Alternative Development, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Urabá

[Judi Lynn]

Alternative Development, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Urabá
By Moritz Tenthoff

~snip~
The area is known for its natural resources of minerals, oil, lumber as well as its water, fertile land, and extensive biodiversity. Uraba also acts as the bridge between South America and Central America and has access to the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and therefore offers unprecedented economic and strategic military opportunities. In the National Development Plan (NDP) of the successive Uribe governments of 2002 and 2006, Uraba has been considered a priority zone.

Since the 1980s, Uraba has also been one of the main maritime ports for the illegal exportation of drugs and the illegal import of arms and chemical supplies, used in drug trafficking. Money from drug trafficking and contraband has been laundered and invested in the area in profitable sectors such as agro-industry, ranching and tourism. Uraba went from being a marginal and scarcely populated zone to a place that brought together land settlers, multinational companies and armed groups. Social organisations, unions and left wing parties on the one hand and diverse insurgent groups on the other constituted an obstacle for the economic interests of the ranching sector and land-holders, groups of drug traffickers and the State itself. Since the 1990s, the convergence of interests among this final group has lead to the creation and support for paramilitary groups in the zone.

El Urabá: cradle of the agro-industrial paramilitary project
Paramilitary activity in general is a phenomenon that dates back a long way in Colombia’s history. The common denominator of the contemporary paramilitary movement has been collaboration with the public forces, its connections to powerful economic groups in the region, its counter-insurgency discourse and the violence it has wielded against the civilian population.

Uraba in Antioquia is one of the cradles of the modern day paramilitary movement. In 1996, the so-called Peasant Farmer Self-Defence Patrols of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU, for its initials in Spanish) under the command of Carlos Castaño and in open collaboration with the Colombian armyi, entered Uraba in Antioquia giving rise to what was known as the “pacification” of Uraba. Municipal leadership was brought under its control at the cost of dozens of massacres of the civilian and peasant-farmer population, forced displacements and the political killings of councillors, mayors and member of left-wing political parties.

The expansion of the paramilitary project took on strength with the formation of the Colombian Self-Defence Units (AUC, for its initials in Spanish) in 1997. From that date up to today, paramilitary control extended throughout nearly all of Uraba, above all in the agro-industrial banana, palm oil and lumber zones and in tourism areas, with some presence of insurgents in the more isolated parts of the mountains and jungle.

National and international companies like Chiquita and Coca Cola, along with lumber, palm and ranching companies have taken advantage of the military power of the AUC in Uraba in order to defend and promote their economic interests in the zone. Several of these companies are now facing criminal processes, accused of having ties to paramilitary groupsii.

In the Tulapa zone, which forms part of the municipalities of Necocli and Turbo, “the undeniable fact has been confirmed that there was a group of people who organised the Self-defence patrols… as a result removed the owners of the land and the animals, who did not belong to the emerging organisation. The organisers kept the land of the dispossessed as war trophies <...> therefore it is established that there was a group of people who, through prior agreement, organized the AUCC and the AUC, who in their thirst for wealth used the criminal method of forced displacement of the population, as the main form of attack and accumulation of wealth…This type of offence is known as collusion for aggravated crime, which has led to endless deaths, as well as the countless displacement of the population, caused, particularly between 1994-1997, in the Tulapa region…”iii

One of the motors of the paramilitary movement in the country has been access to and control over large tracts of land. In the armed conflict of the past six decades there are no exact figures about the total amount of land that has been accumulated through violence. However, according to the Attorney General, paramilitary forces were responsible for stealing 7 million hectares as of 1997. iv In order to do this, in the past 10 years alone, close to 4 million people have been forcibly removed from their land.v It is difficult to find exact figures in terms of expropriation of land in Uraba. In the zone known as Tulapa, which includes 32 districts from the municipalities of Turbo and Necocli “the total amount of stolen land is ...17,000 hectares and 2,640 hectares… I think that the owners (of investments Tulipa) are Mr. SALVATORE MANCUSO AND THE DECEASED CARLOS CASTANO, Mr. Guido Vargas was their commission agent.”vi

The boom that has taken place in the past 10 years in the agro-industrial sector, the oil industry, mining and infrastructure, demonstrates a clear link between paramilitary violence and the “development” of a national economy. The social and armed conflict has gone hand in hand with an agrarian reform reversal at a national level, promoted by the national government and national and international business people and implemented by paramilitary groups in collaboration with public forces.

Toward the legitimisation of the paramilitary strategy
In 2002, shortly after the first government of Alvaro Uribe was installed, several commanders from the AUC, including Vicente Castaño and Salvatore Mancuso publicly declared that they controlled 35 per cent of the National Parliament, while the political, social and economic control of some regions such as the Atlantic Coast and the Uraba zone was 100 per cent. In this context of paramilitary dominion, the AUC unilaterally decreed a cease-fire in December 2002 in order to begin negotiating a possible military demobilisation.

The demobilisation process brokered between the government and the AUC ended at the end of 2005 when the Uribe government declared the end of the paramilitary groups. However, between the alleged cease-fires in 2002 to the beginning of 2006, the same paramilitary groups murdered an average 600 people per year. viiSeveral Colombian human rights organisations denounced in 2007 the existence of 87 “new” paramilitary groups, including “Aguilas Negras” (Black Eagles) as the group is known that operates in Uraba.viii

At the same time, the process to integrate the AUC into society has been accompanied by an open intensification of military actions on the part of public forces. There has been an increase in large-scale detentions.

~snip~
The Rural Development Statute of 2006 has created a juridical framework under which it has been possible to legalise the theft of millions of hectares on the part of paramilitary groups across the nation. The statute makes it possible to validate private titles (that date back 10 years when carried out between two people before a notary). For example in 2007 the law recognises the validity of a land title held by a paramilitary element that obtained land in 1997. In practice, this means that land stolen up to 1998 can legally pass to paramilitary elements.

The 2005 Justice and Peace Law, which diverse human rights organisations have called a law of impunity and forgetting, has regulated the process to integrate the AUC and has not demanded that paramilitary elements inform about their belongings or assets, nor has it obligated them to surrender them. xiii Moreover, they have given protection to relatives and friends who have acted as front men for the stolen land, granting them legal immunity.xiv

In mid-2007, there were more than 30,000 demobilised people from the AUC at a national level; 30 per cent of them located in the department of Antioquia. In Uraba, around 2,500 demobilisations from the AUC were legalised between 2004 and 2006, whilst at the same time hundreds of paramilitary elements from other parts of the country entered the region. Some of them remained armed. Others continued exercising direct control over drug trafficking while many others began to work on productive projects that have been developed in the framework of different Programmes, including the alternative development Programmes in the battle against drugs.

El Uraba: drug trafficking zone, but not an illegal crop zone
Rather than an area where illegal crops are produced, Uraba has been a drug trafficking corridor since the 1970s. The Gulf of Uraba and the ports of Turbo, Necoclí y Arboletes have been some of the main transit points for cocaine traffic out of Colombia. According to the UN Integrated Illicit Crop Monitoring System (SIMCI) coca crops have essentially disappeared from the Uraba since 2005.

Control over the illegal production, processing and transport of narcotics from the Uraba zone has been almost entirely in the hands of the AUC for the past 10 years. In 2003 the BEC administered around 700 hectares of coca crops in their area of influence, specifically in the municipalities of Turbo, Necoclí, San Pedro de Urabá and in Tierralta (Córdoba). They also controlled the cocaine supply corridors to the oceanxv. After the de-mobilisation of the BEC in 2006, Daniel Rendón, the brother of "El Alemán" continues to maintain control over the routes, increasing his territorial dominion and incorporating the old structures of the so-called “Envigado Office”xvi, which currently operates under the name of "Los Paisas."
More:
http://www.tni.org/policybriefings/brief27.pdf?

[roody]

1. Witness for Peace is on this.

Colombia: Meet Colombian Communities Resisting Repression

July 13, 2009 - July 23, 2009

Meet Colombian communities resisting repression as they struggle to save the rainforest and family farms. Witness for Peace Southwest Delegation to Colombia July 13 to 23, 2009 Many of the civilians murdered by Colombia’s armed forces and paramilitaries are family farmers. While claiming to fight narcotics and guerrillas,
the Colombian army and its paramilitary allies have driven subsistence farmers off their land to make way for agribusiness. The proposed “free trade” agreement (FTA) between Colombia and the United States is the next step. If approved by the U.S. Congress, the FTA will give wealthy investors increased power to take over those
lands.

Afro-Colombians make up 90 percent of the population of the state of Chocó in northwest Colombia. They practice small-scale farming in harmony with the rainforest. Colombia’s 1991 Constitution recognizes Indigenous and Afro-Colombian rights to own land collectively. But agribusiness companies, aided by the army and paramilitaries, have illegally invaded those lands, replacing the farms and forests with oil palm plantations. The Colombian government has done little to stop this invasion. Plans are in the works to use palm oil for bio-diesel. Cutting down a forest to grow bio-diesel is an ecological disaster. Despite ongoing death threats, some displaced communities have returned to pursue a nonviolent struggle to reclaim their farms and
save the forest.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE DELEGATION:
Half the time, we will be in Bogotá, where we will meet political analysts, human rights defenders and government officials. The rest of the time we will be in rural Urabá (the region near the border with Panama) in Antioquia and Chocó, visiting peace communities.


For more information about this delegation, please contact:
Delegation Coordinator
Patrick Bonner
323-563-7940
[e-mail]

Witness for Peace – 3628 12th Street NE. 1st Fl., Washington, DC 20017 – 202.547-6112 – 202.536.4708

http://witnessforpeace.live.radicaldesigns.org/userdata_display.php?modin=51&uid=72

[Bacchus39]

2. are you going to go? you should n/t

s

[roody]

3. Yes.

[Bacchus39]

4. excellent, congratulations. I am sure it will be a fantastic experience

I hope you will take the opportunity to talk with locals without regard to the agenda of the mission. most importantly though, enjoy the beautiful country and the wonderful people.

[roody]

5. I am a fluent Spanish-speaker.

Here is Witness for Peace's Mission statement:

Mission Statement
Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, nationwide grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. WFP’s mission is to support peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing U.S. policies and corporate practices which contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean.

[Judi Lynn]

6. You couldn't create a more worthwhile statement of goals than that.

What is it about respect for the lives and rights of other human beings that's so hard for fascists to grasp, anyway? They just can't get the hang of it. They are weak, insufficient people.

To repeat the Mission Statement:

Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, nationwide grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. WFP’s mission is to support peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing U.S. policies and corporate practices which contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hope the trip will be completely successful, safe, in a dangerous zone. No doubt the people it was intended to reach will appreciate the effort.

May's not that far away, is it?

Thanks for posting the link.

[Bacchus39]

7. May is just around the corner, but the tour is in July

nothing wrong with the mission statement. nothing wrong with interacting with local people either.

[roody]

8. Human rights groups are having some good effect.

>>> Sorry the link does not work.
Monday, March 23, 2009
>>> Colombia Orders Return of Stolen Farmland
>>> Juan Forero
>>> The Washington Post
>>>
>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/22/
>>> AR2009032202029_pf.html
>>> (Tags -> Colombia : Victims: Afro-Colombian Communities, Victims: :
>>> English)
>>>
>>> CARMEN DEL DARIEN, Colombia -- As with so many crimes of war, what
>>> happened here in the dense, humid jungles of northwestern Colombia
>>> more than a decade ago might easily have been forgotten. Illegal
>>> militias forced hundreds of poor black farmers off their land, which
>>> politically connected businessmen then seized and turned into
>>> lucrative palm oil plantations.
>>>
>>> The displaced farmers, well aware that the hundreds of thousands of
>>> people uprooted by Colombia's long civil conflict rarely returned
>>> home, thought they would never see their land again. But in this
>>> case,
>>> the government recently ordered nine palm oil companies to return
>>> thousands of acres to the farmers, and the attorney general's office
>>> is investigating the firms' operators on accusations of homicide,
>>> land
>>> theft and forced displacement.
>>>
>>> The government, however, is motivated as much by self-interest as
>>> altruism, say human rights groups, which also charge that state
>>> negligence coupled with aid for the palm oil companies helped
>>> facilitate the land seizures. President Álvaro Uribe's
>>> administration
>>> urgently wants a free-trade agreement with the United States, and
>>> Democrats on Capitol Hill have made clear that the pact is
>>> contingent
>>> on human rights advances in Colombia, particularly for blacks and
>>> other marginalized groups.
>>>
>>> "I think it's directly linked, there's no question about that," Rep.
>>> Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.), a member of the Western Hemisphere
>>> subcommittee, said of the Colombian government's attention to the
>>> land
>>> issue in the state of Choco. "I'm not so sure that these efforts by
>>> the government would be made had it not been for the external
>>> pressure
>>> that we've raised."
>
---snip---

The article goes on to tell how the powerful took the people's land to plant crops.

[Bacchus39]

9. if you mean highlighting the repression and all the good charitable work, yes indeed

but I agree with the human rights organizations that this measure by the Colombian govenment is more likely do to self-interest in getting an FTA than for the sake of justice.

it brings up some interesting questions though: will the US be perceived as "intervening" if they put conditions on a Colombia FTA? will Colombia find US demands so paternalistic that they will give up and the improvement of human rights conditions will suffer?

[Judi Lynn]

10. They have figured out they've got to make the appearance of some grand gesture which illustrates

their concern for "the little man" they've been terrorizing since "La Violencia" if they are to have any prayer of getting their pudgy little Cheetos-stained fingers back on the steady stream of U.S. taxpayers' hard earned $600,000.00 per year, at least.

Why should we retain our own money when they can use it to whoop it up, and buy more materials to beat down, terrorize, and kill off any possible attempt to dissent.

That dirty land theft by death squad paramilitary narcotraffickers has been going on so long. I've heard over and over their approach to landowners has been to tell them they are expected to give them their land for a token payment, a mere pittance, and when the owner resists, he gets told they'll simply take up the matter with his widow.

That probably serves as high humor among swaggering, dirty, right-wing theiving monstrosities.