Narcobourgeoisie

The power this narcobourgeoisie gained throughout the 1980s crippled efforts to control and capture traffickers and strengthened the efforts of the traffickers themselves.

The evidence in this section suggests that the greater the upstream risks extant in the cocaine business at any given time in Colombia, the more likely private armies will be employed to uphold the interests of the narcobourgeoisie.

The narcobourgeoisie, in commanding leadership of the AUC, then spearheaded a coalition of class and political forces at the national level— with the tacit or unwitting support of the United States—strong enough to create a right-wing counterrevolution, which not only helped to bring its representative Alvaro Uribe to power in 2002, but also was momentous enough to amend the constitution that allowed him a successful run for a second term.