Victimology and judicialized public policies. A study on complex victims of the Colombian armed conflict
| Author | Cristina Montalvo Velásquez,Luis Trejos Rosero,Ángel Tuirán Sarmiento |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02697580211042688 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580211042688
International Review of Victimology
2023, Vol. 29(1) 52 –74
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/02697580211042688
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IRV0010.1177/02697580211042688International Review of VictimologyVel ´asquez et al.
research-article2021
Victimology and judicialized
public policies. A study on
complex victims of the
Colombian armed conflict
Cristina Montalvo Vel´
asquez
Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Luis Trejos Rosero
Universidad del Norte, Colombia
A
´ngel Tuir´
an Sarmiento
Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Abstract
This article identifies victimological typologies typical of the Colombian internal armed conflict,
which denote the double condition of victim–victims or vice versa victims–victimized. These have
been classed throughout this research as ‘complex victims’, whose historical existence was
unveiled from precursor victimology, which is used in the final part of the text to demonstrate that
the exclusion of these victims from public policies of attention, assistance and reparation ignores
the scientific contributions of victimology and the real asymmetry that occurred in the Colombian
conflict. Finally, it is pointed out how these policies do not prevent victimization or contribute to
guaranteeing measures of non-repetition, but, on the contrary, motivate the polarization of the
armed actors into irreconcilable sides.
Keywords
Victimology, complex victims, public policies, armed conflict
Introduction
Colombia’s recent history has de veloped within the framework of a n internal armed conflict
caused by multiple social, political and economic factors. In this conflict, there have been multiple
Corresponding author:
Cristina Montalvo Vel´
asquez, Faculty of Law, Universidad del Atl´
antico, Campus Barranquilla-Colombia, Carrera 30 # 8–49
Puerto Colombia, Colombia.
Email: cristinamontalvo@mail.uniatlantico.edu.co
Velásquez et al. 53
illegal armed actors. On the one hand, there have been Guerilla Organized Armed Groups Outside
the Law (GOAML), such as the disarmed Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the
National Liberation Army (ELN), the M19 Movement, the Quint´ınLame and the People’s Libera-
tion Army (EPL), among others; on the other hand, there were paramilitary GOAMLs, such as the
demobilized United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) formed by several Blocks and
Fronts, such as the Northern Block, the Catatumbo Block, the Tayrona Resistance Front, and the
Jos´e Pablo D´ıaz Front. These GOAML were present in several sub-regions of the country, gen-
erating a humanitarian crisis with proportions of conventional warfare since the late 1940s
(Gonz´alez, 2020; Guti´errez, 2020) and with 9,106,000 victims, according to the report in the
Colombian Victims Registry System (RUV) (Unidad para las V´ıctimas, 2021).
The Colombian internal armed conflict (hereinafter CIAC) has been marked since its inception
by several dynamics that led to its intensification: (a) the struggle for political power in a violent
manner, whose main actors were the historically dominant parties (P´erez, 2004); (b) the formation
of armed groups with the aim of defending their agrarian interests from large landowners and the
government (Barbosa, 2015; Manrique and Tanner 2015); (c) the involvement of all armed actors
in drug trafficking (some more than others) and their interest in consolidating their political–
military power in parts of the territory and appropriating their economic and bureaucratic
resources, among other dynamics (Gonz´alez, 2020; Guti´errez, 2020). In the mid-twentieth century,
these dynamics of political struggles arising in the context of bipartisan violence (liberal party and
conservative party) became a subversive conflict, perpetrating crimes against humanity (Claus and
S´evane, 2018), with some peasant organizations becoming guerrilla groups because their actions
were shown to be more criminal than ideological and perpetrators of atrocious crimes against the
civilian population (Ambos, 2020).
During the decade of the 1970s and 1980s, the constituted guerrilla organizations grew stronger
and became the most active and violent armed actors in Colombia, characterized by their ideas
linked to socialism (Canfora, 2000) and in the case of the FARC by an ‘organizational develop-
ment influenced by the communist party’ (Trejos and Sanandr´es, 2016: 75). Simultaneously, since
the 1980s, new organizations appeared in the Colombian scenario, called paramilitary, not inspired
by a Marxist doctrine, but on the contrary motivated to combat leftist guerrilla movements and
communism as an international enemy. These new organizations called themselves protectors of
the civilian population and were initially founded under the legal criteria contemplated in Decree
3398 of 1965. The objective of that decree was to organize national defense by citizens against
communism (Melamed, 2014). The paramilitary organizations came to concentrate political, social
and military power, which intensified the CIAC (Grupo de Memoria Hist´orica de la Comisi´on
Nacional de Reparaci´on y Reconciliaci´on and Centro Nacional de Memoria Hist ´orica, 2013).
In the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, Colombia was going through a complex
armed conflict, with the absence of a state, a crisis in the peace processes, the spread of drug
trafficking and multiple armed actors: drug trafficking groups, guerrilla groups and paramilitary
groups. The complexity led the governments of those decades to initiate peace processes – the
governments of Belisario Betancur (1982–1986), Virgilio Barco (1986–1990), C´esar Gaviria
(1990-1994), Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), Andr´es Pastrana (1998–2002), A
´lvaro Uribe (2002–
2010) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018) – involving both guerrilla and paramilitary
organizations.
It should be noted that the paramilitary groups concluded a demobilization and disarmament
process with the government of A
´lvaro Uribe between 2003 and 2006, regulated by laws 782/2002
and 975/2005, which initiated the Transitional Justice process (Gonz´alez, 2010; Jones-Chaljub,
2International Review of Victimology XX(X)
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