This article was downloaded by: [Penn State University]On: 05 August 2015, At: 07:59Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG

City: analysis of urban trends, culture,theory, policy, actionPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccit20

Medellín and Bogotá: The global citiesof the other globalizationEduardo MendietaPublished online: 01 Jun 2011.

To cite this article: Eduardo Mendieta (2011) Medellín and Bogotá: The global cities of the otherglobalization, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 15:2, 167-180, DOI:10.1080/13604813.2011.568706

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.568706

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

CITY, VOL. 15, NO. 2, APRIL 2011

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/11/020167-14 © 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13604813.2011.568706

Medellín and BogotáThe global cities of the other globalization

Eduardo MendietaTaylor and Francis

Two cities from Colombia, Medellín and Bogotá, are studied as exemplars of the ways inwhich globalization and colonialism have shaped and continue to shape the cartographies ofglobal mega-urbanization. The first part offers a discussion of the processes of political inte-gration without territorial unification that characterized the development of the emergentnations in Latin America after independence in the early part of the 19th century. In thenext section we focus directly on the object investigation by looking at a crucial period inthe history of Colombia, the period of a bloody and savage civil war called La Violencia[The Violence], which lasted from 1946 through 1957, which resulted in a political compro-mise called the National Front (1958–78). In the last section we look at the 1980s and 1990sas periods in which ‘the wars of the peace’ of the stalemate between two forms of militaryviolence turned into ‘drug wars’ that spawned a paramilitary para-state. These two LatinAmerican cities offer the face of the reverse of globalization, namely, the globalization ofthe drug trade and the paramilitarization of de-colonial, neo-imperialized nations.

Key words: globalization, mega-urbanization, Colombia, cold war, La Violencia, informalglobalization, paramilitary, drug war, drug cartels

Introduction

lobalization, like Modernity, wouldnot have been possible withoutcolonialism. Nothing like the study

of global cities reveals the imbricationsbetween colonialism and globalization formost contemporary global cities were at onepoint or another colonial outposts. Indeed,while most cities are caught in the dynamicsof global processes, they also remain chainedto colonial histories that have shaped notjust their geographical locations and urbanlandmarks, but also their political anddemographic fates. The global cities ofglobalization are built on layers of historythat reach beneath to pre-Columbian eras.

But these layers are not inert brick andmortar, crushed, buried and paved over bycement, steel, glass and asphalt. These layersremain determining and guiding. In thefollowing I will look at two cities fromColombia, Medellín and Bogotá, to explore,illustrate and gain some insight into theways in which globalization and colonialismhave shaped and continue to shape thecartographies of global mega-urbanization.In the first part I will look at some generalpatterns of Spanish colonization in order toprofile what I will call colonial urbanization.Then, I will turn to a brief discussion to theprocesses of political integration withoutterritorial unification that characterized thedevelopment of the emergent nations in

GDow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

168 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

Latin America after independence in theearly part of the 19th century. In the nextsection I get closer to the specific object ofmy investigation by looking at a crucialperiod in the history of Colombia, the periodof a bloody and savage civil war called LaViolencia [The Violence], which lasted from1946 through 1957, and that resulted in apolitical compromise called the NationalFront (1958–78). In the last section, I look atthe 1980s and 1990s as periods in which ‘thewars of the peace’ of the stalemate betweentwo forms of military violence turned into‘drug wars’ that spawned a paramilitarypara-state.

Conquest and colonization: colonial urbanization

From the year of the first landing on the NewWorld, in 1492, to the establishment of thefirst Spanish cities, there transpired aboutthree decades. These three, and in some casesfour decades, were extremely important inthe formation of the Spanish Conquistadormentality. First, the Amerindians that theSpanish first encountered in the Caribbeandid not have major urban centers, lackedelaborate administrative systems, hierarchies,or for that matter anything that would prom-ise the possession of great riches. The Amer-indians thus appeared pre-civilized, savage, atworst, or infantile, noble savages, at best. Thecontinent that the Spanish discovered thusappeared empty, devoid of both civilizationand cultured peoples (Subirats, 1994). Thefauna and flora were lush, rich, overwhelm-ing, barely comparable to what they had beenused to in the Mediterranean with its denudedforest and desiccated coasts (Sale, 1990).Nature appeared menacing and impenetrable.This determined the way in which theConquistadors executed their conquest andcolonization via the founding of cities andleaving the jungle, or countryside, to thevanquished Indians. The Spanish conquista-dores and the Crown came to see their empirein Latin America as a network of cities, cities

that were both political acts and nodes in anetwork through which alone power circu-lated (Romero, 1999, p. xxv). The city was adispositif of domination not only because itwas the exemplification of a sovereign’s fiat,always accompanied by all the accoutrementsand pomp of the court with its displays ofsword and cross, but also because these citieswere established as military forts and seats ofpolitical and legal power. When the Spanishdid encounter major Amerindian urbancenters, the Spanish established their cities onthe ruins of the destroyed cities. When aconquered territory had to be controlled andexploited, cities as stopovers or byways wereestablished that connected the network ofurban centers. Within the first half of the 16thcentury, Spain claimed an immense territorialexpanse between 40 degrees north, or what istoday the southwest of the USA, and 40degrees south, what is today central Chile andArgentina. By the middle of the 16th centuryall the major urban centers in the Spanishcolonies had been established: Havana, 1519;Mexico City, 1521, Quito, 1534; Lima, 1535;Buenos Aires, 1536 (re-founded in 1580);Bogotá, 1538, Santiago de Chile, 1541. Thesecities were tools of military and administra-tive control that also served as fortificationsagainst racial mixing. The Spanish culture,with its religion and civic practices, was to bere-enacted and transplanted to the NewWorld via the new cities, which more oftenthan not were named after a city on theIberian Peninsula. Thus, the Spanishconquest was marked by a hyper-urbanismand an anti-ruralism that was to mark thecriollo (Creole) and later Latin Americanmentality to such an extent that some of themajor literary productions in the 20thcentury still reflect the anti-countryside, anti-rural, anti-jungle sentiment (Rama, 1996).

By the middle of the 18th century theLatin American continent had been dividedinto administrative centers whose primaryrole was to facilitate the transfer of resourcesfrom the New World to Spain. At first twomajor Viceroyalties were established: theViceroyalty of New Spain, which covered

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 169

most of Central America, all of Mexico andwhat is today the southwest of the USA; andthe Viceroyalty of Peru, which covered mostof western South America. This last Viceroy-alty underwent several re-mappings. In 1717it was divided when the Viceroyalty of NewGranada was established, to then be reinte-grated and then finally to be permanentlyseparated into two different Viceroyalties in1739, with the Viceroyalty of the Plata beingestablished in 1776 (see Figure 1). Each oneof these Viceroyalties was ruled from a capi-tal city, each with its Audiencia. These Audi-encias were courts of law. All of the Vicereys,or Viceroys, were appointed by the Crownand were Spanish born, as were the judgeswho presided over the law courts. This impe-rial administrative mapping would eventuallyprovide the outlines for the nations thatwould emerge after independence in the earlypart of the 19th century. But, already withinthe Viceroyalty system of administrationpatterns of interaction and exchange wereestablished that would continue to unsettleand bypass the centers of power. Thus, forinstance, the Viceroyalty of Peru wouldbypass Quito and Bogotá and send itscommerce through Panama, or throughMexico.Figure 1 Viceroyalties in the Colonial Americas, 1776. Source: Craig et al., Heritage of World Civilizations Combined, 7th ed. © 2006. Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.The South American subcontinent is cut inhalf vertically by the Andes that sits on topof it like a dorsal fin. The long distances, frac-tured territory and lack of viable ways forcrossing the continent along a horizontalaxis, made commerce and political powerflow vertically and through the coasts. Theinterior of the continent was left unexplored,essentially. The colony and imperial adminis-trative center clung to the forts on the coastor fortified cities built close to or along majorrivers that empty into either of the oceans.This pattern of colonial administration deter-mined the way in which future independentnations would be relatively ineffective atimposing political sovereignty over territori-ally unified geographies. The Spanish colo-nies were characterized by a form ofsovereignty by proxy—the Viceroys wererepresentatives of the Crown and they had to

be Spanish born—that never matched orextended over any territory in a noticeable orpermanent way. Territory and sovereigntyremained uncoupled or incommensurate.

Political independence without territorial integration

If during the colonial period sovereignty wasspectral, that is, a mere semblance of thetrans-Atlantic court, then during the post-independence period political sovereigntyremained elusive. The elusiveness of politicalsovereignty was related partly to the racialdivides that the colonial system had givenbirth to. The Creoles, American-born Span-iards, immediately assumed the reigns ofpower after independence. Masses of mesti-zos, mulattos, Indians were excluded frompolitical participation, notwithstanding thepromises of the liberators, Bolivar amongthem principally. But equally importantfactors in the exacerbation of the elusivenessof post-independence sovereignty were theadministrative, economic and cultural alli-ances that had been established during thecolony. This is borne out when we considerthe map of the recently emancipated LatinAmerican continent. Between 1819 and 1830,the Viceroyalty of New Granada had becomeunder Simon Bolivar’s military and politicalleadership the Gran Colombia, with Peru toits south, which had been the Viceroyalty ofPeru. Mexico in turn had been turned fromthe New Spain to the State of Mexico, withthe United Provinces of Central America toits southeast.

If we focus more closely, zooming in onthe region that is our concern, we discoverthat the patterns of political integrationcontinue to be disrupted by the intractabilityand obduracy of geography (see Figure 2).The Gran Colombia, continuing the verti-cally split southern continental body, is alsorent by the Andes, which fan out into threeseparate mountain ranges, called the Cordil-leras, named Eastern, Central and Western,respectively. Between each there run south–

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

170 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

Figure 1 Viceroyalties in the Colonial Americas, 1776. Source: Craig et al., Heritage of World Civilizations Combined, 7th ed. © 2006. Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 171

north rivers that empty into the Atlantic, theCauca and the Magdalena. To the west thereextend the Llanos, or flat plains, and to thesouthwest, we have the beginning of theAmazon jungle, which is presently over-lapped by Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombiaand Venezuela. The Gran Colombia,however, would collapse rapidly due to thepolitical forces in each city that had been aseat of colonial power. Bogotá, putatively thecapital of the Gran Colombia, was relativelyweak vis-à-vis Quito, Lima and Caracas,which are closer to the oceans, or could usefluvial paths south northward. It was bothcheaper and faster to communicate withLondon, from any of these cities than withBogotá, which lay ensconced on top of theAndes. For most of the rest of the 19thcentury, the recently born nations would beat war with each other over where theirrespective national boundaries would lie.From the corpse of the Gran Colombia thereemerged: Colombia, with the largest terri-tory, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and eventu-ally at the dawn of the 20th century, Panama.In less than 70 years, Colombia was carvedinto a territory that had been halved and thatcontinued to be horizontally divided by thethree Andean mountain ranges.Figure 2 Latin America in 1830. Source: Craig et al., Heritage of World Civilizations Combined, 7th ed. © 2006. Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.Colombia, nonetheless, occupies adistinctly strategic place on the South Ameri-can subcontinent. It sits on the northeasterncorner of the continent, jutting out north-wards with a narrow land strip that connectsCentral America and South America. Thisland mass would prove a major source ofcontention and eventually a destabilizingrole. The country thus has access to theAtlantic and the Pacific. The country is actu-ally divided into five major regions, eachwith its own climates and patterns of coloni-zation. The Pacific coast is covered withthick, luscious jungles that suffer fromtorrential rains. Its impenetrability anddistance from Bogotá made it a destinationfor escapee slaves and indigenous popula-tions displaced by the Spanish Conquest. TheCauca River irrigates the Cauca region,which sits between the Western and Central

mountain ranges. This same river emptiesinto the Magdalena River, which transversesbetween the Central and Eastern mountainranges. The Cauca links the southwest withthe northwest of the country, providing amost advantageous waterway to the Atlantic.This region has three of the largest urbancenters in Colombia, and two of the wealthi-est cities in the country: Calí, Medellín andBarranquilla, which is a major port city onthe Atlantic, close to Santa Marta, a port citythat had been a fort built to defend the goldshipping industry to Spain.

The Cauca valley has been one of thewealthiest regions of the country. During thecolonial period, it was the source of the goldthat was transported to Spain. In fact, goldwas the primary export from Colombia toSpain during the colonial period. Most of thegold was collected from run-off rivers thatempty into the Cauca, which in turn wasused to link the south to the Atlantic coast(Hylton, 2008, p. 37). In the 19th century,gold was replaced by coffee as the primaryand major export. In fact, as the region madethe transition from mining to agriculture,processes of land distribution gave rise topatterns of violence and clientelism that havecontinued to shape the region. While most ofthe large land holdings in the country weredistributed close to the capital, north andwest of it, Antioquia by contrast was markedby small and medium-sized land holdings. Itwas this pattern of small land holding thatallowed the region to become rapidly themajor coffee producing area in the country.The small landowner, with his family, toiledthe land producing enough food to subsistbut also enough coffee to sell on the market.Coffee growing and processing are laborintensive and given the absence of largemasses of slaves, the self-sustaining farmbecame the ideal agricultural unit. In thisway, then, the region was able to develop andretain primitive capital that allowed it toinvest directly in the development of theregional infrastructure bypassing the capitalcity. Eventually, these financial reserveswould be used in the middle of the 20th

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

172 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

Figure 2 Latin America in 1830. Source: Craig et al., Heritage of World Civilizations Combined, 7th ed. © 2006. Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 173

century to launch Medellín into the secondindustrial center in the nation, surpassing thecapital in textiles and heavy machinery(Hylton, 2008).

The Cauca region, headed by Antioquia,developed a distinct non-Metropolitan, anti-Bogotá identity, namely, the paisa identity.Paisas identify as unpretentious, non-cosmopolitan, fervent Catholics, who aremore mestizo and Creole than mulatto orindigenous. Paisa is a distinctly racial iden-tity, which has affected the way in which newurban immigrants have been differentiallyintegrated in the city (Wade, 1995). They alsoidentify by their work ethic and entrepre-neurial spirit. The local elites emergedconnected to the colonial past in a way thatmade them independent from the politicalelites from Colombia. In other words, theCauca region has developed in relativeautonomy from the seat of political power inthe capital city, which at times has put themin tension and in direct contradiction withthe metropolitan elites of the capital city.

The hot wars of the cold war: La Violencia, the National Front and the emergence of the guerrilla society

Colombia has been a consistent ally of theUSA, notwithstanding the US collaborationand machinations to slip Panama fromColombia (Murillo, 2004, p. 123). And whilemost of the causes for the internal strife,violence and political turmoil have roots inthe colonial and post-liberation period, theUSA’s military investment in Colombia hasplayed a significant role in exacerbatinginternal instability (Murillo, 2004, pp. 124–128). Colombia entered the 20th centuryafter a long civil war, the War of the Thou-sand Days, in which the liberals and partyengaged in a bloody civil war. The aftermathof this war was the loss of Panama. From thisshock, however, the country recovered toenter a period of relative stability and exem-plary economic growth. This is the periodwhen Colombia established itself as the

second largest coffee producer, after Brazil.But, notwithstanding the bloody and expen-sive consequences of the conflict between theconservatives and liberals, these two partiescontinue to retain the reigns of politicalpower in the country. Their ideologies areremnants of the 19th-century ideologicalstruggles. Conservatives are committed toChurch, racial purity, and a racial polity thatderogates and paternalizes over women,racial minorities and that above all is suspectof the ability of the people to rule themselves.Liberals, on the other hand, held on to thegospel of technological and social progressby means of expanded public education,investment in higher education institutions,infra-structural investment, and the accep-tance and promotion of a multi-cultural andmulti-ethnic polity. Liberals dominatedcities, with the significant exception ofMedellín, whereas the conservatives held thecountryside and the southwestern regions ofthe country. For the most part, however,three-quarters of the country remainedundiscovered, disconnected and forgotten.This meant that there was a political vacuumin the largest regions of the country, regionsthat would prove to be significant in theinevitable project of agricultural and indus-trial growth (see Figure 3).Figure 3 One of the most important 20th-centuryevents in Colombian history was theBogotazo and the unleashing of what is calledLa Violencia. As was noted, political powerwas begrudgingly and contentiously sharedby the two parties, whose ideologies werealmost diametrically opposed. Any otherpolitical position or party was from theoutset excluded or delegitimated. This bi-polar and tense confrontation would periodi-cally erupt into local violence, in which localpolitical chiefs would or would not consentwith the political decisions reached in thecapital. Every election some violence woulderupt in the provinces when political deci-sions were reached that challenged ordisplaced the local political bosses. Afterseveral decades of steady growth, increasingurbanization and growing industrialization,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

174 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

Figure 3 ‘Main Colonization Zones since 1940.’ Source: Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, © 2006, p. vii.Published by permission of Verso Books, London.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 175

workers and peasants had yet to find a politi-cal voice in the official parties. In 1946, theconservative candidate Mariano OspinaPerez took the presidential office, after anelection in which the two liberal candidatestogether had received more votes than Perez.The liberal vote had been split, leading to theconservative win by default. The liberalcandidate to receive the most votes, JorgeEliécer Gaitán, had emerged as a championon the kind of platform that would championthe cause of the workers, small farmers andwho would bring about a modernization ofthe political system in the capital city. Bogotáliberal establishment disliked Gaitán,however, not just because of his staunch pro-labor stance, but also because he was seen as aracial minority who had no role ruling. Whilehe was a mestizo, many referred to him as amulatto, in obvious contempt. Gaitán, whohad studied law in Italy during the 1930s, hadbeen influenced by the El Duce’s early popu-list stance. Additionally, he had becomefamous by taking on the multi-national andthe Colombian military for a massacre ofstriking banana workers during 6 December1928. The 1946 election, thus, appeared as astolen election, one in which Gaitán shouldhave emerged victorious. Violence erupted inmany regions of the country and it simmeredfor a couple of years until 1948, when Gaitánwas assassinated on 9 April, as the Organiza-tion of American States was meeting inBogotá. Immediately, the simmering violenceexploded through the entire country, engulf-ing the nation in a violent civil war that wasinfamous by its gratuitous and partisanviolence: conservatives and liberals killedeach other for 10 years, simply because theybelonged, or were thought to belong to theopposite party. Between 100,000 and 200,000Colombians died in violent and gruesomeways. The violence was so extreme that thecivil war came to be known simply as LaViolencia, the violence. Some of the grue-some ways of killing would become inspira-tion for the narco-traffickers and sicarios ofthe drug wars in Medellín and Calí (Guiller-moprieto, 1994, 2001; Kirk, 2003).

The violence, however, quickly subsidedin the cities, as it grew more internecine andentrenched in the rural areas of the country.For 10 years the country went on killingitself along political lines. Yet, many studieshave shown that the civil war was not just anatavistic explosion of religious, racial andpolitical hates. There were economic andpolitical factors fueling the decade-longconflict. First and foremost, the violence wasfueled by the political exclusion of organizedpolitical positions that were silenced by theliberals and the conservatives (Murillo, 2004,p. 45). Gaitán, who not only was disliked bythe metropolitan liberal establishment, butwas also seen as a communist agent indisguise, articulated those voices anddemands. It is significant that the USresponse to the assassination of Gaitán wasto seek to buttress the conservative govern-ment in Bogotá as a bulk-ward againstcommunism. The cold war had begun inColombia already by 1946. Additionally, asthe violence spread through the countryside,the incumbent conservatives quickly mobi-lized the local police forces and organizedthem into military outfits to pressure, push,displace and dispose local liberal elites. Thecivil war became a tool in the dispossessionand appropriation of land. A map of the mostviolent and insurgent regions of La Violenciareveals that they were also the regions thatwere rapidly becoming major coffee growingareas (Murillo, 2004, p. 54) (see Figure 3).The violence became a land grab. In self-defense, liberals organized themselves intomilitary outfits that resisted the violence ofthe conservatives, who were using both thepolice and the military. The FARC, orColombian Revolutionary Armed Forces,the longest surviving guerrilla group in LatinAmerica, dates back to this period. Many ofthe liberal auto-defense military outfits inte-grated into the FARC in 1966.

What is distinctive about La Violencia isits rural character and the relative absence ofits violence in the major metropolitancenters. While the cities enjoyed peace andgrowth, especially Medellín and Bogotá, the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

176 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

rest of the country suffered a violent processof re-structuring. Yet, this rural violencewould not have been possible without thealready historically established absence ofthe state from the rural areas of the country.The liberal auto-defense military outfits notonly provided security, they also becameunits that provided a minimum of civilservices: they helped build schools, roadsand hospitals. After the 1960s, when theFARC was established, the guerrillas werethe face of a para-government that providedthose services that the capital city had notbrought to the provinces in 150 years. It canbe said that the central government left thoseregions to fend for themselves. This defaultsemi-autonomy was further enhanced withthe political compromise that emerged fromthe solution that was worked out to end thecivil war.

In 1958, the leaders of the two partiesagreed to a set of rules that became known asthe National Front, which specified explicitlythe compulsory half and half sharing of theelected and appointed positions, and thateach party would alternate heading the presi-dency (Bushnell, 1993, p. 224). The countrywould be run by political elites from bothMedellín and Bogotá, without consultation,inclusion or participation of other politicalsectors of the country. As Forrest Hylton hascalled this period, which lasted from 1957until 1982, it was a time in which ‘politicallockout’ was institutionalized (2006, pp. 51–56). The National Front effectively defusedthe electoral process, depoliticized the publicand turned over the government to oligar-chies that ruled the country for most of the20th century. Every presidential candidateand actual president has had a father, or closefamily member, in the executive branch overthe last 80 years. As citizens were locked outof the government, the rural regions of thecountry were left to their own means. Mean-while, the country was undergoing a massiveurbanization, partly due to the displacementof farmers from the violence rent areas, andan unprecedented economic growth, even asmost of Latin America languished or

regressed economically (Bushnell, 1993, pp.268–277). Economic growth has beenmatched by a lack of distribution of wealthand the absence of the distribution of socialbenefits through a state even marginallyattentive to the needs of its population(Avramovic, 1972). The 10 years of LaViolencia and three decades of neutralizingpolitical apportionment resulted in a politywith one of the lowest voter turnouts in thecontinent, as well as the impression that elec-toral or civil society politics are useless in theprocesses of political change. Politics hadbeen reduced to cronyism, clientelism andnepotism by the ruling elites.

The jewel cities of informal globalization: Medellín and Bogotá

Medellín, which sits sprawling on the slopesof the Western and Central cordilleras hasbeen a hub of commerce since the colonialperiod (Roldán, 1999, pp. 165–182). It hasbeen a stopover city on the way from thesouth to the Atlantic coast. Its local wealth,recycled in the local economy, allowed thelocal elites to develop its own industrial baseindependently of the capital’s allocations orsanctions. During the second half of the 20thcentury Medellín underwent a rapid andtraumatic growth. Some of this growth wasprecipitated by the violence that was displac-ing peasants at the head of the Cauca valleyand the adjoining mountains. The rapidindustrialization of the city, however, wasalso a major magnet. Accelerated urbaniza-tion brought with it severe challenges. Mostof the new arrivals settled on colonias on theslopes of the mountains surrounding theAntioquian capital (the name of the state).Most of these new arrivals tended to be moremestizo and darker than the older urbandwellers. Medellín grew fivefold between1951, at the height of La Violencia, and 1985,when the National Front came to an end,from 358,189 to 2,095,147 inhabitants. Whilethe city was the national seat for the largesttextile industries, with Coltejer leading the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 177

textile industry sector, the city was rocked bypersistent unemployment and visiblepoverty. Many of the recently arriveddisplaced farmers had to make ends meet byengaging in whatever work could be had.Many of these youths would find profitablecareers as smugglers of cigarettes and elec-tronic contraband that would flow up anddown the Cauca River from and throughCalí through Medellín to Barranquilla andSanta Marta. Recently urbanized peasants re-energized a line of commerce and contrabandthat had its political–geographical roots inthe colonial period. Gold and coffee traderoutes became marijuana, cigarettes and cocatrade routes. Many of the future drug lordsand capos, such as Pablo Escobar had learnedtheir ways and established their own trans-port networks during these years of urbanexpansion in Medellín (Hylton, 2008, p. 37).

An important factor that over-determinedMedellín becoming the capital of cocaproduction was that as textile production andmaquiladora assemblage shifted from LatinAmerica to South East Asia in the early1980s, the industrial basis of the city wasdecimated. The textile workers, technicalpersonnel and middle management bosseswere left unemployed. Many of these unem-ployed technicians would be employed bythe drug cartels, which needed skilled work-ers and fairly sophisticated chemical facilities.Thus, a convergence of factors has ledMedellín to become the largest producer ofcoca for the world. It is approximatedthat about 80% of the coca consumed inthe world is produced and processed inColombia. Most significantly, most of thecoca is grown now in Colombia, as opposedto being imported from Ecuador and Bolivia,where it used to be grown. The city itself hasbenefited greatly from the immense amountsof drug dollars that have flowed into theeconomy. Some of the techniques of launder-ing the drug money have provided for urbanrenewal projects, the building of parks,public facilities and the general beautificationof the city (Hylton, 2007b). The drug lords,mostly locals, have been generous philan-

thropists and benefactors of the city. Indeed,citizens of Medellín refused to believe thatEscobar was a drug lord. He was called Eldoctor, and average Colombian citizensdecried and denounced the US initiative toextradite him to the USA. When he wascaptured, he was allowed to serve hissentence in a house equipped by him andsecured with his own guards (Guillermopri-eto, 1994). Since the death of Escobar and theemergence of the Calí cartel as the newbosses, Medellín has undergone an extreme‘makeover’ in which local drug elites havebeen legitimated and granted a reprieve ofpolitical power from Bogotá. The latest pres-ident, Àlvaro Uribe Vélez, is a native ofMedellín. His father made his fortune duringthe heyday of Escobar’s reign, in land specu-lation and real state investments. Uribe wasknown to Escobar, and actually was a benefi-ciary of his largesse. In Hylton’s perceptivesummary, the Medellín that emerged from adecade of urban violence fueled by thewealth extracted from the coca trade is

‘… the refeudalization of power in Colombia’s neoliberal export economy, underwritten by cocaine export production under paramilitary control. This fusion of politics, property, and organized crime, reflected in the paramilitary grip over security for capital investment, including but not limited to cocaine export business, links the city’s bad old days to its good new ones, and largely determines the present and future shape of the built environment.’ (Hylton, 2007a, p. 162)

Meanwhile, Bogotá lives off of the nationalcapital that it refuses and is unable to distrib-ute and allocate to the starved provinces(Martinez, 1968; Mohan, 1994). The capitalcity has benefited from a sustained industri-alization and the largesse of a state controlledby racially discriminating elites who havefailed or been unwilling to take up the causesof the rural poor. For most of the 20thcentury, Bogotá has lived as if isolated andembattled on the heights of the Andes. Theviolence of La Violencia was short lived and

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

178 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

most of the guerrilla violence of the last threedecades has not touched it. When the M-19,the Movimiento Abril 19, launched some ofits attacks on the capital, these attacks werestaged more symbolically than to actuallyinflict harm on individuals. The M-19 move-ment was made up mostly of professionals,intellectual and educated individuals withfew links to the FARC or the ELN (NationalLiberation Army—for an excellent overviewof M-19 and the memoir of a leader of thegroup, see the moving and insightful memoirof Maria Eugenia Vásquez Perdomo, 2004).This movement, an urban guerrilla move-ment, long sought to challenge the Bogotáelites. Their challenge, however, was to openthe political process. Once they were invitedto participate in the electoral process, as wereboth the FARC and ELN, all three de-milita-rized forces came under attack by paramili-tary forces that killed their respectivepolitical candidates. These paramilitaryoutfits, numbering approximately 19, haveunified since 1997 under the banner of Auto-defensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).Amnesty International reports that they aremade up of between 8000 and 11,000persons, who are responsible for about 75%of the killings and human rights violations(Murillo, 2004, p. 87). These paramilitaryoutfits do war not only on the urban but alsorural guerrillas, as well as the paramilitaryoutfits of the drug lords. Against this back-ground of relentless violence, from the state,paramilitary organizations or death squads,the drug lords and the rural guerrillas, thecentral government continues to receivelush amounts of military and financial aidfrom Washington (Murillo, 2004, p. 142).Colombia has been at the top of the list ofmilitary beneficiaries of the USA. During the1960s, Colombia was the fifth recipient ofmilitary aid from the USA. During the 1980s,Colombia moved to third place, after Israeland Turkey. With Plan Colombia, militaryaid went from approximately US$800million in 2000 to 1.5 billion in 2001. Since2001, Colombia has become another majorfront on the so-called Global War on Terror-

ism, or GWT. The FARC and the ELN havebeen labeled terrorist organizations and theyhave been so treated by Uribe, reversingattempts by past presidents to integrate themin the political process. Uribe has appropri-ated and mobilized Bush’s anti-terrorist rhet-oric to once again lock out of the politicalprocess those agents that have been lockedout of the political process for the last half acentury. Today, Colombia has one of thelargest displaced populations in the world,second only to that of Sudan (Hylton, 2006,p. 6). Most of these displaced peoples comefrom the regions where it is believed thatthere are reservoirs of oil. In addition,continuing the practices of La Violencia,paramilitary terror is used to dispossess andappropriate land. Colombia is undergoing amajor regressive land reform in which thesmall farmer is being forcefully and violentlyabsorbed by the large landowner. Mean-while, the FARC, after almost half a century,remains the only rural source of medicine,schools, security and the possibility of a jobthat may provide for a future education. TheUSA’s continued militarization of itsColombian foreign policy exacerbated theevisceration of the political process in thecountry since the inception of the cold war.Today, this very same policy has entered acomplex dynamic in which US military aidbuttresses a disengaged central government,while most of the country is left to be ruledby violence, terror and extortion. Not unlikethe violence of the conquistadores that wassanctioned by Papal bulls, the contemporaryviolence of paramilitaries and narco-traffick-ers that is sanctioned by neoliberalism andeconomic profiteers of US elites is a tool ofdispossession and means to neutralize thework of political deliberation. Again, notunlike the middle of the 20th century shortlyafter La Violencia, the contemporaryviolence of the paramilitaries and the militar-ies in search of so-called narco-guerrillas, hasbecome a means to displace farmers, indige-nous populations and Afro-Colombiansfrom lands that may have some of the largestreserves of oil in South America. Thus, the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

MENDIETA: MEDELLÍN AND BOGOTÁ 179

global war on terror is synergizing inColombia into a war for oil and coca.

Conclusion

In this paper I have sought to illustrate howmany of the global processes that insert citiesinto global networks capitalize on patternsestablished during the colonial period. I havelooked at how the political geography ofColombia has determined the divergent butparallel fates of two of its major cities, whichunwittingly have become players in what wecan call the informal or black market global-ization. Medellín has become infamousbecause of its drug lords, and the fact that itproduces most of the coca in the worldmarket. The city also has become globallyknown because it lived through one of themost violent periods in the history of anyworld city. In the early 1990s, at the heightof the drug wars, there were 6000 deaths eachyear (Hylton, 2007b, p. 83). In one yearalone, 300 police officers were killed. Bogotá,by contrast, remained relatively untouchedby such exorbitant levels of mundaneviolence. Yet, even in the capital city, thepresence of a different type of actor could befelt: the M-19 staged a takeover of the Palaceof Justice, the site of the Colombia SupremeCourt, on 6 November 1985, to demand apublic hearing with the then PresidentBetancur to discuss his failure to secure peacein the nation. The occupation turned quicklyinto a blood bath in which 33 M-19 guerril-las, mostly intellectuals, professors, students,including some woman, 11 members of thesecurity forces and 11 justices, includingthe chief justice, were killed (Behar, 1986,pp. 405–413; Kirk, 2003, p. 136). Uribe waselected in part because he marries the elites ofMedellín and Bogotá, because he is approvedand liked by Washington, and because hisanti-terrorist rhetoric, christened uribismo, isproviding an adroit ploy to continue torefuse to open up the political field tomarginalized voices (Murillo, 2004, pp. 23–24). This situation can be explained if we

consider some of the factors I have sought toforeground.

We cannot understand how Medellínbecame the global capital of coca if we do notunderstand the ways in which political sover-eignty has been uncoupled from territorialunification since the colonial period, whichwas due precisely to the specific dynamics ofEuropean colonization. The Latin Americannations bear the scars of territorial dismem-berment, and their political imaginary hasbeen atrophied by alliances and loyalties thathave their deep roots in colonial patronageand colonial imaginary. Territorial dismem-berment and the inheritance of the colonyhave complicated the incredibly fragmentedterritories and geographical isolation ofmany regions. Like every place on the planet,here geography was the condition of possi-bility of certain very specific historicalprojects. Since independence, Latin Ameri-can countries, and Colombia is no exception,have struggled to translate political revolu-tions into social and economic revolutions toonce and for all dismantle the structures offeudalism imposed by the colonial system.Processes of internal colonization, trying toreverse Spanish anti-urbanism, have been metwith waves of violence. No effective landreform has been enacted or accomplished.Two centuries later after independence fromSpain, peasants living below the poverty levelcontinue to struggle for land and the right togrow their own food. Thus the struggles inChiapas, Bolivia and Ecuador are not unlikethose in the Colombian llanos and the Chocojungles. Colonialism traced a particularhistorical map, which US imperialism hasfollowed and used to its own advantage.Neo-colonialism and imperialism haveinserted themselves very comfortably intodynamics of dispossession and accumulationthat use geography and emaciated polities towreck havoc on nations, in order to pillageresources and extract wealth. Half a centuryof civil war in Colombia is not just the resultof colonial inheritances, it is also the conse-quences of cold war and neoliberal policiesthat have dismantled the country’s abilities to

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Penn

Sta

te U

nive

rsity

] at

07:

59 0

5 A

ugus

t 201

5

180 CITY VOL. 15, NO. 2

determine its political fate and to use itsresources for the health of its citizenry. Thecold war metamorphosed into the War onDrugs, which has now metastasized into theGlobal War on Terror. Colombia has beenthe one Latin American country where allthese three global wars have been fought andit is the one in which they have become one.Medellín is the urban face of these globalwars become one.

References

Avramovic, D. (1972) Economic Growth in Colombia: Problems and Prospects. Report of a mission sent to Colombia in 1970 by the World Bank, Chief of Mission and Coordinating Author D. Avramovic. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Behar, O. (1986) Las guerras de la paz. Bogotá: Editorial Planeta.

Bushnell, D. (1993) The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Guillermoprieto, A. (1994) The Heart that Bleeds: Latin America Now. New York: Vintage.

Guillermoprieto, A. (2001) Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America. New York: Pantheon.

Hylton, F. (2006) Evil Hour in Colombia. London: Verso Books.

Hylton, F. (2007a) ‘“Extreme makeover”: Medellín in the new millennium’, in M. Davis and D.B. Monk (eds) Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism. New York: The New Press.

Hylton, F. (2007b) ‘Remaking Medellín’, New Left Review, No. 44 (March–April), pp. 71–90.

Hylton, F. (2008) ‘Medellín: the peace of the pacifiers’, NACLA Report on the Americas 41(1) (January–February), pp. 35–44.

Kirk, R. (2003) More Terrible than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War. New York: Public Affairs.

Martinez, C. (1968) Santafé de Bogotá. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, SA.

Mohan, R. (1994) Understanding the Developing Metropolis: Lessons from the City Study of Bogotá and Cali, Colombia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Murillo, M.A. (2004) Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization. New York: Seven Stories Press.

Rama, A. (1996) The Lettered City, trans. J.C. Chasteen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Roldán, M. (1999) ‘Colombia: cocaine and the “miracle” of modernity in Medellín’, in P. Gootenberg (ed.) Cocaine: Global Histories, pp. 165–182. New York: Routledge.

Romero, J.L. (1999 [1976]) Latinoamérica: las ciudades y las ideas. Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia.

Sale, K. (1990) Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. New York: Knopf.

Subirats, E. (1994) El Continente Vacio: La conquista del Nuevo Mundo y La conciencia moderna. México: Siglo XXI.

Vásquez Perdomo, M.E. (2004) My Life as a Colombian Revolutionary: Reflections of a Former Guerrilla. Philadelphia: Temple University.

Wade, P. (1995) Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophyat the State University of New York, StonyBrook. He is co-editor of two forthcomingSSRC volumes on secularism and religion:The Power of Religion in the Public Sphereand Habermas and Religion. Email: emendi-eta@notes.cc.sunysb.eduD

ownl

oade

d by

[Pe

nn S

tate

Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

7:59

05

Aug

ust 2

015