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syndicates exploit to the maximum the vacuum of
legal authority in a failed state. Using it as a safe
haven, terrorists and crime syndicates can consolidate
and expand their operations, creating a threat to
international security. It is feared, for example, that
powerful narco-traffickers and guerrilla forces operating
from Colombia may extend their criminal activities
into Panama now that the US has withdrawn most of
its forces from the latter. Last, but not the least, failed
states also pose a challenge to the international
community because they frequently generate gross
human rights violations (Part 3, dealing with the key
indicators of states at risk of failing, elaborates this
issue). As Woodward (1998:5) remarks: `the problems
of a non-functioning state, for both citizens and
interveners, are first and foremost the absence of
physical security and the collapse of law and order'.
Universally recognized non-derogable erga omnes
obligations under international law are thus being
violated (Shaw 1997:204). Furthermore, the political,
economic and social development strategies pursued
by international agencies and bilateral donors have
been rendered virtually irrelevant under conditions of
acute state failure. For example, UN-sponsored
emergency relief and peacekeeping operations in
Angola have been among the organization's most
costly and frustrating disappointments: `the bill: US$
1.5 billion; the result: failure' (Time 27 March
2000:41). It needs to be seen whether current US
financial assistance to the Pastrana government,
totalling US$ 1.6 billion, will succeed in combating
the threat of cocaine trafficking as a cause and
consequence of state failure (The Economist 26
February 2000:68). Against this background, it is
clear that the growing post-Cold War phenomenon of
failed states is of great concern to the international
community, requiring costly and risky humanitarian
intervention (UNCTAD 1997:127; UNDP 1999).
ANGOLAN AND COLOMBIAN STATE FAILURE:
THE VIOLENCE VARIABLE
Born in violence
Domestic violence has been an important and often
decisive social process in the structuring of Angolan
and Colombian state and society. This is not unique.
In general, domestic violence is endemic in the early
stages of any state and nation building (Zartman
1995). Such violence, then, signals the vital process
of central state power accumulation. However, as
soon as the state-in-the-making has mustered the
economic and political sources necessary to secure
strong statehood, while simultaneously enhancing a
social contract between state and society, rule by
force is replaced by legitimate consensus rule. Most
industrialized nation-states secured their existence in
this way (Zacarias 1999). In the absence of this
scenario, large-scale use of force tends to prevail ± its
violent expression being a component of state faltering,
amidst equally threatening use of (military)
violence by its challengers. This represents the current
scenario in which Angola and Colombia tend to find
themselves. Learning from a colonial history of
`rebellions, cimarronism, slave palenques, and national
liberation wars' (Oquist 1980:27), both `nationstates'
have developed a tendency to fight, initially
based on violent political factionalism in the case of
Colombia, and ethno-ideological conflict in Angola's
case. In both cases, the delegitimized state and certain
nonstate actors emerged as prime conditioning agents
in post-independent violent conflicts. While political
violence has not led to total anarchy and absence of
central government rule, it has been decisive enough
to derail the vital process of power accumulation ± a
precondition for strong legal controls and the state's
legitimate monopoly over the means of violence.
Violence in its many distinct forms is, of course, not
unique to Angola and Colombia. It is, however,
endemic to both at a national level, making violence
a key variable in their state failure experiences.
Colombia, for example, has 90 intentional homicides
per 100 000 inhabitants, annually compared to
neighbouring Venezuela's 12, and 10 in the USA.
Similar data for Angola is not available (United
Nations 1998).
It is impossible here to provide a detailed account of
all the notably distinctive events of violence since their
independence, or to discuss all major categories of
violence, particularly in Colombia's case. For example,
at least 13 important periods of violent political
conflict occurred in the first century of the latter's
independence; not to mention `La Violencia' of the
1950s, and subsequent protracted civil war (Oquist
1980:42). Rather, the emphasis is on the commonality
of political violence and guerrilla activities, with a brief
acknowledgement of other categories, such as narcoterrorism
by powerful drug cartels. The latter category
is absent in the case of Angola. Instead, foreign
private (mercenary) armies have been hired by the
MPLA ruling e lite to support its military offensive
against UNITA and provide `political' services such as
procuring weapons. Reno (1997:172±177) refers to
this development as the `privatization' of violence,
involving clandestine companies such as Executive
Outcomes and Saracen International. Subsequent
paragraphs are concerned with the origins, causes
and occurrence of political violence at independence
and thereafter, providing some clarity on the violencestate
failure link, the latter component being elaborated
in the next Part.
While more than 150 years apart, certain parallels
can be drawn between the Colombian and Angolan
experiences of political violence. In Colombia, BolõÂ -
var's military success resulted in the criollos' assump-
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