential element in the configuration of the social, economic, political, and sociocultural dynamics of the department of Boyacá and the country, and at the same time created an economic circuit that fed back into the State through its institutions, making it difficult to demarcate between the legal and the illegal. The State enthroned the power of mafias, political and economic groups that redirected governmental action in favor of their interests. This book seeks to elucidate how this intertwining between the power of the State and the power of the actors in society manifested itself through the strategies to which they resorted. The book provides an analysis of the violent strategies deployed by the actors in the emerald zone, the municipalities of the region and cities such as Chiquinquirá and Bogotá. The tactics and methods used: murder, massacre, assault, and other forms characterized by cruelty, led to the creation of a scenario of terror and fear. The open struggle for territorial control, where the market materializes, generates a space of confrontation that drags not only the actors involved, but also the population of the region. This scenario is only possible under the understanding of the illegal economy and its mafia-like practices, a weak state that with its actions promoted the conflict. Social relations based on loyalty, subjective relations with the territory, the formation of power structures and relations of domination.