Evil Hour in Colombia

This is an important account of the social conflicts in Colombia during the last 170 years supported by careful research on such an important topic. It helps to rescue a historical memory that the dominant narrative in that South American country wants to permanently erase. It emphasizes the democratic and consistent resistance of what Hylton calls "subaltern" groups throughout the republican history of Colombia. Although the voices and struggles of the urban and rural working classes have not been emphasized enough in this book, they occupy a prominent place. These struggles have not produced sensationalist and flashy headlines like those of the armed groups, yet they have consistently and heroically helped to organize un-unionized rural and urban workers. Mr. Hylton has been critical of all the armed actors in this conflict and rightly provides a general context to better understand their actions. While it is true that leftists in Colombia have emphasized, to their own detriment the call to arms, there has also been a Left that has consistently called for the self-organization of the urban and rural working class. Indeed, most of the armed groups have in a sectarian fashion ridiculed the organization of the urban working class. The narrative of violence has been tragically overemphasized by a Left (perhaps because of the feudal nature of the recent past and the weakness of working class traditions in a semi feudal society) that needs to respect all minorities and their democratic traditions as Mr. Hylton very well documents in his book. His narrative gives us an overview and a general context that complements those of anthropologist Taussig and journalist Molano.

Evil Hour in Colombia is an acute synthesis of a theme fictionalized by Colombia's literary Nobel Laureate, Gabriel García Márquez. The title in English alludes to Garcia Marquez's novella of the same name, but the work distances itself from tautological and culturalist approaches often hidden in discourses of "magical realism." Instead, Hylton establishes with absolute clarity that the origin of violence in Colombia is directly related to the consistent repression of diverse social movements that have tried to escape from exploitation since the mid-nineteenth century. Nothing in these pages recalls the vague and gratuitous intrigue that arose when rumor-mongering pamphlets invaded the streets of the town imagined by García Márquez. The historian goes his own way. With abundant documentation, the author demonstrates the confrontation--not at all magical, but rather all too real--that results when a small group of elites cleaves to latifundismo; when indigenous and Afro-Colombians are displaced from their territories; when coffee, and later cocaine, exports lead to processes of internal colonialism; when the armed insurgency hypertrophies; when the state delegates the exercise of violence to paramilitaries, who become a new, corrupt and criminal entrepreneurial class. Evil Hour overturns facile and dangerously banal explanations that tend to proliferate in discussions of Colombia. It is at once painful and timely, establishing a blunt yet sophisticated analysis of modern Colombian violence, thereby putting flesh on the bones of seemingly impersonal processes and problematizing the current wave of triumphalism emanating from Washington and Bogotá. Hylton offers a concise, profound explanation of a bloody history, distancing himself from approaches that locate the problem in an ill-defined condition stemming from the capricious cultural practices of a Third World people. Many Latin Americans, Colombians in particular, will benefit from reading this book. It helps us understand the dynamics of violence from a perspective solidly rooted in history. Likewise, these pages could help dissipate the "amnesia" recently legislated in the Colombian Congress through the "Justice and Peace Law" regulating the incorporation of paramilitaries into state and society---a palpable correlate of recent developments that is much more dangerous than the one in 100 Years of Solitude, in which the inhabitants of Macondo merely forget the names of things. Finally, it remains to wait for the "right moment" when these pages are translated into Spanish, the language in which this struggle is waged, and in which pain is articulated.

For students of Colombian history as well as the general public looking to understand the current "para-gate" scandal, this book is fundamental. After Alvaro Uribe Vélez won the presidential elections for the second time in a row in May 2006, the country's largest political scandal in recent history has begun to unfold. Links between rightwing narco-paramilitaries and local-, regional-, and national-level politicians have been brought to light by the judicial branch of government as well as the political opposition in the Colombian Congress. The crisis reached new heights after all signs pointed toward President Uribe himself. Unable or unwilling to give satisfactory answers to the questions raised about his involvement with paramilitary-backed politicians, Uribe issued veiled threats against opposition politicians. Evil Hour in Colombia offers a comprehensive background to the current situation, and demonstrates the historical roots of this genocidal marriage between narco-paramilitarism and the political system in the country considered to be the staunchest ally of the United States in South America, and an example to follow in Iraq and Afghanistan. Covering the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early-twenty first century, Evil Hour in Colombia provides an explanation for the apparent senselessness of this unending civil war. Going beyond simplistic denunciations of human rights abuses by armed groups of the left and right, Evil Hour in Colombia unearths the roots of the right turn in Colombia. According to the author, the problem of land and labor can be viewed as a counterpoint between the politics of the oppressed, rooted in deep historical traditions of popular democracy, and the politics of local landed elites rooted in equally entrenched traditions of patronage, clientelism, and political violence. In sum, Evil Hour in Colombia should be a required reading for all those interested in the current Colombian conflict, political developments in Latin America, the history of insurgency and counterinsurgency, and in particular, the world of the future--and not only in Colombia. Simply and beautifully written, easy to follow, and a pleasure to read, Evil Hour in Colombia represents a major contribution to our understanding of what lies behind the headlines.

As someone who lives in Colombia, I've spent countless conversations with friends and colleagues talking about this country's civil war. The conversation often turns to whether there will ever be a peaceful end to this nightmare of the longest running civil war in the Western Hemisphere. In trying to find an "out," the intellectual exercise inevitably evolves into a discussion about the "true" origins of the war. Why this war? Why this country? With this excellent book, I feel like I've come as close as possible to "definitive" answers. The epigraph to Chapter 3, quoting Eric Hobsbawm, briefly sums part of the argument convincingly laid out by Hylton, as to the sources of the war: "I discovered a country (Colombia) in which the failure to make a social revolution had made violence the constant, universal, and omnipresent core of public life." The other part of Hylton's argument explains why "social revolution" in Colombia stumbled, or rather (to continue the metaphor) he describes that it didn't stumble as much as it was tripped. The author skillfully traces how this caused a violent pendulum swing in Colombian history. In the Introduction, Hylton writes, "One effect of the long-term use of political terror in Colombia and elsewhere has been to erase the memory of the political alternatives to which terror responded." Indeed, one of the most compelling elements of the book is that it rescues from oblivion the recurring moments in the country's history marked by radical-popular mobilization and the consequent--if, sometimes limited--reforms. These impressive steps forward were violently crushed by reactionary forces, including large landowners, bankers, the Church, security forces, paramilitaries and conservatives in politics to name a few, taking the country several steps back. Hylton also highlights the emergence of the country's guerrilla groups, and what he calls the "progressive hypertrophy of armed Left insurgencies." While examining the evolution of these groups to their now deteriorated political legitimacy, he does not shy away from the treacherous role they continue to play in the conflict. His characterization of today's armed Left is certainly not a romantic one. Without leaving the reader pinballing to and fro throughout history, Hylton successfully manages to show how the current form of the conflict bears uncanny resemblance to those of the past. For instance, if the coffee boom fueled a conservative offensive to accumulate land, power and wealth in the past; today, the cocaine explosion serves a similar purpose, with similarly tragic results. -Teo Ballvé is an editor at the North Ameriacn Congress on Latin America (NACLA), publisher of the most widely read English-language publication on Latin American affairs.

Evil Hour in Colombia unravels the complicated dynamic of Colombia's decades long civil war, and it is must reading for anyone interested in understanding the violent social and political landscape of this war-torn country. Speared headed by newly rich drug lords and their paramilitary henchmen, Colombia has experienced a massive counter-agrarian reform, and it has the second largest internally displaced population in the world. Moreover, an impunity-powered campaign of terror against trade unionists, human rights activists, journalists, and peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders have left thousands dead and the perpetrators -mostly among the right-wing security forces and allied government security forces--free to continue terrorizing and dispossessing innocent people. The book demonstrates how, in recent years, the right-wing government of Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, flush with massive infusions of U.S. military assistance and support from the Bush administration, has transformed the country into a model counterinsurgent "democracy," where regular elections accompany widespread state terror, and where officially imposed impunity legitimizes the violent concentration of wealth and power. As a result, Colombia in the early 21st century is evolving into a neoliberal paradise with a growing supply of dispossessed workers, unaccountable security forces available to suppress opposition, and a government opposed to redistributive policies and supportive of a vicious brand of unregulated capitalism. Yet the roots of the human tragedy unfolding in Colombia go much deeper than the present moment. While many analysts of the Colombian conflict give only a passing nod to history, Hylton argues that a historical analysis is key to understanding the complexities of the current situation. The book provides a concise, tightly argued account of the violent upheavals that have shredded the Colombian social fabric from the onset of 19th century coffee capitalism to the contemporary cocaine economy. It demonstrates with great clarity and precision how dramatic social ruptures, imposed silences, and unresolved tensions have transformed people's sense of what they can do by themselves and with others and what is improbable or unimaginable. The book also speaks powerfully to the ways an exclusionary political system and widespread impunity have nurtured various radical popular movements, armed and unarmed. By highlighting over a century of struggles by frontier settlers, Afro-Colombians, indigenous peoples, and peasants and rejecting an exclusive focus on the actions of elites, Hylton shows that, despite successive periods of brutal terror, marginalized people have developed organizational forms to advance their demands for land, justice, and equality. He uncovers some of the pathways to peace, self-determination, and state accountability that were blocked by political terror and the violence unleashed by U.S.-trained security forces and shadow