A Review of Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War

Violence has always been a fundamental aspect of human life. We have fought to survive, to defend, and to acquire. States are meant to have a monopoly on the use of violence in order to maintain peace and security in their territory and defend their founding ideology. All countries have had this history of political violence and revolution, but few can match the history of violence as it has happened in Colombia.  

Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War by Andreas E. Feldmann (Colombia University Press, 2024, 360 pages)

Andreas E. Feldmann, a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, has given us an insightful book about how violence in Colombia has manifested in its different forms. While Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War has a largely academic style, it still maintains a strong sense of peace activism and the denunciation of violence against civilians.  

And the violence certainly affects civilians. Colombia has been embroiled in civil conflict between ideological groups, state forces and criminal organizations for decades. In the wake of this conflict, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives, been tortured, and injured. This does not even account for the millions who have left the country or the millions who have been internally displaced. You see the ripple effects of this violence in South Florida where I am from. Florida is home to the largest Colombian diaspora in the United States with around 200,000 Colombian immigrants. While it is hard to miss the pride of Colombian people here in Miami, once you get to know the community, you will quickly find people who have been personally affected by violence in Colombia, in particular, the rampant kidnappings that saw their height in the 1990s.  

Feldmann’s principal focus is on how different specialists in violence such as paramilitary groups (AUC, Bolivar Block), leftist guerillas (ELN, FARC), and the state forces (Colombian army, military police) have developed their tactics for violence through their organizational identity. By going through an in-depth literature review of the study of terrorism, civil war, political science and crime, Feldmann, who also served as the Assistant to the Special Repertoire on Migrant Workers at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, provides a broad framework for his understanding of the repertoires of violence.  

Feldmann’s understanding is underpinned by a constructivist view of organizational identity and history which he explains shapes these manifestations of violence. Constructivism focuses on the identities of organizations and people. I think Feldmann’s analytical constructivist framework helps us to understand these identities but, in some ways, fails to understand the material basis for these different identities. Ideology does not exist in a vacuum and is in fact a product of the historical development of these groups. Feldmann recognizes that, but I think he could go more thoroughly to analyze the way the material conditions in Colombia define organizational history.   

Using both his academic and intergovernmental experience, Feldmann provides a strong analysis of violence in Colombia. Over a decade, Feldmann made multiple trips to Colombia to collect data from UN representatives, International Committee of the Red Cross workers, government officials and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He then systematized the data collected from these human rights organizations to develop organizational profiles of the different violent actors in Colombia.   

Each chapter of the book acts as an organizational profile for each violent actor operating in Colombia. Of all of the actors examined, I found the writing on the paramilitary groups the most compelling. Paramilitary groups or self-defense forces occupy a special position in the Colombian ecosystem of violence. These groups have a complicated history with the Colombian government and in their more recent history have taken on aspects of criminal organizations like the Medellin and Cali cartels. Feldmann describes how paramilitaries were formed to combat peasant mobilization and deter forceful occupation of landowner property including narco trafficker land holdings. These peasant mobilizations were spearheaded by leftist guerilla groups like the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army, FARC). In many ways, paramilitary groups were the central government and land-holding class’s response to a perceived spread of Cuban Revolution-inspired Marxism in the country. While the actual ideology of the peasant movements, union organizers, and guerillas comes from different political tendencies like Maoism and the strategies of the Viet Cong, Feldmann explains how this perceived threat from Cuba’s growing influence prompted fear in the National Front-led by President Lleras Camargo. As well as influenced by President John F. Kennedy’s implementation of the Alliance of Progress which sought to push back against Soviet and Cuban influence.  

These paramilitary groups started as self-defense organizations financed by the land-owning class and were legalized during the mandates of President Guillermo Leon Valencia (Conservative party, 1962-66) and President Carlos Already Restrepo (Liberal party, 1966-70) who promoted a string of executive decrees authorizing the creation of these self-defense forces.  While these presidents are not as deeply connected to the paramilitaries as Alvaro Uribe, they are still part of the interwoven history between government officials and their ties with the paramilitaries. After the political establishment in the 1960s, these self-defense forces went on the offensive and began to target the civilian support system of guerilla organizations over the course of the next few decades. 

The writing in the book is extremely methodical and consistently cites historical precedent. Feldmann confessed in a recent interview with the New Books Network that the book is not an easy read. Each piece of theoretical analysis is backed by statistical data, legal findings and individual experiences. His description of paramilitaries matches this. Each stage of organizational development is thoroughly contextualized in the broader argument.  

Feldmann points out that a majority of attacks that took place in the 1990s were carried out by the paramilitaries—and much of it was what Feldmann describes as “overkill.” Overkill or excessive use of violence against targets, both in the amount and style of violence, has been a tool for instilling fear into guerilla groups and their sympathizers. This use of fear is part of the organizational profile of the paramilitaries. Feldmann explains further that overkill was seen as a necessary part of their activity as they believed they were protecting the Colombian state from total collapse. Thus, these targets were enemies of the state.  

The foundation of the paramilitaries’ organizational identities and their repertoires of violence is in the leadership’s protocol for socialization and targeting. Many paramilitary leaders have been former members of the armed forces of Colombia. Their training of the rank-and-file members was influenced by military tactics and often incorporated informal forms of socialization like hazing. As these rank-and-file members were trained and subsequently tasked with assassinations, a reinforcing cycle took place which institutionalized the repertoire of violence, as described by Feldmann. For comparison, guerillas more commonly carried out kidnappings and bombings which affected the economic elite more intensely. Paramilitaries targeted their assassinations against guerilla sympathizers and informants, along with progressive political activists such as leftist organizers, union leaders, indigenous leaders and intellectuals.  

From self-defense groups to active combatants, paramilitaries transformed even further when they began to intermingle with narcotraffickers. This relationship created what Feldmann describes as a criminal ethos. Paramilitaries started to implement a revenue-making strategy in line with narcotraffickers. They illegally appropriated land and extorted businesses for their protection, as well as became a major actor in the drug trade. Rank-and-file members of the cartels joined the paramilitaries as the paramilitaries began to train cartels in military strategy. This created a deadly combination of vast arms supplies from the narcotraffickers along with a militant strategy. This evolution of violence is key to understanding Feldmann’s principal argument of repertories of violence based on organizational identities and history. Violence changes as organizations and conditions change.   

While the book provides exceptional analysis for the academic community, it also helps to carve out a space for humanitarian engagement and civilian protection. Feldmann himself was personally impacted by violence. His parents were Jewish refugees who fled to Chile in the early 1940s from Eastern Europe. As terrorist organizations fight to assert their territorial presence and push back rivals, they develop tactics that harm civilians and promote fear.  

If we want to build a more peaceful world, especially in the era of terrorism we need to understand how and why these terrorist groups carry out violence. Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia’s Civil War provides a framework for how we can look at violence and anticipate attacks or even develop strategies for peace and reconciliation. The book provides this crucial academic and practical understanding while still recognizing the deep human cost of violence against civilians. Andreas E. Feldmann’s dedication to this topic shows how necessary it is that we understand and empathize in order to act.  

Marek D. Kong is a graduate student at Florida International University in the Master of Arts in Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. He also acts as the program coordinator for the FIU Model UN program. You can find more information about him here: www.linkedin.com/in/marek-kong-fiu