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Abstract
Government policies and practices of land restitution may impede Colombia's peace process. Given the rural origin of the contemporary Colombian armed conflict, peacebuilding and land restitution policies are linked. Based on a qualitative study undertaken by the author, this article analyses regional challenges to the implementation of land restitution policies in Colombia. The study site was the Lower Atrato region, in the Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó river basins. The study's thesis maintains that regional challenges to restitution relate to processes of regional state formation and an end to strife that includes at least five dimensions. First, land claimants face insecurity due to ongoing struggles among armed groups. Second, restitution has a contested nature that includes disputes among regional and national elites. Third, restitution expands ethnic-based land rights but is challenged to identify the rights' beneficiaries. Fourth, restitution relates to techniques of governmentality. Last, contradictions exist between development policies and restitution policies. Restitution during the ongoing war is largely infeasible given violent opposition to its processes, thereby increasing the risk of conflict reproduction.
Acknowledgements
Financial support for this article came from Universidad del Rosario. This research was carried out in the context of my work as a doctoral researcher of the desiguALdades.net network at Freie Universität Berlin, funded by the BMBF-Germany. I thank Sérgio Costa, Marianne Braig, Barbara Göbel, Barbara Fritz, Penelope Krumm, Hannah Acton and Eric Abitbol for their feedback. The author also thanks the three anonymous reviewers for their comments. This work was supported by the desiguALdades.net project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research - BMBF [Grant No. 01UC0910A+B].
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 In this work, allusions to state formation refer to regional state formation, taking the case of the Lower Atrato.
2 It must be remembered that the war of dispossession is not limited to this recent period, but it has roots in colonialism (Escobar Citation2001; Quijano Citation2000).
3 Personal observation.
4 Lasting peace depends on, among other things, the stabilisation of heterogeneous property rights, in territories controlled by armed groups; and on development policies that should overcome rural inequalities (e.g. land concentration), seeking to strengthen democracy and reconciliation (Hall Citation2010).
5 Law 70 of 1993 defined so-called ‘collective territories of black communities’. Decree 1745 of 1995 stated that the collective territories are ruled by ‘community councils’, which are the local authorities that administer the territories.
6 Law 1448 is the continuation of a series of laws and resolutions, including: Law 387 of 1997; Decree 2007 of 2001; Sentence T-025 of 2004; Auto 218 2006; Auto 004 2009; 005, 2009; Auto 007 2009; Auto 008 2009; 092 2008; and Sentence T-821 of 2007.
7 Anonymous leader of AFRODES. Interview by author 1 September 2011, Bogotá, Colombia.
8 Anonymous member of CIJP (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz). Interview by author 15 November 2012, Bogotá, Colombia
9 The ethnic route seeks to respond to requests for protection submitted by members, legal representatives, or traditional authorities in communities that are identified by the state as ‘ethnic’, indigenous, Afro-descendant, or Roma populations. It excludes peasants who do not have those ethnic identities. Both ethnic and other communities have two ways to claim restitution: a collective route that spans multiple farms in an area of displacement and a single route in which individual property rights are defended.
10 Anonymous functionary of Land Restitution Unit. Interview by author 13 September 2011, Bogotá, Colombia.
11 Personal observation, Chocó 2012.
12 Anonymous functionary of Land Restitution Unit. Interview by author 20 May 2012, Bogotá, Colombia.
13 Anonymous functionary of Land Restitution Unit. Interview by author 20 May 2012, Bogotá, Colombia. The legal developments of the restitution process include the decisions issued by INCODER (No. 2424 and No. 2159 of 2007), which recognised collective rights in the Humanitarian and Biodiversity Zones as well as Notary and Registry resolutions (No. 3617, 6286, 6525, 6524, and 6523 of 2007) to restore 23,000 hectares.
14 Territorial control by paramilitaries and neo-paramilitaries has been related to the land concentration for agribusiness expansion, facing the opposition of communities, NGOs and government institutions. Disputes over this development model and the contestation pursued with respect to the Law of Restitution, reveal an ongoing struggle over the definition and legitimacies of new forms of citizenship, a key element in Colombia's peacebuilding and post-conflict democratisation processes (Sieder Citation1999 and Citation2001).
15 I thank a reviewer who suggested this clarification.
16 Anonymous functionary of Land Restitution Unit. Interview by author 20 May 2012, Bogotá, Colombia.
17 Anonymous leader of Zonas Humanitarias of Curbaradó. Testimony given at public event, Bogotá, Colombia, 25 September 2012.
18 Strategic alliances are public policies designed by the government to create alliances between agro-entrepreneurs and peasants to work in industrial agricultural projects. Peasants are expected to join productive projects, but many persons remain displaced and few peasants join those projects.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jairo Baquero Melo
JAIRO BAQUERO MELO (DPhil in Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin) is currently Principal Professor of Sociology, School of Human Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá). His recent book is titled Layered Inequalities, Berlin and London: LIT Verlag.