Land grabs have dominated Colombia's history
Landjepik for corporate profit - 22.02.2011 14:39
Land grabs have dominated Colombia's history
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Multinational Banana Corporation Displaces Afro-Colombian Peace Communities
 http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2010/06/68541.shtml
http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2011/01/73317.shtml
Jonathan Glennie - Monday 31 January 2011 14.18 GMT
Land grabs have dominated Colombia's history
After Sudan, Colombia has the world's largest number of internally displaced people, and land grabbing for economic gain is the main cause
If you were to write a history of Colombia you could do worse than call it "Land Grab". Starting the day Rodrigo de Bastidas and his companions arrived on the Caribbean shore around 1499 looking to make a fortune, there has been one constant theme at the heart of Colombia's social and armed conflict – land.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/colombia
Colombia has the greatest number of displaced people in the world after Sudan, some 500 years after the Spanish set about ruthlessly "cleansing" indigenous communities from the land they deemed valuable. While the government claims things are getting better, although still admitting 120,000 newly displaced people in 2009, the more trustworthy figures come from the human rights group Codhes, which sets that figure at nearer 300,000. This brings the total number of displaced people in Colombia to between 3.4 million (government) and 4.9 million (Codhes), about 10% of the population.
http://www.codhes.org/
Colombia is rich in export possibilities, from coal, oil, gold and emeralds under the ground, to any number of crops above it. But whatever the commodity, you need the land to get your hands on it. Under the Spanish, many communities fled from their favoured lowlands and coastal areas to the mountains to preserve their way of life. Ironically it is these mountainous and jungle areas that are now deemed important for the exploitation of gold and coal and for mega-monocultures, so indigenous people, along with Afro-Colombians and campesinos, once again find themselves at the centre of one of the world's most devastating land grabs.
Some displacement occurs as a result of armed conflict encroaching on civilian settlements, but the majority is probably due to simple land grabbing. The war with the guerrillas and the coca trade have exacerbated deep social conflict, but they are also handy excuses for using violence to remove people from their land. Amnesty International did some maps a few years ago showing that most displacement occurs around areas rich in mineral resources.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR23/015/2009/en/6022342b-845a-4079-96da-14b3aa41b331/amr230152009eng.pdf
When I first saw the ruined villages of people who had fled for their lives, with their knocked-down schools and overgrown fields, I could only think of one word – anti-development. This, in my mind, was development in reverse. The communities may have been very poor, but they did at least have land, schools, culture, a political stake, plans for a better future, dignity. Now they have nothing.
But I was wrong. This was not anti-development. It was, in fact, the development model in Colombia. Natural resource exploitation and farming remain at the heart of the economy in Colombia. Communities deemed to be using the land unproductively, because of their refusal to welcome large-scale farming or mining, are considered a barrier to wealth generation and progress.
So the question very quickly becomes one about the nature of development itself. What kind of development? Development for whom? One narrative is that better land exploitation will lead to more exports, and thus economic growth, more jobs, more taxes, and an overall trickle down into the economy. If some "backward" communities need to be sacrificed so that the majority can develop, so be it.
This is at odds with a modern understanding of human rights, and it is seldom spelt out as starkly, but it is the underlying philosophy of good-willed, and ill-willed, decision makers in Colombia. I have spoken to USAid and Colombian government officials who, while sincerely seeking to help people affected by violence, have said of indigenous communities fighting the encroachment of coal mines on to their ancestral land that they "don't want to develop".
But apart from the questionable morality of this approach, it is unclear whether the economic analysis is right either. Will the majority benefit from what is fundamentally a feudal land management policy. Mining and monoculture are not big employers and manufacturing has signally failed to take off, reducing from more than 20% of GDP in the 1980s to about 15% today.
Another narrative sounds simplistic but may be nearer the truth: it is just one more manifestation of the age old tale of powerful people pushing weaker communities off land to get even richer.
The kind of land grabbing going on today in countries all over the world is common throughout history, from the highland clearances in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, to winning the west in the US. It will probably become more common as resources become scarcer in an overpopulated and overheating world, and as the logic of rapid resource exploitation continues to meet traditions of sustainable agriculture.
http://www.theclearances.org/
The most tragic aspect of all is that human memories are so short. Remove the communities whose way of life is considered backward and unproductive and, yes, there will be problems with those pesky human rights campaigners, but give it 10 years and with luck history will have moved on. There will be a coal mine where there used to be a village, or a vast expanse of oil palms where there had been jungle, but the families and campaigners will have long since died or moved away, and the legal cases of murder and intimidation will have been successfully lost in a cupboard.
A friend in the British embassy who was committed to defending the rights of indigenous communities once gave her weary assessment: "We are fighting a losing battle; these communities will not survive." Is she right? Only time will tell.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/31/colombia-land-grab-displaced-poor
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Megan Felt 02 February 2011 20:24
Multinational Banana Corporation Displaces Afro-Colombian Peace Communities
Since early December, hundreds of private contractors of multinational banana corporation Banacol have illegally invaded and occupied Afro-Colombian peace communities in the Curvaradó river basin in order to clear the land for banana cultivation. Their actions have been supported and assisted by local paramilitaries, army soldiers and municipal governments.
The peace communities’ collective territory is protected under Colombia's Constitution and protective measures under the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
According to documents released by the Colombian human rights organization, Intereclesial Comisión de Justicia y Paz (Justicia y Paz), Banacol workers are displacing vulnerable Afro-Colombian peace communities, thus enabling the corporation to occupy sections of communal, resource rich land.
http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Amenazas-a-lideresa-de-Curvarado
http://www.banacol.com/english/index.htm
This violates the sovereignty of the long-standing communities, and puts them at risk for complete displacement from their collective territory in a country with almost 5 million internally displaced people. They are also bulldozing the subsistence farmers’ crops, destroying natural habitats and contaminating waterways.
http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/A7E1B7BD7528B329C12575E500525165?OpenDocument#expand
Flyers posted in poor neighborhoods and communities across the northwestern part of the country lured the squatters into Curvaradó in the Urabá region of Chocó, Colombia. The flyers assured three months of paid living expenses, titles to 2.5-hectare plots, materials and pay to build settlements, and a contract with Banacol Inc. to grow bananas.
What the flyers didn’t include is that the Curvaradó territory is already inhabited by Afro-descendent communities, committed to maintain their collective territories, granted to them under law 70 of Colombia (1993), which recognizes and protects Afro-Colombians’ right to collectively own and occupy their ancestral territory.
The “bad-faith occupiers,” as the Curvaradó residents call them, are mainly made up of vulnerable individuals; some displaced by violence in other regions of the country, some farmers without land, and others recently unemployed by palm oil or banana plantations. Unfortunately, their vulnerable situations put them at risk to be taken advantage of by the corporate agenda, promising them “the good life”, and thus at risk to further impoverish other vulnerable communities for their gain. According to the ancestral inhabitants, the invaders admit that they collectively own the land, but contend to remain on the stolen plots because it is their only opportunity for work. Banacol, as so many other multinational corporations, has pitted these vulnerable populations against one another, putting them at higher risk of oppression.
The squatters say they expect to receive up to 180,000 pesos ($90 U.S.) for each hectare cleared. So far, according to Justicia y Paz, they have cleared-out over 200 hectares and built over 122 temporary huts and camps. The “bad-faith occupiers” are still arriving by the hundreds. Although the squatters would not identify who the money is coming from, the promised contracts with Banacol implicates them as the instigators and funders of an intended illegal displacement for profit.
The peace communities filed a legal complaint with the municipality of Carmen del Darién, but no response has been taken by local authorities thus far. The Carmen del Darién police ordered an eviction of the illegal occupiers, but then said that they do not have the resources to carry out such an action. The most recent demonstration of state support and collusion with the illegal occupation was the funneling of flood victims relief funds to the illegal land invaders by the Mayors Office in Carmen del Darién, according to Justicia y Paz.
http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Ocupantes-de-mala-fe-reciben-ayuda
History
These Afro-Colombian communities have lived in the region for generations, peacefully farming the land for subsistence. Chocó was a relatively low populated department of Colombia, with little conflict until the late 1990s, when violence erupted from the paramilitaries protecting large landowners from hovering guerrillas.
The paramilitaries protected certain properties, and attacked others, displacing thousands of indigenous, Afro-Colombians and mestizos in less than a decade, amidst the presence of a large military force.
Subsequently, demobilized paramilitaries and many survivors of the violence have testified to complete collusion of the military with the paramilitary that involved the sharing of information, weapons and even feet on the ground, to the extreme of the second shift idea in which military soldiers would work for the army by day and the paramilitaries by night.
One example of the military and paramilitary cooperation and collusion is Operation Genesis, the largest counter-guerrilla operation in Urabá during this period of violence between 1996-1997.
http://colombiasupport.blogspot.com/2010/04/thirteen-years-since-operation-genesis.html
Documentation of this state offensive shows that the Colombian army aerial bombed ancestral subsistence farming communities and immediately afterwards the paramilitaries entered on foot raiding, massacring, and burning the remains. In total, 140 innocent civilians were killed.
http://www.nocheyniebla.org/node/49
Since those mass violent displacements, palm oil plantations, extensive cattle ranches and banana companies have moved onto the vacant land, still protected by paramilitaries.
After ten years of living displaced in humiliating conditions, some of those displaced from the Curvaradó river basin decided to return to their land. The initial group was mainly mothers and children; the mothers determined to die for their ancestral lands if necessary.
As of today, approximately ten percent of the Curvaradó small-scale farming communities have organized themselves and nonviolently returned to their territory with the accompaniment and advocacy of national and international human rights organizations such as Justicia y Paz and Peace Brigades International.
With the territory as their history, the land is their only possible dignified future. Because their livelihood is tied to the land, some returned communities sought and received protective measures by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. With this protection, the communities’ plots are called Humanitarian Zones (living spaces) and Biodiversity Zones (native fauna and flora reserves). No armed actors, state or independent, are allowed within the premises of the zones, as a means to protect civilian life from the surrounding armed conflict.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,IACRTHR,,,4268c8cc4,0.html
Since their establishment, the communities have faced recurrent, rampant repression in the form of intimidations, death threats, political and media smear campaigns, and judicial frame-ups where they are accused of being guerrillas or guerrilla sympathizers.
Just last October Justicia y Paz received warning that a prosecutor in Medellín issued around twenty arrest warrants for Afro-descendant community leaders of Curvaradó. The anonymous source indicated that the warrants are based on the claim that the communities have been collaborating with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (FARC EP), and that there are plans for armed forces to plant weapons and guerrilla publications on community private property in order to provide false evidence for the case. No arrests have yet taken place, but the warrants are now an available tool in the defamation campaign.
http://www.justiciaypazcolombia.com/Ordenes-de-captura-contra,3763
Consequences of Occupation
This invasion puts the Afro-Colombian communities at increased risk for two reasons. The first is that it greatly diminishes the communities’ ability to cultivate subsistence crops, such as corn, rice, plantain and yucca, since the invaders are clear-cutting the area, many of their crops along with native flora is being killed. The farmland resides outside of the established humanitarian zones because of a legal loophole in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling, that only protects the life and safety, and ability to live in their ancestral territory, and only advocates for their ability to subsist in their ancestral territory. This legal impediment places the farmland outside of protective measures, making the crops more difficult to physically and legally protect. If the people have nothing to eat, they have to leave their homes to find food. And because they are subsistence farmers, they have no other immediate sources of income to supplement their diet.
The second reason is that such a drastic shift in the local population, with an average of fifty people in each humanitarian zone, greatly affects elections, which ultimately decide the fate of these communities.
Article four of Law 70 of Colombia (1993) specifically gives authority to and protects “Community Councils” as the governing body of each community. The establishment of this Community Council makes the community legally recognized and able to receive and occupy its collective, ancestral territory. As stated in article four, “…other functions of the Community Councils are: to watch over the conservation and protection of the rights of collective property, the preservation of cultural identity, the use and conservation of natural resources; to identify a legal representative from the respective community as their legal entity, and to act as friendly conciliators in workable internal conflicts.”
Because of continual disputes concerning who is the real regional community council in Curvaradó, a census has been ordered to establish who is living and subsisting in the collective territory. After the census is complete there will be regional elections for the regional community council (Curvaradó), to verify that the authentic inhabitants support the current, legally recognized community council.
With all the new “inhabitants” in Curvaradó, because of the land invasion and occupation, the elections could be substantially swayed by whatever their suspected funders, Banacol, want. Therefore, the ancestral inhabitants would also lose their power over their collective property, cultural identity, natural resources, and legal representation.
Banacol's Bloody Bananas
The Colombian tropical fruit company Banacol bought all of Chiquita Brands Inc.'a Colombia banana plantations back in 2004, while accusations were mounting that Chiquita was funding the paramilitary group the A.U.C. (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). This purchase made Banacol the largest banana producer in Colombia. Chiquita pled guilty in 2007 to the felony, “Engaging in Transactions with a specifically designated Global Terrorist,” admitting to funneling funds to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) through its subsidiary Banadex Inc. (now Banacol), from 1997 through 2004, totaling 1.7 million.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html
This all took place in the same Urabá region where Curvaradó is located.
According to reporting done by El Espectador, a Colombian newspaper, the Colombian prosecutor’s office found that Chiquita Brands Inc. acquired two cover companies to continue their relationship with the A.U.C.: Invesmar, by means of Banacol Inc. and Olinsa Inc. The Prosecutor’s Office even has testimony of a former A.U.C. member, alleging that Banacol Inc. paid his group three million pesos. The Attorney General’s Office investigated the claim by reviewing Banacol Inc.’s accounting records and found funds given to terrorist groups.
http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/judicial/articuloimpreso159808-chiquita-sigue-colombia
Natalia Springer of El Tiempo, Colombia's most prominent newspaper, reported that Banacol paid taxes to a local death squad to protect their plantations and profit, thus reaping the bloody benefits of their purchased paramilitary violence.
http://www.watchingamerica.com/eltiempo000041.shtml
Through interviews with ex-paramilitaries and banana businessmen, Springer found that in late 1997, with high paramilitary violence across Colombia, banana corporations operating in the country met to strategize a collective approach to interacting with the country's powerful and growing right wing paramilitary death squads. According to Springer’s interviews with the former AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso, “Chiquita Brands Inc., Dole, Banacol, Uniban, Proban, and Del Monte all entered into this agreement. They paid us one cent for every box of bananas that left the country.”
Banacol and their paramilitary allies are being assisted by the U.S. supported Colombian government to occupy the sovereign Afro-Colombian territory, clear-cut natural habitat, and displace peasant farmers in order to produce and export bananas for profit.
The more the international community allows multinational corporations to exploit our brothers and sisters, and our environment in this way, the more we allow them to exploit all of us.
We need to put tremendous international pressure on Banacol Inc. through public denouncements and boycotts, and on the Colombian government by U.S. representatives to hold corporations accountable to Colombian law, so that these ancestral Afro-Colombian communities will not again be displaced and desolated by death squads for the profit of the multinational Banacol Inc.
Megan Felt is a Catholic Worker in Des Moines, Iowa, and an international human rights activist. She has traveled throughout Latin America, most recently to Colombia. She has been to Colombia three times for human rights work and anthropological research, each time accompanying the Afro-Colombian peace communities focused on in the above article.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2895-multinational-banana-corporation-displaces-afro-colombian-peace-communities-
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