The internal war conflict in Colombia is feeded by cocaine revenues. The cocaine chain has many links, and the guerrilla is in the first links. It could be possible as soon as the political internal war conflict reaches the end, the place left by guerrilla in cocaine production will be taken by other groups. Therefore, the new legal political group that will come up from the end of internal war conflict along the traditional political groups will have to deal with these new illegal groups. This will be the first challenge of the New Colombia (the Colombia after the political internal war conflict). However, it can take time; meanwhile, how can Colombia society measure the success of the end of political internal war conflict?. It could be difficult to make a distinction between violence from cocaine fight and violence from political views. Most of the country has points where coca bushes are grown, but there are 110 municipalities in Colombia where both coca bushes have not arrived and the political violence is cruel; this region is inside of Magdalena River Region; it is divided in three regions: High Magdalena, Middle Magdalena and Low Magdalena. Therefore, if the meetings in Cuba are successful, socioeconomic indicator from these municipalities have to improve quickly. This note shows the actual state of main socioeconomic indicators in these regions.
Author: Humberto Bernal,
Economist,
e-mail: zhumber@gmail.com
Twitter: Humberto_Bernal
Magdalena river is the main river in Colombia; it crosses Colombia from Huila-Cauca (south) to Atlántico (North); this river has a long of 1,540 kg; 6.3 million of people live around it; and it can be sailed from the start point of Magdalena Medio (Middle Magdalena) to the end of Magadalena Bajo (Low Magdalena) as figure 1 shows. As a reference point, it can be sailed from Honda town (Tolima) to Barranaquilla city (Atlántico). This river used to be the main transport media in Colombia at the beginning of XX century; merchants of coffee, tabasco, bananas and others took this river to arrive the final cities. However, from 1970, this river started to show low uses because political internal war conflict. Therefore, the end of the political internal war conflict in Colombia will bring high development in this region; mainly in High Magdalena and Low Magdalena.
Figure 1. Municipalities around of Magdalena river
Source: Cormagdalena and Bureau of Statistics Colombia.
The cocaine production along High Magdalena and Low Magdalena is close to null, but the homicide rate because internal political war conflict is high. It is interesting that the municipalities around Magdalena river show low production of cocain bushes; it could be explained by the geographic position that does not contribute to grow this bush. However, the municipalities around Magdalena river have faced the cruel internal political war conflict; for instance the municipality called Isnos (Huila, High Magdalena) used to face a homicide rate of 68 per 100 thousand of inhabitants, but nowadays it is 19; same cases are for Barrancabermeja, Elias and Aguachica. Therefore, municipalities around Magdalena river can be taken as measure of the end of political internal war conflict; for instance, as the homicide rate and others socioeconomic indicator improve, then we can say that political internal war conflict is through the right path.
The main socioeconomic indicators to measure the success of the end of political internal war conflict in Colombia have to be taken from municipalities around Magdalena river because these municipalities show low production of coca bushes as figure 2 shows. These socioeconomic indicator are Gross Domestic Product (it is approximated through industrial taxes from these municipalities); Tertiary education, Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN), Homicide Rate and displaced people as table 1 shows. Through last information, one can see that these socioeconomic indicator are in critical levels; for instance there is low value added to the economy; population that finished their tertiary education and live in these municipalities is not more then 19.3%; and families in poverty state are no less than 17.7% of total families according to each municipality.
Figure 2. Municipalities by coca bushes production and political internal war conflict
Source: United nations, Cormagdalena and Bureau of Statistics Colombia.
From 128 municipalities that belong to Magdalena river region, there are just 18 that have been grown coca bushes as figure 2 shows (red color). The main municipalities are San Pablo (Bolivar, Middle Magdalena), Simiti (Bolivar, Middle Magdalena), Cantagallo (Bolivar, Middle Magdalena) and Rio Viejo (Bolivar, Low Magdalena). The total pure cocaine production from these 18 municipalities reached 14.7 tons out of 309 tons in Colombia in 2012.
Table 1. Main socioeconomic indicator around Magdalena river
Variable
|
High Magdalena
|
Middle Magdalena
|
Low Magdalena
|
Total Magdalena
|
Total Colombia
|
Municipalities (number in 2013)
|
46
|
15
|
67
|
128
|
1,123
|
Population (number of people in 2013)
|
1,366,821
|
591,440
|
4,312,552
|
6,270,813
|
47,121,089
|
Added value (% of total GDP 2012)
|
1.1
|
3.5
|
7.8
|
12.4
|
100.0
|
Tertiary education between* (population % in 2010)
|
1.1 - 14.2
|
2.1 - 10.8
|
1.3 - 19.3
|
1.1 - 19.3
|
0.2 - 28.2
|
Poverty UBN between (families % in poverty in 2010)
|
17.7 - 71.7
|
22.3 - 65.9
|
17.7 - -81.1
|
17.7 - 81.1
|
5.4 - 90.0
|
Cocaine production (tons in 2012)
|
0
|
3.4
|
11.3
|
14.7
|
309
|
Homicide rate between (100,000 per inhabitants in 2011)
|
3 - 68
|
2 - 94
|
3 - 56
|
--
|
36.0
|
Displaced people (number of people between 1998 - 2011)
|
56,497
|
85,899
|
164,084
|
306,480
|
2,852,043
|
* First Low value, then High value. (Low value - High value)
Source: United nations, Cormagdalena, Bureau of Statistics Colombia and DNP.
No comments:
Post a Comment