CPTnet
2 December 2009
COLOMBIA ANALYSIS: “Their corrosion will testify against you”

by Pierre Shantz

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  Your gold and silver are corroded.  Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.  You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  Look!  The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you.  The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you. James 5: 1-6

In past weeks, the Colombian investigative magazine, Cambio, has published stories of the Colombian government subsidizing its rich citizens, while poor Colombians lose what little they have.  It reported that some of the wealthiest families of Colombia received millions of dollars to develop their agricultural investments.  It also reported that these families had donated large sums of money to President Uribe's and to former Agriculture Minister Andres Felipe Arias' 2010 presidential campaigns.  Mr. Arias was responsible for authorizing the subsidies. 

At first, President Uribe and his ministers justified the subsidies.  As the story unraveled, Colombians expressed dismay that wealthy families continued to receive government monies, and members of the Uribe administration started passing off blame on everyone but themselves.  (Uribe, who wants to run for President again next year, has even said that in some cases the money should be returned.)

How does this relate to CPT Colombia's work?  CPT is part of a group of Colombian and international organizations who work with 123 families from the town of Las Pavas, in the Southern Bolivar Province, whom the Daabon corporation has forced off their land.  Daabon is owned by the Davila Abondano family, which received 2.2 billion pesos, a little over one million US dollars, as part of the subsidies program.  Daabon reportedly generates 120 million dollars annually by producing and exporting products such as bananas, coffee, cacao and palm oil.  It claims to be a socially and environmentally responsible company, because it grows organic produce and provides services to the communities around them.

The Las Pavas families have been forcibly displaced multiple times by armed actors and now by a large company.  In 2006, the community applied for a loan of 234 million pesos ($117,000 US) from the State Agrarian Bank to plant cacao and began a process with the Colombian National Institute for Rural Development (INCODER) to receive ownership titles.  But at the end of the year, former absentee owner Jesus Emilio Escobar (who had lost all rights to the land) appeared with paramilitaries and forced the people to flee to a nearby town of Buenos Aires.  Daabon then made a deal for the land with Mr. Escobar.  Daabon claims its agreement was made in good faith and that it did not know that a small farming community had a legitimate claim to the land. (According to the Colombian Constitution, people who live and work the land for five years or more have the right to receive title to the land.)  In January of 2009, the community decided to return to their land, trusting that the process of getting titles with INCODER would be successful.  Daabon proceeded to get an eviction order against the community.  On 14 July, Daabon, working through the military, riot police, and armed civilians, evicted the 123 families from Las Pavas.  The families now face a legal battle to have their right to the land recognized.

Daabon sells palm oil to cosmetics giant The Body Shop for beauty products such as soap and lotion.  The Body Shop, like Daabon, professes to hold itself to high social and environmental standards.  Most of the responses the Colombia team has received from The Body Shop and Daabon regarding Las Pavas have been attempts to justify their actions.

This land conflict is not an isolated case in Colombia. One percent of the population controls over 50% of agricultural lands.  As Colombia pushes to become the largest producer of palm oil in the Americas, wealthier families such as the Davila Abondanos will find ways to get government subsidies to displace small farmers, enlarge their coffers, and live, as James writes, in "luxury and self-indulgence."

Tadeo Martínez asks an important question in an article published on 10 October 2009 in the Colombian magazine, Semana:

"It is the government that needs to be clear what kind of country it wants: One where the wealthy . . .have easy access to public funds (to which the poor have contributed a lot of money through the national sales tax), generate little employment, but export plenty; or a country of small to medium farmers who would receive all of the public subsidies and work in a more labor intensive way producing many more jobs" (translated by Pierre Shantz).

I would add that it is not only the Colombian government that needs to ask this question but also those of us from countries in the global north. It is time we take James' warning seriously.  Do we want to buy fair trade products that attempt to support small farmers and respect the environment?  Or are we happy consuming low cost goods imported by large companies who treat everything in their business﷓from what they produce to the people they employ﷓as financial gain?  We cannot just sit back and point fingers at them and think that as long as we are not driving farmers off their land then we are not part of the system of exploitation.  As long as we continue to buy these products without voicing at least some concern then we have done nothing more than hoard the wealth.  It is time to raise our voices to the business world and to our governments and tell them to stop putting wealth before people.  If not, James reminds us "Your gold and silver are corroded.  Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire."