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Serious Human Rights Situation Facing Macondo Claimants Verified by Caravana Internacional de Juristas

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“Faced with the slow, inefficient and ineffective process of restitution in Urabá and also faced with economic, social and family difficulties”, some 600 peasant farmer families belonging to the la Asociación Tierra y Vida (Land and Life Association) decided to return to their lands in Macondo without institutional support.  They started returning to their village in the municipality of Turbo in 2008.  In the absence of legal restitution, the claimants are taking back their land in Urabá themselves

Traduction Trommons: http://trommons.org/

Two lawyers from England and one from Spain visited the village of Macondo in the municipality of Turbo to verify the situation facing the land claimants there.  After starting the process of returning to their lands without institutional support, these peasant farmers now find themselves victims of threats and attacks.

The visit was part of the IVth Caravana Internacional de Juristas, an international delegation of lawyers from the United Kingdom, Canada and Peru which met on August 25, 26 and 27 in 2014 in various locations in Colombia.

“The conclusion we have reached following our meeting with the peasant farmers from Macondo in Urabá is really worrying and we will try to bring this state of affairs to the attention of the whole world as we cannot allow this to go on happening in this country,” said Fernando Piernavieja Niembro, a Spanish lawyer who was part of the delegation.

According to the lawyer, what is happening to these peasant farmers who are unable to legally regain their lands but who are being threatened when they decide to return “amounts to economic exploitation carried out by large corporations.”

This was the assessment of the situation after listening to evidence from some of the peasant farmers who, when faced with both the authorities’ failure to restore their lands and economic, social and family problems, decided to return on their own to the lands that were taken away from them by cattle ranchers, presumably with help from the “self-defense forces”, during the years ofparamilitary violence between 1994 and 1996.

During the meeting the farmworkers recounted how, through threats, selective killings, forced purchase of their properties and deception, they were dispossessed of their lands and displaced.  They also claimed that their properties were in the hands of large cattle ranching companies whose managers threatened and attacked them when they returned in order to drive them off their lands once again. 

These alleged attacks took the form of destroying subsistence crops, stealing livestock, killing dogs, tearing down fences and firing shots in the air to intimidate those families who returned.

The districts most affected by these abuses are La Eugenia, Villa Rosa, Cuchillo Negro, El Caimán and Guacamayas.  Guacamayas is where the company Guacamaya S.A. is located and the farmers pointed to its manager, Aicardo López, as being the man behind the worst cases of intimidation.

As was reported in the Delegation, what makes the situation of these peasant farmers even worse is that some authorities, both at local municipality and sub-region levels of Urabano, fail to address their allegations about the intimidation they are subject to, they provide no guarantees to protect their lives, obstruct the land reclamation and restitution processes and expedite the forced eviction of farmers at the request of the corporations.  These complaints centered on such organizations as the Prosecutor’s Office, the Ombudsman, the Land Restitution Unit, the Police, the Mayor of Turbo and the Municipal Inspectors.

This led Fernando Piernavieja to conclude that “the 1448 Law, whilst well-intentioned, is being boycotted in its application due to bureaucratic problems, delays and some people not being able to re-take possession of their lands because of on-going pressure or threats, despite the fact that they hold property deeds or have judgments in their favor”.

The lawyer consequently believes that the case of the Macondo claimants could be taken to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), given that there is “a glaring – and significant – violation of citizens’ fundamental rights and this breach is, in some cases, being perpetrated by the State”.  He went on to clarify, however, that in order to bring the case before the IACHR, all the redress procedures in Colombia would have to be exhausted first.



Caravana Internacional de Juristas

The aim of the Caravana Internacional de Juristas is to strengthen colleagueship between Colombian lawyers and legal professionals from other countries, to raise awareness within society about the role of lawyers in a democratic system and to examine the level of access to justice that is available in cases of Human Rights violations and the protection strategies that exist for the exercise of law in Colombia.

In Antioquia, support for organizing the Delegation came from  La Corporación Jurídica Libertad (The Corporation for Judicial Freedom) which in Urabá received help in holding the meeting with the Macondo claimants from La Asociación Tierra y Vida (the Land and Life Association), Fundación Forjando Futuros ( the Forging Futures Foundation) and Instituto Popular de Capacitación –IPC (Popular Training Institute).

The main topic at the IVthCaravana Internacional de Juristas was the situation facing lawyers representing victims in land restitution cases and other cases of serious human rights violations.  Delegation members were able to gather information and learn about flagship cases involving threats to lawyers and land claimants.

Fernando Piernavieja

Yhoban Camilo Hernandez Cifuentes
Periodista egresado de la Universidad de Antioquia. Candidato a Magister en Ciencia de la Información con Énfasis en Memoria y Sociedad, Escuela Interamericana de Bibliotecología de la UdeA. Coordinador de la Agencia de Prensa IPC entre 2012 y 2018. Actualmente periodista en Hacemos Memoria. Trabajando por esa Colombia excluida y vulnerada, por aquellos que no son escuchados y por la anhelada paz. Aficionado a la literatura, al rock, a las huertas y a las buenas películas.