COLOMBIA:
Civil Resistance Aimed at
Recuperating Biodiverse Lands
By Zilia Castrillón
CHOCÓ, Colombia, (IPS/IFEJ)
- Indigenous and black
communities of Colombia's
north-western department of
Chocó are trying to recover
their lands and food sources,
lost to the decades-long civil
war that has taken its toll on
this area of vast biological
diversity.
Alirio Mosquera, legal
representative of the community
councils that unite the 3,000
inhabitants of the Cacarica
River basin on the Bajo Atrato
(lower Atrato River), is working
to combine community production
projects with the peaceful
resistance to the Colombian
internal conflict that has
lasted a half-century.
"The people need their land
returned in order to recover
their traditional practices,"
Mosquera said in an interview.
He was elected May 20 after a
long struggle as logistical
coordinator for the return of
more than 700 families displaced
in 1997 by violence by the army
and right-wing paramilitary
groups, which ended in land
being seized or illegally
purchased by agribusiness and
forestry companies.
Known as "Operation Genesis", it
left more than 4,000 people
displaced and at least 85 people
dead or disappeared, according
to the National Movement of
Victims of State Crimes.
"All the community councils are
allies of the proposals of our
organisation CAVIDA (Communities
of Self-Determination, Life and
Dignity of the Cacarica) because
we have always defended the
right to land," says Mosquera.
"The land is the core of our
life. When one loses it, gives
it up, one is left as a
dayworker or as a slave," he
adds.
In this humid, forested zone,
surrounded by marshes and
swamps, live blacks and
indigenous peoples, with
constitutional rights to
collective lands and to
overseeing their management.
Afro-Colombians constitute 85
percent of the Chocó population.
Cacarica is part of the Special
Management Area of the Darién
Mountains, which separate
Colombia from Panama. It is
located in the buffer zone of
Los Katíos National Nature Park,
home to numerous endemic species
and whose land is rich in
minerals.
The violent displacement and
illegal occupation of lands were
denounced in the biodiversity
hearing held by the
non-governmental Permanent
People's Tribunal, Colombia
Chapter, on Feb. 26-27.
The tribunal held sessions in
humanitarian zones established
beginning in 1999 -- when the
displaced peoples decided to
return to their territory of
103,000 hectares -- where the
families live and try to protect
themselves from armed attacks.
Among the conclusions of the
hearings, the active
participation of paramilitaries
in the negotiations and the
concession of non-collective
lands to returnees were
mentioned.
For the members of the community
councils of the Cacarica,
Jiguamiandó and Curvaradó river
basins, food self-sufficiency
and land recovery are a form of
civil resistance.
"We won't allow people with
weapons or multinational
companies in our territory. We
aren't neutral because we are
victims of the conflict,"
Bernardo Vivas, founding member
of CAVIDA and of the
humanitarian zones, said in one
of the meetings with
international organisations that
took part in the Tribunal
session.
In addition to the food
shortage, the granting of land
for large-scale cultivation of
monoculture crops like banana
and African palm is complicating
CAVIDA's goals.
Agriculture Minister Andrés
Felipe Arias recognised in an
Executive branch session on the
Colombian Pacific, held in Cali
on Jun. 3, that there are 17,000
hectares with titles in the
Urabá area of Chocó department
(of which Cacarica is a part)
that pose problems, "given that
they are lands claimed by
individuals as private."
Arias acknowledged that there
was corruption in the purchase
of those lands, and that it was
denounced at the time by the
inhabitants.
According to the community
members, the government has
failed to take action towards
recuperating the seized lands,
which they estimate to be 22,000
hectares -- about 25 percent of
the collective territory.
A report by the government's
Institute of Rural Development
from March 2005 said that "a
group of investors associated
with the companies Urapalma,
Palmas de Curvaradó, Pamadó,
Palmas SA, Palmura, Asibicon, La
Tukeka, Selva Húmeda and
Inversiones Fregni Ochoa carried
out a massive buying and selling
of lands of different persons"
and behind the back of the
community, "with the purpose of
establishing commercial fields
of palm oil and extensive
livestock projects."
The study also underscored that
in the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó
river basins there were 3,834
hectares planted with palm oil,
destined for production of
biodiesel.
"The negotiations with the
business executives did not
occur with equal rights. And
they were illegal, because our
territory is inalienable and
non-embargable," says Marcos
Velásquez, of Nuevo Espacio, one
of the humanitarian zones.
The communities hope that,
through the partial
demobilisation of paramilitaries
promoted by the government,
their lands will be returned to
them as part of the reparations
as victims of the illegal armed
groups.
But it won't be that easy -- the
commercially farmed lands are
already in progress.
In a statement issued Jun. 7,
the Inter-Ecclesial Commission
of Justice and Peace denounced
the CI Multifruit company for
continuing to expand banana
cultivation for export, through
the U.S. firm Del Monte.
The local population subsists on
their own maize and rice,
travelling from the communal
humanitarian zones to the plots
that belonged to them before
they were displaced, and
returning at the end of the day,
sometimes facing military
harassment.
In the CAVIDA community zones
they are trying out production
of medicinal plants and fruits,
but they still lack the capacity
to grow crops that assure them a
decent livelihood.
"They cut a lot of wood here,
although it's small scale," says
Mosquera, worried about the
forests, source of sustenance
for the local inhabitants.
As the legal representative and
leader of the river basin's
residents, he hopes to develop
crops of manioc and maize, among
others, and to set up a
woodworking project that would
use wood from the sustainable
management of local lumber.
(*This story is part of a series
of features on sustainable
development by IPS - Inter Press
Service, and IFEJ - the
International Federation of
Environmental Journalists.)
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