Colombia to indict 19 palm oil companies for forced displacement .

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombia to indict 19 palm oil companies for forced displacement .
Tuesday, 31 July 2012 07:00 Sarah Kinosian

Colombia’s Prosecutor General's Office will charge 19 palm oil businesses after they allegedly met with paramiliatries and arranged for residents in the western department of Choco to be violently displaced from their land, local media reported Tuesday.

The businesses had been pressuring residents in the Curvarado region in order to illegally appropriate their lands. “There are allegations against 19 palm oil businesses. We are currently evaluating whether there is merit in linking more people,” said the prosecutor general, Eduardo Montealegre.

Minister of Agriculture Juan Camilo Restrepo noted the government had identified 40 people—all not directly tied to the palm oil manufacturers--that had been pressuring the Afrocolombian and indigenous populations to leave their land.

~snip~

Curvado has historically been the scene of much forced displacement in Choco, home to Colombia’s largest Afrocolombian population. In 2010 the Constitutional Court ruled to protect the lives and land of those living in the region. The decision came after the Prosecutor General’s Office had investigated various businesses for allying with paramilitaries to force locals off their land and plant crops for palm
oil production.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/25329-colombia-to-indict-19-palm-oil-companies-for-forced-displacement.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Palm Oil in Colombia: Biofuel or Bioterror?

Palm Oil in Colombia: Biofuel or Bioterror?

Palm oil is big business. Oil pressed from palm fruits is used for biofuel, foods, lubricants and other products. “The total output of palm oil equals that of all other nondrying oils combined,” according to The Columbia Encyclopedia (bartelby.org/65/pa/palm.html). Palm oil is, allegedly, big, bad business in parts of Colombia. Multinational companies that grow, process and sell the oil there are forcing peasant farmers off their lands through deceit, intimidation and even murder, according to Eustaquio Polo Rivera, a keynote speaker at the April 5, 2008, Food for Maine’s Future Local Foods Conference in Unity.

Molly Little, a former MOFGA apprentice and representative of Witness for Peace in Colombia, works with the Colombia Solidarity Network of Brown University and brought Polo to the Conference, with help from the American Friends Service Committee and the Center for Latin American Studies at Brown. Little explained that a 40-year-long civil war has been waged in Colombia between paramilitary groups that work closely with the Colombian government, and left-wing guerrillas who oppose the concentration of Colombian wealth among a few elite. The war has resulted in 4.2 million displaced people, the second largest displaced population internally in any country in the world (after Sudan). According to Amnesty International, said Little, 60% of these people have been displaced from resource-rich areas.

Colombia, continued Little, is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, receiving 5 to 6 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars since 2000, 80% spent on the military in a country with the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere.

The 39-year-old Polo is vice president of the board of the Major Council, an organization of 21 communities that owns 42,700 hectares in the Curvaradó river basin in Chocó, Colombia. He is an active leader in his community’s efforts to recuperate collectively titled lands that have been occupied since 1997 by multinational oil palm companies connected to Colombia’s paramilitary. He has been the target of death threats by palm oil companies, he said, as have the legal representative of Curvaradó's Council, Ligia Maria Chaverra, and farmer Enrique Petro.


More:
http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Summer2008/PalmOil/tabid/952/Default.aspx

[Judi Lynn]

2. Palm oil businessmen arrested over forced displacement in Choco .

Palm oil businessmen arrested over forced displacement in Choco .
Thursday, 20 May 2010 10:55 Sandra Hernandez



Colombia's prosecutor general ordered the arrest of 24 individuals from palm oil companies in the north-west department of Choco. The men are suspected of organizing the forced displacement of two Afro-Colombians communities from the Curvarado and Jiguamiand river basins.

La Verdad Abierta reports that the men are accused of forced displacement, conspiracy, and invasion of properties belonging to Afro-Colombian communities.

The groups were displaced in the late 1990s after suffering violence from paramilitary groups.

When they attempted to return the communities again suffered violence from armed groups, and found that their land had been taken over by palm companies. In 2009, the Constitutional Court found that the rights of the communities had been violated, and ordered the government to do everything possible to return the groups to their lands.

In December 2009 the Ombudsman's Office reported that "individuals and businesses" had infiltrated the internal processes of the community councils in the area, funding and promoting assemblies in order to shape the local laws to their interest. The companies also funded campaigns to discredit local humanitarian groups.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9809-palm-oil-business-people-arrested-over-forced-displacement-in-choco.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. SOA Watch in Colombia (School of the Americas Watch)

SOA Watch in Colombia
Written by Liz Deligio and Charity Ryerson, SOA Watch Illinois

~snip~
The Commission publicizes human rights abuses in a number of specific communities in Colombia, where a brutal war continues to rage. More than four billion dollars in U.S. military aid, accompanied by military training for the Colombian armed forces at the School of the Americas, is fueling the war.

The approach of the SOA/WHINSEC of “solving” social problems with military violence has left an indelible mark on the country: millions of people have had to flee their homes and thousands have been killed over the past years. The Colombian military has the worst human rights record in the Americas. The military continues a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign that has killed thousands of Colombians and displaced millions (this year, Colombia surpassed Sudan as the country with the most internally displaced people).

In northern Antioquia, the African palm oil business has forcibly displaced thousands of mestizo, afro-descendiente, and indigenous families from their own lands. In concert with the police, military, paramilitaries, and local government offices, the palm oil companies have murdered and displaced community members and falsely claimed legal right to the territory.

In testimony before the Ethics Commission, community members expressed a high level of coordination between the 17th Brigade of the Colombian military and the Aguilas Negras paramilitary group. The complex system of control created between the armed actors, companies, and government offices has created significant legal and political isolation for the communities, leaving them exposed to further victimization. There is significant evidence that testimony given to the local prosecutor’s offices has been turned over to paramilitaries, often within hours. Unfortunately, this is a reality repeated throughout many regions of Colombia — the collusion of different forces of powers that legitimize their illegal actions and provide impunity for land theft, displacement, assassinations, kidnappings, and torture.

More:
http://www.soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=74