Abstract
This chapter explores the nonviolent efforts by residents of the Colombian municipality of Samaniego to limit armed actors’ abuses. Civilians in this locality engaged in a process of noncooperation, refusing to collaborate with all warring parties present in their territory. We analyse this process using a typology of three forms of noncooperation—unilateral, pacted and oblique—and argue that, at the macro level, this case can be considered one of pacted noncooperation as it combined civil resistance with negotiation. However, when looking within the case and exploring its evolution, we find that the population complemented and reinforced this strategy with oblique and unilateral tactics. This combination helped civilians to sustain and strengthen their noncooperation efforts. By engaging in careful within-case analysis, this chapter provides a nuanced understanding of the Samaniego campaign and shows that types of noncooperation are not fixed over time and tactics are not mutually exclusive.
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- 1.
To our best knowledge, the first scholar to use the term “noncooperation” in the context of civil war was Pedro Valenzuela (2001, 2009) in his analysis of neutrality in the context of internal armed conflicts. Ana Arjona (2010) followed suit in her study of social order in civil war. Later, Arjona (2017) and Masullo (2017a) conceptualized the term more carefully. Masullo (2017b) theorized the conditions under which it is more likely to emerge and the forces behind variations in form.
- 2.
Note that civilian responses that negatively affect armed groups by opposing them can also be violent, for example taking the form of vigilante groups. See Masullo (2017a) and Jentzsch et al. (2015). In this case, though, civilians may lose their status of noncombatants or, at least, fall into a grey zone between civilians and combatants.
- 3.
Civilian agency has been recently stressed also in the context of “communal war”, a setting in which it is reasonable to expect civilian collective action to be highly unlikely (Krause 2018). While not necessarily focusing on oppositional forms of civilian noncooperation, Krause shows that organized communities in Nigeria and Indonesia adapted and responded to “communal war” and helped prevent the eruption of violence in some areas.
- 4.
The difference between the two understandings might come from the fact that, while Arjona focuses on resistance against the rule of one armed actor in territories where it has dominant control (e.g., Arjona 2015), Masullo’s work focuses on situations where multiple armed actors are present and none exerts dominant control over the territory (see Masullo 2017). As we will see in the empirical section, the situation of Samaniego resembles more this second scenario.
- 5.
It might seem odd to combine the idea of “refusing to cooperate” with those of “dialoguing”, “negotiating” and “pacting” into one concept. In this regard, it is important to stress that what civilians negotiate with armed groups are mechanisms and procedures to govern their communities in a way that allows them to continue with their lives without providing support to any armed faction. In other words, civilians pact their way out of the armed conflict. These pacts do not involve agreeing on specific forms of civilian support. The dialogues are premised on the non-negotiable decision to refuse to provide any form of support to any warring party. For an illustrative example of pacted mechanisms which do not involve cooperation in another Colombian community, see Kaplan (2013) and Hernández and Roa (in this volume).
- 6.
For a detailed presentation of this typology and discussion of each of the types, see Masullo (2017a).
- 7.
- 8.
See ELN declaration at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-HMjZUEH1s (accessed January 29, 2018). See AUC declaration at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTo9DFC6keI (accessed January 29, 2018).
- 9.
See video of the High Commissioner for Peace’s speech endorsing the local peace pact during his visit to Samaniego on December 27, 2006, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnlW7_5wi9s (accessed January 29, 2018).
- 10.
See video about the release at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBvK1IyDqvk (accessed December 18, 2017).
- 11.
The system of cabildos (councils) was established during the colonial period to rule over delimited indigenous territories.
- 12.
Declaration of Samaniego adopted by Nariño communities, municipalities of Samaniego and Santacruz, Sande, Guachavez and Mountain region indigenous reserves, and Minga por la Paz de Nariño on 26 February 2017.
- 13.
See the declaration of the government at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUPgAiFlvx8 (accessed January 29, 2018). See the ELN declaration at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkDVZE2cgjU (accessed January 29, 2018).
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Acknowledgements
We thank our interviewees for sharing with us many valuable insights and are grateful for the generous support provided by FLACSO Ecuador for the three research projects that allowed us to collect our data for this chapter. We presented a previous version of this chapter at the 2018 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA) in San Francisco and the 2018 FLACSO-ISA Conference in Quito. We thank participants and, in particular, our discussants Sebastián Bitar, Oliver Kaplan and Pedro Valenzuela, for useful comments.
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Masullo, J., Mouly, C., Garrido, M.B. (2019). Alternative Forms of Civilian Noncooperation with Armed Groups: The Case of Samaniego in Colombia. In: Mouly, C., Hernández Delgado, E. (eds) Civil Resistance and Violent Conflict in Latin America. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05033-7_6
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