I'm Nazih Richani, a political scientist at Kean University. I've been studying the Colombian conflict for about 16 years, and in this respect I have a book and several other academic publications. The title of my brief presentation is going to be "Free Trade with What State? A Fragmented Sovereignty or a Co-opted State".
For the purpose of this hearing, two critical issues are imperative to consider. One is what type of state we have today in Colombia, and second is the possible impact this agreement could have on the rural economy and the long-term food security of the country and consequently on its civil war. Let me start on the type of state.
During the last decade, the state-making process in Colombia has almost graduated from a condition of fragmented sovereignty in which the central government in Bogota shared authority with regional caudillos, or political bosses, right-wing narco-paramilitaries, and leftist guerrillas. This fragmented sovereignty has characterized the country's history since its independence in the early 19th century. However, during the course of the last decade, the state-making process has entered into a phase whereby the state's coercive apparatus has expanded its radius of operations for almost all the country's--