This chapter concentrates on the 1996 movement of the cocaleros (peasants who grow and harvest coca) in Putumayo, in the Colombian Amazon region, and examines its meaning in the context of the "war on drugs" promoted by the United States, which in practice has become a counterinsurgent war. The author argues that this movement must be understood in the context of previous civic movements which, from a long-term perspective, constitute conjunctural manifestations of a social movement centered on the regional inhabitants’ demand for recognition by the Colombian nation state of their citizenship and their rights. In response to the Armed Forces’ characterization of the cocaleros as drug traffickers, as migrants in search of easy money, or as guerrilla collaborators - all of which has been used to legitimate repressive policies in the region - they demanded recognition as social actors, as a social group acting independently from drug trafficking and the guerrillas, and also as as Putumayan citizens.

To the movement this meant, on the one hand, involving the State in their demands through the appropriation of government-established spaces for democratic participation, and, on the other, making themselves visible as citizens with a voice in the decisions that affect them. They sought their own incorporation into the fold of the nation state not only by demanding their rights as citizens but also by asserting their rootedness and connectedness to a region. The chapter argues that the political appropriation of constitutional rights and, above all, of the principles of citizen participation, was the only discernible legal strategy of advancing the movement for social emancipation in a conflictive and marginalized area.

In this context, the chapter maintains that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were not seeking to replace the State as provider of services in the area since they support the demands of the peasants. It also shows the divisions that emerged during the negotiations among local, regional, and national State officials vis-a-vis the demands of movement leaders.