On Thursday, Colombia’s Congress ratified a new peace accord that could end decades of civil war and weaken the ability of foreign corporations to turn a profit on unrest in the South American country.
Since the 1960s, communist rebel forces have fought right-wing paramilitary groups and their government allies in Colombia’s ongoing civil war. While the paramilitary groups ostensibly formed in opposition to communist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, their targets were more often the civilian and indigenous population.
The Colombian government reported in November that more than half a century of armed conflict has left 7,011,027 people displaced, 267,000 murdered, and 46,000 “disappeared.”
Throughout the decades of conflict, massive international businesses have been eager to take advantage of the paramilitary groups’ skills to suit their own interests and move into land formerly occupied by displaced people. Some of the numerous foreign corporations accused of serious human rights abuses in Colombia include fruit companies Dole, Del Monte, and Chiquita, agribusiness giant Cargill, and other representatives of the fossil fuel industry like Texaco (formerly Texas Petroleum Company) and Exxon Mobil.
