PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Recent state anthropology highlights the performative character of the state. State anthropologists call for a greater focus on the so-called (geographical, political, social) margins of the state in order to investigate how the state is constructed. According to Holden (2004), state formation processes are often violent ones that imply armed conflict involving military forces, para-governmental, and anti-state forces in the field of state power, as conceptualized by him. On the basis of written sources such as newspaper releases, court files, and government memoranda from various archives, this paper analyses the armed struggle against the Communist oppositional groups in the department of Tolima and neighbouring areas. It is shown that the early Colombian National Front government, whose intention was to end the mid-20th century Colombian Civil War, resorted to a variety of measures to defend the contemporary political system. These involved the sometimes informal, sometimes formal employment of Liberal ex-combatants loyal to the government in order to extend state authority to the more marginal areas. In doing so armed political struggles were perpetuated. The paper concludes with comparing the phenomena analysed in the paper with the rise of the paramilitary groups in the 1990s. Due to several structural parallels the author argues that the origins of Colombian paramilitarism dates back till the 1960s. Keywords: violent state formation; para-governmental groups; paramilitarism; civil war; origins of Communist guerrillas