Final technical report / The Process of Land Seizures in one Sub-Region of Colombia and its Effect on the Peasant Movement During Armed Violence

For nearly one year and a half the project research team, coordinated by a member of
the Area of Historical Memory of the CNRR and with technical assistance from IOM,
addressed the relationship between internal violence and the agrarian problem in the
Caribbean coast of Colombia, where for several decades armed conflict, internal forced
displacement of rural populations and violent land seizures have been an extremely
strong phenomenon. It also collected multiple memories on the rise and fall of one of
the most emblematic peasant movements of the country, the ANUC, and showed the
impact of conflict on it, as well as the important role of female peasant leadership for
its endurance at the local level. A thorough analysis of the data collected during field
work showed how violent actors and their “front men” combined a whole array of
illegal and legal mechanisms to seize land, often with local institutional involvement
and the connivance of local political bosses. On the other hand, it has documented
how national rural development policies constituted an encouraging setting for the
forced selling of abandoned land by the displaced and impoverished peasant
population. In the region, land has been further concentrated in both the hands of
drug traffickers and war lords, and in those of traditional elites and new agro-industrial
enterprises. Lack of formal land deeds – particularly amongst peasant women –
constitutes a problem, as it makes claims for justice and judicial procedures for land
restitution more difficult...