Frontera colombo-ecuatoriana: gobernanza criminal
Criminal governance is a new object on the Colombian security-related investigation agenda. In Colombia, the constant presence of illegal groups affects regions far from urban centers. Based on the foregoing, the State has been supplanted in territorial control affecting binational ethnic communities on the border between Colombia and Ecuador. Empirical evidence shows that since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016, the presence of criminal governments defined by Lessing (2019) as the governance of criminal actors over populations within an economy, ethnic group or territory, has been increasing. The objective of this research proposal is to determine the factors that converge within the new dynamics of transnational organized crime after the FARC. To this end, the tentative question is the following: How is the relationship between regional and extra-regional criminal governments on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border configured with ethnic communities between 2016 and 2019? For methodological purposes, a review of the literature will be made under the conceptual framework of ‘criminal government’ proposed by Benjamin Lessing (2019). Indeed, analyzes of the border have been able to determine that the area is of strategic importance for criminal organizations. These groups are not exclusively dedicated to drug trafficking, but also to human trafficking, extortion, and fuel smuggling, factors by which criminal organizations compete or cooperate for control of the area through legitimacy within the border population.