El paso fino: Un escenario de los poderes regionales y de las élites emergentes de la década de 1980 en Pacho, Cundinamarca

Abstract

In Pacho, capital of the province of Rionegro in Cundinamarca, as in many other places in Colombia, there was an appropriation of the territorial domain by different micro-powers and local powers , as a response to the phenomenon of “la Violencia” and the internal armed conflict. Regional powers that include the agricultural sectors, mainly the cattle sector and, emerging elites that shelter the emerald mining and drug trafficking sectors that converged in Pacho, due to the proximity to the West of Boyacá - emerald region of Colombia - and to being the place of origin and operation of one of the most recognized drug traffickers in Colombian history Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha -alias El Mexicano-. These patrons have in common a rural origin that allows them to share the representation of a symbolic figure of the horse, around which new scenes like fairs and equines exposures are created. Scenes that promote the improvement of the horse breed and that require a considerable economic capital. The hypothesis of this paper states that the horse is configured as a symbol of power legitimized by the regional powers and the emerging elites, which makes the equine scenes a meeting place for the sectors that were developed from the rural economies and converged in this activity during the 1980s in Pacho. For the development of this research, the review of archives and newspapers, a systematic research work in the horse breeding, interviews with the horsemen who lived the boom of the fine step horses in 1980 and their relationship with men recognized in the agricultural, emerald and drug trafficking world were carried out.