Appendix One Rionegro Province, Cundinamarca Department

The Andean municipality of La Palma, Rionegro province (see Map A over- leaf) is located in the most remote and inaccessible corner of Cundinamarca department (surrounding Bogotá D.C.), being described as ‘very isolated… the most distant municipality in all of Cundinamarca’.1 With very low levels of capital accumulation and development, La Palma inhabitants have historically been peasant in orientation or incoming migrants attracted by the emerald re- gion in adjoining Boyacá department.2 During the 1950s, La Violencia,3 known locally as La Revolución (The Revolution), left its mark, with inhabitants be- ing displaced as far as Bogotá, although many maintained their links with the land even half a century later.4 The majority of the small-holding lands in the region have not been ‘legalised’, since their campesino owners do not wish to pay taxes.5 Nearby Yacopí municipality fijigured among the great land occupations of 1964, a process which contributed to the creation of the FARC-EP guerrilla in the same year in Tolima department. The FARC-EP has long operated in Rionegro,6 and its 22nd Front of the Eastern Bloc (Bloque Oriental) had perma- nent presence in La Palma and neighbouring municipalities by the 1980s.7 To

1 Interview 71. La Palma was once an important trade centre on the Bogotá to Magdalena Medio corridor in colonial times. The winding 70km Bogotá to La Palma road, an unpaved track after Pacho (the provincial capital), now requires fijive hours travel by vehicle. 2 María Victoria Uribe Alarcón, Limpiar la tierra: Guerra y poder entre esmeralderos [Clear the Earth/Land: War and Power among Emerald Traders] (CINEP, Bogotá 1992), 37-38. 3 See Chapter Four, n 4. 4 El Tiempo, ‘El regreso de los hijos de La Violencia [The Return of the Children of The Vio- lence]’ (4 September 1999). It was estimated that La Palma was made up by 60% Conserv- ative supporters before La Violencia and currently consists of 90% Liberals (Interview 89). 5 A professional agronomist estimated that only 30% of the rural inhabitants had legalised their ownership of the lands (Interview 154). 6 By the late 1960s, the IV Front had established its stronghold in the nearby Magdalena Me- dio (Cimitarra municipality, Santander department) with a sporadic presence of various exploratory ‘commissions’ in the Rionegro corridor. By 1972, it had consolidated a support base of peasants and local councillors in Yacopí and a newly created 22nd Front began to operate in the region around this time, attacking police and Army (Uribe, Limpiar la tierra, 83-84). 7 From where it provided a support base for implementing the FARC-EP 1982 VII (Seventh) Conference’s objectives of penetrating the big cities such as Bogotá. 378 appendix 1

Map 2 Cundinamarca department

BOYACBOYACÁÁ Chiquinquirá

CALDAS Yacopí

La Palma

Honda Pacho

TOLIMA River Magdalena River Magdalena CUNDINAMARCA

Bogotá Soacha

10 0 50 100 Km

Major road City Settlement mentioned in text Boundary between departments