May 27, 2021
On a recent visit to Colombia’s Pacific Coast on a human rights delegation, I met with representatives of the Navy and Police about the security situation in the region. In one of these meetings, a Navy officer lectured me that the absence of the state leaves young people without any other opportunity but to turn to armed groups until a phone call interrupted him.
As the meeting concluded I pondered asking the Navy officer, “Aren’t you the state?” But I decided it was prudent not to raise the question.
Yet, the absence of the state is a common theme I have encountered here in Colombia. The narrative is repeated by nearly every representative of the Colombian state and many people from social movements that fight against state and non-state repression. It often serves political and economic elites because it allows them to portray the Colombia where the state is present as the real Colombia and the other Colombia as a vestige of the past. The absent state narra