The Colombian Civil War: Memory, Territory and Violence in Colombia

The Colombian territory cannot be understood as a continuous or unified space. For decades, the territory has been fragmented into zones that rarely appear on maps but determine the lives of those who inhabit them. These divisions are not marked by roads, rivers, or administrative borders, but by control. Invisible lines drawn by violence, sustained over time, and recognized by those who live within them. In Colombia, territory is not only geography. It is a condition.

Across vast areas of the country, the State has been an intermittent presence, sometimes visible, often absent, and in many places replaced. In its absence, different armed actors have occupied the territory, imposing systems of control that regulate daily life. Guerrillas, paramilitary groups, and state forces have each, at different moments, shaped these territories according to their interests, creating overlapping layers of authority. These are not temporary disruptions. They are structures that have endured for decades and define the broader Colombia armed conflict.

The consequence is a country composed of multiple territories existing simultaneously, each defined by its own logic of conflict. Within them, violence is not an isolated event but a constant force, shaping behavior, relationships, and perception. Territory becomes something lived through restriction. Movement is negotiated. Speech is measured. Presence is conditional in a context shaped by the Colombian civil war.

In this context, memory is not a shared narrative. It is fragmented.

Each actor in the conflict has constructed its own version of events, its own explanation of violence, its own justification. These narratives have existed in parallel for more than half a century, rarely intersecting, often excluding one another. Memory, instead of connecting, divides. It becomes another field of conflict.

This fragmentation of memory is not accidental. It is reinforced by fear.

Fear operates quietly, but consistently. It defines what can be said and what must remain unspoken. It shapes testimony before it is even expressed. In many parts of Colombia, to remember publicly is to take a position, and to take a position is to risk becoming a target. Silence, in this context, is not absence. It is a strategy shaped by long-term violence in Colombia.

“If you do not speak, if you do not write, and if you do not tell what happened, it is forgotten. Everything ends up buried by fear. People who saw the bodies begin to forget and are afraid to speak. For years we have lived in a pact of silence in which nobody talks about what happened. And since nobody talks about it, it is as if nothing ever happened. So we continue living as if everything were normal.”

This testimony, collected in the region of Trujillo, reflects a broader reality. It is not an isolated voice, but part of a pattern repeated across territories. A testimony that reveals how fear shapes memory, and how silence becomes embedded in daily life.

For more than sixty years, Colombia has experienced an armed conflict involving the State, guerrilla groups, paramilitary organizations, and, increasingly, criminal networks connected to drug trafficking. This Colombia armed conflict forms the historical backbone of the Colombian civil war and continues to shape the country. Each actor has pursued control of territory as both a strategic objective and a means of survival. In this process, violence has become the central language of the conflict.

The civilian population has not remained outside this dynamic. On the contrary, it has been placed at its center.

According to the National Centre for Historical Memory, approximately 220,000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict. More than 60,000 have been forcibly disappeared. Over six million have been displaced from their homes. These figures provide scale, but not meaning. They do not convey the texture of lived experience, nor the depth of rupture embedded in each life.

One figure, however, clarifies the structure of violence: more than 80% of those killed were civilians.

This is not incidental. It reflects a deliberate strategy. Violence has been used not only to confront armed opponents, but to control populations, to reshape territory, and to impose authority. Civilians have been targeted as part of that strategy. Their displacement, their silence, and their fear have been functional to the conflict and to the persistence of violence in Colombia.

During the 1990s, this dynamic intensified. Guerrilla groups expanded their definition of military targets to include representatives of the State, from local officials to political candidates. Paramilitary groups, in turn, developed systematic campaigns aimed at eliminating individuals suspected of collaborating with insurgents. These accusations were often arbitrary. Suspicion alone could lead to execution.

Territory became increasingly unstable. Urban areas were not exempt. Bomb attacks, including the use of improvised explosive devices such as gas cylinder bombs, targeted infrastructure and public institutions. Police stations, mayor’s offices, and civilian spaces were repeatedly attacked. The purpose extended beyond immediate destruction. These acts sought to destabilize, to generate fear, and to demonstrate control within the Colombian civil war.

In many cases, these attacks led to the withdrawal of state presence. As police and administrative institutions retreated, armed groups filled the void. The territory was reconfigured not through formal processes, but through force. Violence established new boundaries.

The massacre in Bojayá, on May 2nd, 2002, remains one of the most emblematic examples of this reality. During a confrontation between guerrilla and paramilitary forces, a gas cylinder bomb launched by the FARC struck a church where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge. The explosion caused the deaths of 98 people, including 48 children.

The event is often described through numbers, but its impact is spatial and symbolic. A place of protection became a site of destruction. Territory, in that moment, ceased to offer refuge. It became an extension of conflict.

Bojayá is not an exception. It is a concentration.

Between 1980 and 2002, nearly two thousand massacres were documented across Colombia. The majority were carried out by paramilitary groups, though guerrilla organizations and state forces were also responsible. These massacres were not random. They followed patterns. They were directed at specific communities, often in areas of strategic importance.

Violence in these contexts extended beyond killing. It involved torture, mutilation, and the destruction of homes and communal spaces. These acts were designed to produce fear, to dismantle social structures, and to force displacement.

Displacement has been one of the most pervasive consequences of the conflict.

More than six million people have been forced to leave their homes. This number represents one of the largest populations of internally displaced persons in the world. Displacement is not simply movement. It is rupture. It is the loss of territory, the interruption of memory, and the disintegration of community.

Territory, once lived and known, becomes inaccessible. Memory, tied to that territory, becomes unstable.

Displacement is not solely a byproduct of armed confrontation. It is also linked to economic interests. Control of land has been central to the conflict. Armed actors have used violence to expel populations from areas of strategic value, including regions suitable for agriculture, mining, and drug production.

Drug trafficking has played a significant role in shaping these dynamics.

Colombia remains one of the largest producers of cocaine in the world. In 2016 alone, an estimated 866 tonnes were produced. Coca cultivation covered more than 146,000 hectares. These figures are not abstract. They reflect a system embedded in territory.

For many rural families, coca cultivation is not a criminal choice, but an economic necessity. Entire households participate in its production, from harvesting leaves to processing paste. The income it provides often exceeds that of legal alternatives. In regions where state support is minimal, coca becomes a form of survival.

This creates a paradox. Efforts to reduce coca cultivation, including substitution programs introduced after the peace agreements, aim to transform these economies. However, implementation has been uneven. In some cases, the promise of subsidies has unintentionally encouraged increased cultivation, reinforcing the cycle.

The conflict adapts.

Violence also intersects with childhood.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 5,700 minors were demobilized from armed groups and received by state programs. The majority had been recruited by the FARC, though paramilitary and criminal organizations were also involved. Recruitment often occurs in contexts of poverty, abandonment, and limited opportunity.

For these children, territory is defined by conflict from an early age. Their memory is shaped within structures of violence. Testimony, when it emerges, reveals not only individual experience but the depth of social disruption.

Responsibility within the conflict is distributed across all actors.

State forces, tasked with protection, have also been implicated in serious violations. The practice known as “false positives,” in which civilians were killed and presented as combatants, illustrates this. Between 2002 and 2008, thousands of such cases were reported.

Investigations suggest that these were not isolated incidents but part of broader patterns linked to institutional pressure to demonstrate success in combat operations. Despite this, accountability has been limited. Many cases remain unresolved.

Impunity persists.

Impunity is not passive. It shapes the present. It reinforces fear. It weakens trust in institutions and complicates the reconstruction of memory. When justice is absent, violence extends beyond the moment in which it occurs.

Forced disappearance represents another dimension of this violence.

Tens of thousands of individuals have disappeared during the conflict. The absence of a body, of information, of closure, produces a different kind of suffering. Families remain in a state of suspended grief. The search for the missing becomes a long-term process, often obstructed by lack of resources, institutional barriers, and threats.

In this context, testimony becomes an act of resistance.

To speak, to insist, to search, is to challenge silence. It is to confront fear. It is to attempt to restore memory where it has been erased.

Across Colombia, these dynamics are not confined to specific regions. They are widespread. Cases of violence have been recorded in the majority of municipalities. The conflict is not localized. It is structural within the broader Colombian civil war.

The peace agreements signed in 2016 marked a significant moment. They opened the possibility of transformation. However, they did not resolve all tensions. In some areas, the withdrawal of the FARC created power vacuums. Other armed actors moved in. The configuration of territory shifted, but conflict did not disappear.

Violence continues, often in less visible forms.

In this evolving context, memory remains central.

Memory is not a fixed record. It is contested, shaped by testimony, silence, and power. Reconstructing memory requires acknowledging multiple perspectives. It requires confronting the role of fear, the persistence of impunity, and the fragmentation of territory.