Contested Natures, Insecurities and Territorialities: The Aerial Eradication of Coca in Colombia

302 Pages·2017·24.79 MB·English

Florida International University
FIU Digital Commons
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School
6-22-2017
Contested Natures, Insecurities and Territorialities:
The Aerial Eradication of Coca in Colombia
Alexander Huezo
[email protected]
DOI:10.25148/etd.FIDC001941
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Huezo, Alexander, "Contested Natures, Insecurities and Territorialities: The Aerial Eradication of Coca in Colombia" (2017).FIU
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FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Miami, Florida

CONTESTED NATURES, INSECURITIES AND TERRITORIALITIES:

THE AERIAL ERADICATION OF COCA IN COLOMBIA

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

GLOBAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES

by

Alexander David Huezo

2017
To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr.
Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

This dissertation, written by Alexander David Huezo, and entitled Contested Natures,
Insecurities and Territorialities: The Aerial Eradication of Coca in Colombia, having been
approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment.

We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved.

_________________________________________
Roderick Neumann

_________________________________________
Juliet Erazo

_________________________________________
Ana María Bidegain

_________________________________________
Ulrich Oslender, Major Professor

Date of Defense: June 22, 2017

The dissertation of Alexander David Huezo is approved.

_________________________________________
Dean John F. Stack, Jr.
Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

_________________________________________
Andrés G. Gil
Vice President for Research and Economic Development
and Dean of the University Graduate School

Florida International University, 2017

ii
DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my grandparents –Antonio, Maria, Francisco,
Orbelina— who worked hard so that I could have this opportunity. They will not get to
see me graduate but will always be with me in spirit.
I also dedicate this dissertation to my parents and am very thankful for their
encouragement and support.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the members of my committee for their time and patience. I
especially want to thank my adviser, Dr. Oslender, for his meticulous feedback and for
sharing his passion for his research, which made this arduous project feel worthwhile. I
would also like to thank Dr. Bidegain for making sure that I had a great start to fieldwork
in Bogotá.
I would also like to give special thanks to the Process of Black Communities,
especially José Santos Caicedo, Gerardo Orobio Bazán and Mario Angulo for their time
and willingness to vouch for a gringo latino with an odd accent.
Funding for this project was provided by Florida International University (Broad
Fellowship, Dissertation Evidence Acquisition Fellowship, Dissertation Year Fellowship)
and the Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Year Fellowship.

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

CONTESTED NATURES, INSECURITIES AND TERRITORIALITIES:

THE AERIAL ERADICATION OF COCA IN COLOMBIA

by

Alexander David Huezo

Florida International University, 2017

Miami, Florida

Professor Ulrich Oslender, Major Professor

Until very recently, Colombia was the only country in the world that still
permitted the eradication of illicit crops –primarily coca and to a lesser extent, opium
poppies— through aerial fumigation. It was a controversial practice for a number of
reasons, chiefly the damage caused to plants, animals, and people living in or near
fumigated areas. A favored tactic in the U.S.-supported War on Drugs, aerial eradication
actually contributed to the spread of illicit crops to increasingly remote areas of
Colombia, such as the collectively titled lands of both indigenous and black communities.
Concerns about the practice of aerial eradication, however, appeared completely
disconnected from the positive framing of the policy and guidelines governing its
implementation.
Employing mixed methods, both ethnographic and cartographic, this dissertation
examines how these contradictory discourses —aerial eradication explained by officials
involved in its operation versus described locally by people living in or near fumigated
areas— materialized in 2015, the last year the aerial eradication program was in
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operation. This study engages critical social science theory to deconstruct dominant
conceptualizations of territoriality, geopolitics and environmental conservation, while at
the same time proposing alternative understandings of those concepts grounded in local
experiences.
This research finds that aerial eradication authorities overstated the accuracy of
aerial eradication operations by: 1) downplaying the incidence of pilots spraying legal
crops, 2) invalidating local reports on the effects of aerial eradication, and 3) requiring
technical evidence far beyond the means of poor rural Colombian farmers. Furthermore,
in the specific context of the collectively titled black communities of the Pacific region,
aerial eradication authorities did not respect the right to previous consultation per
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169.
This dissertation concludes that that aerial eradication —justified by notions of
security and environmental conservation that had little to do with black communities of
the Pacific region— operated as a means of displacement. This displacement was literal
in the sense that aerial eradication made life difficult for people to live in affected
communities and figurative because local knowledge was pushed aside in favor of the
external interpretations of the effects of this counternarcotics policy.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................1

2. Conducting Fieldwork in Two Colombias....................................................................42

3. Conceptualizing Territory, Security, and Environmental Conservation through
Difference..........................................................................................................................89

4. Territorialities: Aerial Eradication and the Overlap between Colombian
Territoriality and Black Territoriality..............................................................................143

5. Insecurities: Thinking Critically about the Geopolitics of Security............................188

6. Contested Natures: Aerial Eradication as Environmental Conservation?...................225

7. Conclusion: Recognizing Technologies of Displacement and the Struggle for
Black Territory ...............................................................................................................259

Bibliography....................................................................................................................265

Vita..................................................................................................................................290

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

4.1 Painting inside of PCN office in Buenaventura.........................................................144

4.2 Poster for Encuentro AfroPazífico ............................................................................148

4.3 Two groups working on maps at Encuentro AfroPazífico ........................................151

4.4 Teenage group poster at Encuentro AfroPazífico......................................................151

4.5 DIRAN PowerPoint slide explaining aerial eradication detection process...............173

4.6 DIRAN PowerPoint slide aerial eradication buffer zones ........................................176

5.1 Hacking a path through vegetation to visit a farm plot in Temuey, Guapi................205

5.2 Plantain tree with dead leaves two weeks after aerial fumigation.............................211

5.3 Corn singed by aerial fumigation……………………………….…………….…….211
.
6.1 DIRAN PowerPoint slide explaining why glyphosate is not harmless......................239

6.2 Containers to collect rainwater in Bajo Calima, Buenaventura.................................241

6.3 Children bathing in Río Calima, Buenaventura.........................................................241

6.4 Child with irritated skin, allegedly from aerial eradication.......................................241

6.5 View from commercial flight approaching the Guapi air strip..................................247

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LIST OF MAPS

MAP PAGE

1.1 Physical Map of Colombia............................................................................................7

1.2. Black Territory, Roadways & Waterways in Southwest Pacific Region…….............8

4.1 Aerial Eradication, Involuntary Manual Eradication, Coca Cultivation,
Alternative Development & Ethnic Territories in Colombia..........................................162

4.2 Aerial Eradication, Involuntary Manual Eradication, Coca Cultivation,
Alternative Development & Ethnic Territories in Southwest Pacific Region.................163

4.3 Ethnic Territories, Coca Cultivation, Alternative Development & National Parks
in Southwest Pacific Region............................................................................................184

5.1 Stratfor: Colombia’s Cocaine Routes and Regions...................................................196

5.2 Stratfor: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), National
Liberation Army (ELN) and Clan Usuga........................................................................197

5.3 Stratfor: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), National
Liberation Army (ELN) and Clan Golfo.........................................................................200

5.4 Victims of MAPS (Anti-personal Mines) and MUSE (Unexploded Munitions)
in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Nariño...................................................216

5.5 Mine Casualties, Aerial Eradication, Coca Cultivation & Ethnic
Territories in Southwest Pacific Region.........................................................................217

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