The director of Colombia’s land agency ANT filed criminal complaints about at least eight attempts to steal land from beneficiaries of President Gustavo Petro’s land reform.
According to ANT director Harman Felipe, armed men associated with drug traffickers and paramilitary commanders intimidated the communities at six plots that had been given to victim of the armed conflict.
The incidents we have reported follow the same pattern of intimidation against families who have benefited from the Agrarian Reform. The threats are intended to force communities to leave so that land currently in the hands of small farmers can be reclaimed. What is at stake is not only the safety of these families, but also the defense of the Agrarian Reform and the right of small farmers to remain on their land.
Harman Felipe
In one of the attempts, armed land thieves allegedly tortured members of a family that had been given land in Puerto Lopez, a municipality in the central Meta province.
This land used to belong to Ignacio Alvarez, a drug trafficker of the now-defunct Norte del Valle cartel.
Most incidents happened in the Magdalena Medio region, where the legal occupants of five plots were ordered to abandon their properties by armed men.
At one of the plots, which used to be of Daniel Barrera, the owners were told “these lands don’t belong to guerrillas.”
At another plot, a member of the Isaza Clan threatened a women’s association that was given control over land that used to belong to Maria Georgina Arango, the wife of a former commander of paramilitary organization AUC, Ovidio Isaza, a.k.a. “Roque.”
In Cordoba, a Caribbean province, the legal occupants of another one of Alvarez’s plots fled.
“We want the Attorney General’s Office to investigate these incidents, which are not minor matters and could even constitute crimes against humanity due to the displacement they have caused,” the ANT director told press.
Land thieves stole between 6.5 and 8 million hectares of land during the armed conflict between 1964 and 2016, often with the support of corrupt elements within the State.
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