Colombia displacementWhy have millions of Colombians fled home?

More than four decades of conflict have turned Colombia into one of the world's worst humanitarian hotspots, with millions caught up in the crossfire between government troops, leftist rebels, cocaine smugglers and far-right paramilitary militias.

• Landmine casualties among worst in the world
• Centre of world cocaine production
• Latin America's oldest guerrilla war

Threats, intimidation, assassinations and massacres have forced over 3 million Colombians from their homes in the countryside - one of the highest rates of internally displaced people in the world - while tens of thousands more have been killed since the start of the 1990s.

A hardline conservative government - popular with many people for cutting crime but criticised by human rights activists for taking U.S. money to fund a clumsy crackdown on cocaine production - has weakened the country's two main rebel groups, and persuaded over 30,000 right-wing paramilitaries to disarm. But thousands more have taken their place and peace remains elusive.

Thousands die and tens of thousands are displaced every year by a conflict which started in the mid-1960s as a Marxist-inspired uprising about inequality and poverty but has turned into a seemingly interminable war that encroaches on rural villages and isolated indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, creates urban slums and leaves even the privileged living in fear.

The main players are left-wing guerrillas funded by drug trafficking and kidnapping, right-wing militias initially formed to protect landowners from the guerrillas, an army bent on cracking down on rebels and their supporters, and cocaine cartels who run their own kingdoms using the cover of jungle and are beyond the reach of overstretched security forces.

A hefty portion of Colombian cocaine ends up on the streets of the United States, and the U.S. government gives heavy backing to Colombia's war on drugs - called Plan Colombia - fuelling controversy among rights activists and environmentalists.

Although Colombian villagers want to remain neutral, they often come under heavy pressure to turn to one armed group or another for protection, or are forced to fight for them, and are then vulnerable to reprisal attacks and massacres.

The victims of violence

It is hard to pin down exactly how many people have fled rural violence or been forced off their lands by encroaching drug production, because many of the displaced are undocumented, living with relatives or melting into shanty-towns on the edge of Colombia's cities.

The government estimates that 3.3 million Colombians have been displaced, but human rights groups say the figure is much higher - the Human Rights and Displacement Consultancy (CODHES) calculates about 4.9 million, says the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Tens of thousands of Colombians have fled to neighbouring countries - primarily Ecuador and Venezuela, but also Brazil, Costa Rica and Panama, says the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR).

Human rights organisations say Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples - among the poorest sectors of Colombian society - are disproportionately affected by displacement, with tens of thousands driven from their homes each year by murder, rape and general violence.

The vast majority of the displaced are women and children.

Thousands of children have been recruited into the ranks of left-wing rebels and right-wing militias. The government estimated there were about 8,000 child soldiers in 2008. Aid agency War Child put the figure at 14,000 in 2007.

Some children as young as 10 have been used as informants or to transport arms, before being trained as fighters. And, according to UNHCR, there have been reports of girls being subjected to rape and forced abortion.

Many of the children are recruited from schools. Some are enticed by money, others are forcibly recruited. The armed groups have tortured or killed children who resisted recruitment or attempted to escape, the U.N. Secretary-General reported in March 2009.

The government's war on drugs has shifted the conflict to more remote regions - especially in the south along the border with Ecuador and along the Pacific coast - so the plight of those who bear the brunt of the violence has become almost invisible.

Drug traffickers and armed groups take cover in Colombia's vast jungles, endangering a number of small, isolated indigenous peoples whose traditional way of life revolves around rivers and the forest and rarely brings them into contact with outsiders.

Armed groups have forced some tribes to grow coca for them, or forced them off their ancestral land at gunpoint. Other tribes have been caught up in crossfire between different armed groups, or chosen to flee their homes rather than fall under their control.

Indigenous peoples make up just one percent of the population, but live in the majority of the country's 32 departments. UNHCR says there is a real threat of extinction for tribes such as the Wounaan who live in Choco near Colombia's northern border with Panama, and the Nukaks who live in the southeastern department of Guaviarre.

Other peoples under threat are the Awa, Kofan, Siona, Paez, Coreguaje, Carijona, Guayabero, Muinane-Bora, Pasto, Embera and Witoto.

Civilians in the countryside suffer a heavy toll from landmines, giving Colombia one of the world's highest landmine casualty rates.

Armed groups

This is not a straightforward two-sided war between government and revolutionaries, and it does not even divide neatly between left and right on the political spectrum, although politics is certainly an element of it.

Marxist rebels began fighting to overthrow the Colombian government in the mid-1960s. While the guerrillas have changed considerably since then, the inequalities that originally fuelled revolt and attracted people to the cause remain much the same.

The country's elite is drawn primarily from descendants of the Spanish, while people of mixed heritage - indigenous, African and European - tend to be less well off, and the majority live below the national poverty line, according to U.N. Development Programme figures.

Despite undeniable inequalities in land and wealth distribution, the guerrillas command very little popular support especially in urban Colombia where more than 70 percent of the population lives according to the U.N. Population Division. Their tactics which include kidnapping innocent civilians, besieging towns, and bombing civilian targets have alienated the majority.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is the larger guerrilla organisation, with around 9,000 fighters, according to the U.S. military. FARC wields considerable influence in the country's south and east, in jungle border regions and drug trafficking routes along the Pacific Coast.

However, it is now significantly weaker after losing a series of top commanders, and hundreds have deserted its ranks prompted by military pressure and government rewards.

FARC started as a group of Marxist revolutionaries, but became heavily involved in the drugs trade to fund its activities, and grew fat on cocaine money in the 1990s. It has also got funds from kidnappings for ransom.

FARC has shown little interest in a peace deal, although it was involved in failed peace talks during the government of former President Andres Pastrana. In 1998, Pastrana agreed to pull troops out of a jungle area the size of Switzerland, but FARC used the demilitarised zone to regroup and rearm. He broke off the talks in 2002, and ordered the rebels out of the zone.

The group's lack of commitment to peace boosted public support for a purely military solution promoted by President Alvaro Uribe, says International Crisis Group.

The first time the FARC released high-profile kidnap victims was in early 2008 after Venezuelan-brokered deals.

Ingrid Betancourt, captured while campaigning to be president in 2002, was freed by the Colombian military in July 2008, along with 14 others. This deprived the rebels of one of their main bargaining chips for obtaining the release of jailed rebels.

The rebels released other hostages in 2009 and 2010, but the FARC still has scores more.

Peace overtures have been slightly more successful with the National Liberation Army (ELN), whose strongholds are primarily in northeastern Colombia near the Venezuelan border.

The ELN was formed by radical students and Catholic priests inspired by the Cuban revolution, and was heavily influenced by Maoist ideologies and Liberation Theology, a radical form of Latin American Catholicism which flourished in the 1960s but was heavily suppressed throughout the continent.

The ELN uses both drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom to raise funds. It is much smaller than FARC, with about 2,200 to 3,000 rebels, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. It has attacked oil installations in the past, but these attacks have decreased significantly in recent years.

Observers say FARC and the ELN cooperate in some parts of the country, but sometimes clash over control of drugs crops and strategic routes into Venezuela. In December 2009, the two groups announced they would stop fighting each other and focus on attacking government forces.

In the mid-1960s, and again in the 1980s, landowners set up vigilante groups to protect themselves and their property from the ELN and FARC. These evolved into brutal paramilitary organisations with their own hierarchical structures, and have also become heavily involved in the lucrative drugs trade.

The United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) was the largest paramilitary organisation until its fighters demobilised in 2006. It was a loose confederation of paramilitary groups, responsible for widespread human rights abuses.

The AUC, FARC and ELN are all designated terrorist organisations by the United States and European Union.

Demobilisation

President Alvaro Uribe came to power on a pledge to wipe out the insurgency, and initially showed little sign of compromise, launching the "Patriot Plan" in 2004 in a renewed crackdown on guerrillas and an attempt to break FARC's strength in southern Colombia.

Uribe promoted new legislation - the Justice and Peace Law - which came into force in July 2005, providing for the demobilisation of combatants, help for them to make the transition to civilian life, and compensation for victims of war crimes.

Many paramilitary and some guerrilla fighters have demobilised under the law.

The last members of the AUC - the largest paramilitary organisation, with 30,000 members - handed in their weapons in 2006. Under the Justice and Peace Law, the government promised them freedom in civilian life or reduced jail sentences for crimes including murder, in return for confessions and the return of illegal goods, including land and property.

Once semi-secret connections between the paramilitaries and the political establishment and armed forces were thrust into the limelight when former militia leaders gave evidence about their high-profile friends. Dozens of lawmakers, local governors and mayors are being investigated by Colombia's Supreme Court for conspiring with paramilitary groups. Several lawmakers have been imprisoned.

The United Nations and many analysts say the demobilisation has not ended the AUC's influence or dismantled its criminal and cocaine-smuggling operations.

Almost immediately after the demobilisation process ended, new groups cropped up all over the country and took over the criminal networks previously run by the AUC leadership, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a 2010 report.

The new groups are made up of paramilitary fighters who never demobilised, those recycled back into the conflict, and drug traffickers and criminals.

The successor groups regularly carry out massacres, killings, forced displacement, rape, and extortion, and number at least 4,000 people. The groups are actively recruiting new members and despite arrests of some of their leaders, they are moving quickly to expand their areas of operation, says HRW.

The government's main focus with the 2005 Justice and Peace Law was to demobilise army-backed paramilitaries, but it also applies to guerrilla groups. FARC fighters were among its first beneficiaries.

The law not only helps ex-combatants make the transition to civilian life, it also provides compensation for victims of war crimes and led to the formation of Justice and Peace Units to try ex-militia members.

A separate National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation has been established to uncover the truth regarding the death and disappearance of paramilitary victims, find ways for reparation and pave the way for national reconciliation. The Catholic Church has independently compiled a confidential database of human rights violations.

Rights activists say the law is weak and does not provide enough incentive for ex-combatants to confess, or give any guarantee that ex-combatants will give up their weapons. They also say that women and children who worked with paramilitaries have been left out of peace deal benefits.

But, however flawed, most observers say the law is better than nothing.

Drugs and the United States

Colombia has been an important drug producer since the late 1970s, handling about 90 percent of the cocaine that ends up in the United States, according to U.S. government estimates, and a significant amount of heroine.

Indigenous communities in Colombia and neighbouring Bolivia and Peru have grown coca for centuries. The coca leaves have some cultural significance, and they are chewed as a stimulant that dulls hunger and decreases fatigue.

But most of Colombia's production is now linked to the cocaine industry. Colombia not only grows the raw product, but processes it in clandestine jungle hide-outs where environmentalists say toxic waste is dumped into the ground and pollutes water sources. Once it is on the way to becoming crack or cocaine, it is a far more potent drug and makes larger profits.

Colombian drug cartels play a big role in the whole chain of production from growth to distribution, although Mexican drug cartels now control many distribution routes into the United States.

Colombia's drug traffickers have no scruples about throwing villagers off their land in order to turn it into new drug sites, and much of the trade is controlled by FARC and paramilitaries.

Since the armed groups get their income from drugs and kidnapping, they are not very dependent on popular support, and have little to gain from giving up their lucrative business.

The United States, which says Colombia is also a source of heroin, has weighed in heavily on the war on drugs, giving Colombia billions of dollars in aid since 2000. But critics say the U.S. assistance beefs up military operations which often have repressive effects on civilians. The Colombian government says the aid only funds its anti-narcotics operations.

A campaign to eradicate coca crops by aerial-spraying heavy-duty chemicals has had mixed results. The U.S. government says sprayed areas rarely come under cultivation the following year, but its own research shows that drug traffickers are constantly expanding into new zones, cutting down forests and displacing communities as they go.

Environmentalists are concerned about the impact of spraying on non-drug crops and people who live in the areas, which include national parks.

Ecuador has filed a lawsuit against Colombia for damage caused by crop spraying to human health and the environment.

Drug traffickers and armed groups are active in the areas bordering Venezuela and Ecuador.

Tensions with Venezuela have grown over a deal that allows U.S. troops to use military bases in Colombia as part of its anti-drugs war.

Politics and violence

Uribe is popular for cracking down on violence, which plagues Colombians from all walks of life.

Violent crime, including kidnappings, has fallen considerably during Uribe's administration. But it has not ended.

A lot of kidnap victims do not make it home alive, even if their families pay a ransom. Many of the targets are fairly wealthy, since Colombia is a middle-income country with a substantial middle class and a sizeable elite living in relative luxury with armed guards in gated neighbourhoods.

But the poor are just as vulnerable to violent crime, in a country where many thousands are murdered every year.

Although crime figures have dropped, human rights organisations say Uribe's hardline approach infringes on human rights and sometimes tars trade unionists and community activists with the same brush as armed insurgents.

More than 4,000 trade union leaders have been assassinated since 1986, according to the U.S. State Department.

It is a risky country to be a journalist, too, with reporters frequently targeted and sometimes murdered for exposing corruption.

Rights campaigners also say the government's policies have not stopped the need for people to flee danger in the countryside, or done anything to help hundreds of thousands of displaced people forced into near-destitution in urban slums.

Improved security and increased foreign investment under the Uribe government have done little to reduce high unemployment rates and poverty rates, with around half of Colombians still living in poverty.

Colombia has lived through periods of intense violence virtually since independence from Spain in 1819. The country's two main political parties - the Liberals and the Conservatives - were involved in bloody conflicts after their formation in the mid 19th century, even though their ideologies were almost indistinguishable.

Around 120,000 people died in "The War of a Thousand Days" between 1899 and 1903, and another 300,000 people were killed in another period of civil conflict between 1948 and 1957.

After this, the two parties agreed to alternate power to end the battles and banned all other parties. The country has a democratic system now, but some analysts argue that Colombia has never known real democracy or rule of law, and that is one reason why it is so hard to achieve peace.