The rifle and the title: paramilitary violence, land grab and land control in Colombia

Abstract

This study explores the links between land ownership contention, private violence and the state. Colombia presents a context where criminal actors participate in the regular functioning of public institutions. The study rejects normative conceptions about the link between criminal actors and the state. Crime and violence are not considered as extraneous factors, separated from the political game; they are analyzed as constitutive of logics of competition, accumulation and economic development, ultimately, elements in the process of state formation.

Keywords:

• land contention
• land grabbing
• armed militias
• paramilitary groups
• Colombia

Notes

¹Author interview, Santa Marta, March 2009.

²The ‘Land Act', approved by the Colombian Congress in June 2011 intends to revert this situation. Its results were not measurable by the moment this text had been written.

³This implies a large conception of the state, taking into account its institutional core, but also the participation of a myriad of ‘twilight institutions’ (Lund 2006a, 2006b) which, although they are not recognized as legitimate authorities, contribute to the exercise of ‘state capacities’ (Migdal 1988).

⁴Where sources are cited in French or Spanish, all translations are my own.

⁵Decreto Ley 3398 de 1965.

⁶Cited by recent research of the Historical Memory mission, at the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (Machado and Meertens 2010, 209).

⁷Author interview, Santa Marta, March 2010.

⁸Declaración de Salvatore Mancuso. Corte Suprema de Justicia, Rad. 32805.

⁹Declaración de Jairo Castillo Peralta Alias Pitirri. Corte Suprema de Justicia, Rad. 32805.

¹²Author interview, Santa Marta, April 2009.

¹⁰Author interview, Ciénaga, April 2009.

¹¹Author interview, Ciénaga, April 2009.

¹³CINEP, database Noche y Niebla.

¹⁴Author interview, Santa Marta, April 2009.

¹⁵Agencia para la acción social y la cooperación internacional. SIPD.

¹⁶A very detailed account of the lower Atrato valley case can be found in Franco and Restrepo (2011).

¹⁷CINEP, database Noche y Niebla.

¹⁸Panorama actual del Chocó. Observatorio del Programa Presidencial de DDHH y DIH. s.d. (Contemporary outlook of the Choco department. Observatory of the Presidential Program for Human Rights.)

¹⁹Resolución de la Corte interamericana de derechos humanos. Medidas provisionales solicitadas por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos respecto de la República de Colombia caso de las comunidades del Jiguamiandó y del Curbaradó. March 6, 2003, p. 2. (Interamerican Human Rights Court Resolution. Provisional measures requested by the Interamerican Human Rights Commission affecting the Republic of Colombia. Communities of Jiguamiando and Curbarado's case).

²⁰Defensoría del Pueblo. Derechos Humanos y Violación a Derechos Humanos en el Bajo Atrato Chocoano, 2002. (The Ombudsman Bureau. Human rights and human rights' violation in the Chocoan Lower Atrato.)

²¹Contraloría General de la Nación. Auditoría gubernamental con enfoque integral, modalidad regular, al fondo para el financiamiento para el sector agropecuario, FINAGRO, vigencia fiscal 2005–2006. February 2009 (Nation's General Comptroller. Governmental audit with comprehensive approach. Regular Modality. Public fund for agricultural development FINAGRO. Financial period 2005–2006).

²²Ley 812 de 2003, por la cual se aprueba el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2003–2006, Hacia un Estado comunitario, artículo 28 (Law 812, 2003. approving the National Development Plan 2003–2006, Towards a Communitarian State, art. 28).

²³Radicaciones 083 de 2003 – Cámara, 230 de 2004 - Senado, y 102 de 2006 – Senado, Proyecto de ley por medio de la cual se establece un proceso especial para el saneamiento de la titulación de la propiedad inmueble (Bill establishing a special process for the legalization of real estate's title deeds).

²⁴Proyecto de ley 030 de 2006-Senado.

²⁵Sentencia C-175/09, March 18 2009, M.P. Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacobo Grajales

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers, as well as Nancy Peluso, Christian Lund and Jun Borras for their valuable and insightful comments.