CPTnet
April 30. 2004

COLOMBIA: Land, our daily bread

by Keith Young

[Note: "Campo" refers to rural areas. "Campesinos"
are people that live and work in rural areas.]

"When we were displaced and living in the city,
everything cost money," Don Pedro* told me as talked
on the banks of the Opon River. He motioned with his
hands as if giving his money away. "Food, electricity,
phone, water, gas. In Barranca the work situation is
bad, but here in the campo there is work. If you know
how to work in the campo, you don't worry about food."

It's true. The food in the campo may be simple and
starchy, but there is lots of it: platano, fruit,
yuca, corn, rice, milk, eggs, and fish. People here
work hard, and eat hearty. There is no malnutrition
here. In fact, malnourished children have been brought
from the city to live here, and are fed back to
health. The people along the Opon don't own vast
tracts of land, but enough to feed themselves.

Part of the vision of Colombia's paramilitary project
is to amass small family farms (by purchase, or forced
displacement) and turn them into large cattle ranches
or African palm (for producing cooking oil)plantations
under paramilitary control. Their aims are part of a
growing cycle of land expropriation beginning in 1948
when "The Violence" began: first land was taken by
conservative party elites, then by narco-traffickers
and now by paramilitarism. In the likely event of a
government-granted amnesty to paramilitary leaders,
the paramilitary leadership has established ranches
and plantations to fall back on. On the big ranches,
there is only one owner to deal with. The higher
profitability means the paramilitary groups can extort
more from the owner as "protection tax." It is easier
to combat guerrillas on the obsessively cleared land.
And as narco-traffickers know, cattle and land are
useful for money-laundering. Meanwhile, Colombia's
campesinos are displaced more and more into the
cities, or are forced to care for the lands, once
theirs, owned by absentee landlords.

He goes on. "The life of the campo could be a really
good one. The problem here is that we never know
what's going to happen tomorrow. We could wake up, and
find the area overrun by combating armed groups, or
there could be a massacre. Today we are doing well.
Tomorrow, we could be displacing ourselves in
Barrancabermeja again, hungry." The community has been
taking organizational steps to reduce the chance of
another displacement. Still, Don Pedro swears, "I
couldn't bear it again. If we have to displace once
more, we're selling the land and that's it."

* name changed