“VIOLENCE KEPT CHASING ME”: FIGHTING FOR PEACE IN COLOMBIA

“For nearly the entirety of Colombia’s more than half-century armed conflict, Gonzalo Sánchez has been one of the most influential voices in the quest to understand the forces behind and the consequences of this violence….”
From NACLA Report on the Americas, May 2021. (Contact me for a PDF of this article) Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.

MOVING ON FROM COCA IN IMAGES: A PHOTO-ESSAY IN THREE PARTS

“Overnight, the coca economy disappeared as farmers pulled out their illicit crops based on government promises of productive projects designed to help them shift to legal agriculture. In this multi-installment photo essay, I use images to explore what this transition has meant for local families….”
From Ethnographic Marginalia, December 2020 to February 2021. Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.

CORONAVIRUS AND THE COLOMBIAN COUNTRYSIDE

“Fabio Muñoz is pissed off. In the context of a national fear of coronavirus, he was called a hero on the radio, he says. And it rankles him. ‘They’re talking about us, about our campesino heroes producing, shut in on their land. Hermano, we can’t live with praise. Where’s the support?’…”
From NACLA, May 2020. Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.

MURDER IN COLOMBIA’S PEACE LABORATORY

“Colombian campesinos in Briceño, Antioquia have voluntarily uprooted their coca plants in exchange for government support to grow new crops. But with much aid delayed, the local economy has collapsed, and the presence of a newly formed dissident FARC group threatens more violence….”
From NACLA, July 2018. Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.

THE PERSISTENCE OF RURAL COCA ECONOMIES

“‘This is where it all comes from,’ says Eduardo, laughing as he pulls light-green oval-shaped leaves off a coca plant’s thin reddish stems. By “all” he means the drug cocaine, lucrative transnational trafficking rings, and – largely fueled by their profits – Colombia’s longstanding violent conflict….“
From Contexts, February 2021. (Contact me for a PDF of this article)

COLOMBIA’S ‘PEACE LABORATORY’ DECRIES GOVERNMENT FAILURES IN COCA SUBSTITUTION

“Briceño, a municipality of 8,000 people in northern Antioquia, was supposed to be an example for the rest of the country to follow. It was here, with a legacy of 35 years of guerrilla presence, that the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) started a 2015 humanitarian demining program, their first collaboration as part of the Havana peace negotiations.“
With Pedro Arenas, from Colombia Reports and El Espectador (Spanish version), February 2020. Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.

WILL MEGAPROJECTS DESTROY COLOMBIA’S PEACE PROCESS?

“El Orejón, an isolated rural community in the northern Colombian department of Antioquia, is slowly emptying out. A few years ago, 88 people lived on family farms on the valley walls above the Cauca river. Only 48 remain. The neatly cultivated plots of corn, beans, coffee, sugar cane, and yuca of the families still there stand out from the abandoned lands that the jungle is gradually reclaiming.“
From NACLA, August 2019. Haz cliq aquí para ver la versión en español.