![An officer of the Colombian National Police stands guard on March 28 at the Santa Paula ranch, near Montería in Córdoba department. Some 60 farming families returned to their lands after having been displaced by the paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. [Photo: Guillermo Legaria/AFP]](https://149403904.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/colombia-land_restitution-650_431.jpg)
“Colombia is the only country in the world that is going ahead with the restitution of lands in the middle of an armed conflict,” said Ricardo Sabogal, director of the Land Restitution Unit (URT). “Several illegal armed groups that were responsible for the dispossessions are still present in many regions of the country, and they are against restitution.”
To ensure the security of those who seek to return to their homes, in 2011 the Ministry of Defense created the Integrated Intelligence Center for Land Restitution (CI2-RT).
The CI2-RT facilitates the exchange of intelligence information among the Office of the Vice-President, the Ministry of Defense, the Interior Ministry, the Colombian Institute for Rural Development (INCODER), the URT and the NGOs that represent victims. This information is used to create risk maps and promote permanent dialogue among the victims, the NGOs and community leaders.
Much of the territory to be returned continues to be coveted by guerrilla and illegal armed groups. Some is used for coca crops, while other parts serve as drug trafficking routes or strategic corridors for other criminal purposes, according to the URT.
Also, some of the properties to be returned were acquired by businesses through fraud, even though they currently house legal activities, such as stock-breeding, palm oil cultivation and logging.
Between January 2008 and March 2014, 66 claimants have been murdered, according to the Forjando Futuros Foundation report “Restitution of Lands, Progress and Difficulties.”
The National Protection Unit (UNP) received 764 protection requests in 2013 from victims of the armed conflict, mainly from persons who had been displaced and were claiming lands.
The Local Operating Committees for Restitution (COLR), in which law enforcement authorities participate, seek to coordinate the logistics of the land return process in order to prevent re-victimization of the claimants.
In the last 30 years, people have been displaced from 6 million hectares of land, an area equal in size to the U.S. state of Massachusetts, according to the report “The Risk of Returning Home,” published in 2013 by the NGO Human Rights Watch.
Between 1996 and 2002, there was a spike in forced displacements: 2,014,893 victims, as a result of the increase in violence by paramilitary groups, according to the Sole Victim’s Registry.
After the demobilization of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia paramilitary group in 2006, criminal structures in the region quickly rearmed themselves as emerging criminal groups (BACRIM), which are putting pressure on land claimants.
In April 2013, one day before President Santos traveled to Córdoba department to preside over the reinstatement of lands to owners who had been displaced by violence, Éver Cordero Oviedo, a well-known leader of victims in the region, was assassinated.
Three months later, 39 of Cordero’s relatives abandoned their homes due to threats from illegal armed groups.
“Wherever we (the URT) go, problems appear”, Sabogal said. “There are many interests behind some of the properties to be returned, groups that do not want to return them.”
On July 8, URT’s topographer Robinson Álvarez Quemba was murdered in the town of San Roque, Antioquia. Authorities are still investigating his homicide.
Authorities expected 360,000 land restitution claims, but 54,063 have been filed, according to the report “Land Restitution, Drop by Drop, Progress and Difficulties,” presented in March by the NGO Fundación Forjando Futuros. Of that total, 28.3% are being reviewed by the court, 1.7% have been approved by the court and 70% are being reviewed by the URT.
“Some families that were part of ASOVICA [Association of Farmers’ Victims of the Conflict] were returned to their lands by the government, but they had to leave again as their safety couldn’t be guaranteed,” said ASOVICA’s president Juan Domingo Collante.
In addition, in 70% of the municipalities with displacement claims, the presence of anti-personnel mines makes the farmers’ return more difficult, according to the HRW report.
From 1990 until June of 2014, there were 10,773 victims of anti-personnel mine explosions in Colombia. Of this total, 4,152 were civilians, according to the Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action against Mines.
Life far from home
On the second Sunday of each month, hundreds of families displaced by the violence of the guerrilla and illegal armed groups gather in the south of the capital, Bogotá, to unite around the dream they share: to return home.
There are currently about 400,000 victims of the armed conflict living in Bogotá, according to the High Commission for the Rights of Victims, Peace, and Reconciliation of the Mayor’s Office.
Sixty-three percent of the displaced living in Bogotá come from rural areas, so their adaptation to urban conditions is more difficult, according to the report “Displaced Persons in Bogotá and Soacha (2011),” published by the Peace and Conflicts Institute.
“We feel kidnapped in the cities, as if our freedom has been taken away,” Collante said. “Here we can’t grow corn, yucca, banana, rice, papaya, yam, mango, watermelon… Here we have to buy everything, and we don’t have anything. We’re farmers, and what we want is the countryside.”
Among the displaced persons currently living in Bogotá, there are 4,906 land claims, totaling 759,851 hectares, according to the URT.
