DESPITE signing the 2016 peace deal that brought more than 50 years of war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) to an end, the nation’s establishment, including the right-wing government, have refused to implement the terms of the agreement.

Instead, the state and business community saw peace as an economic opportunity: with the biggest threat to capitalist accumulation out of the way, former Farc-controlled territories have become the veins through which multinational corporations have looked to expand through industries that have a heavy impact on the now-unprotected land and those who live off it.

Mining, logging, drilling for oil, palm-oil extraction, privatisation of fresh water sources, poaching and narco-traffickers have been laying waste to former Farc strongholds, forcing millions of peasants from their homes and into Colombia’s slums, where few jobs and little to no social security awaits them.