The natives and else landless peasants who took private farms in the south of Colombia defied the “ultimatum” to vacate the properties, in which it already appears as the first social conflict under the government of Gustav Petro.
“What landless peasants We are going to continue (in the haciendas). If it is time to fight against the same government that we raised, it is up to us,” warned one of its leaders who spoke to AFP on the condition of confidentiality for fear of “judicial persecution.”
Around 1,000 families have been occupying two cane plantations in the municipality of Maroon, in the department of Cauca.
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Given the expectations generated by the reform proposed by Petro to redistribute rural property, land invasions have multiplied, according to associations of ranchers and sugar producers.
The government on Tuesday rejected those actions. Defense Minister, Ivan Velasquezrecalled that the police are authorized to recover the properties “within 48 hours after the occupation.”
The peasants interpreted his words as an ultimatum, which triggered the tension in Maroon.
“The statement issued by the president is something very worrying for the process that we are carrying out,” said the community leader.
The eviction – he remarked – would imply “some onslaught, some outrage by the public force.”
The occupants live in the battered hacienda buildings, which no longer have windows or doors. Others set up camps on the invaded land.
From time to time they confront the police with rubber bands and stones. Since the arrival of Petro to power, August 7the clashes had ceased, but with the government’s wake-up call they could be reactivated.
“These types of threats and legal actions by the government are not new and we are still here”maintained another leader of other families that also occupy farms in Corinto.
Although they are “ruditos, there is a lot of strength here,” warned the leader, who also refrained from identifying himself for security reasons.
dialogue first
This Thursday the Minister of Defense clarified that he has not given “any exceptional order” for the police or the army to liberate the haciendas. “The instruction is to always privilege dialogue over forceful measures,” he tweeted.
Petro plans to carry out a “agrarian reform” to redistribute rural property in the country of Latin America where the land is most concentrated in few hands, according to the NGO English Oxfam.
Within the framework of this policy, the government announced that it will yield to the “Most Vulnerable Colombians” the properties seized from the corrupt and the drug trafficking mafia.
Access to land is at the heart of the armed conflict that has bled Colombia dry for almost six decades.
Also read: Ultimatum from the Government to land invaders: “You have 48 hours to evict”
The far-right paramilitaries, staunch enemies of the rebels, violently dispossessed thousands of families of their lands to later sell them to landowners or ranchers.
In 2018 the indigenous people of Nasa people, in Cauca, They began to take large estates to free, as they proclaim, “Mother Earth.”
When they occupy a piece of land, they usually expel the workers and eradicate the cane – which they consider a harmful monoculture – to replace it with reforestation areas and small crops of banana and rice.
On some roads you can see logs and ditches opened by the peasants to prevent the advance of the vehicles of the police riot squad. Also They patrol the area with radios to warn about the presence of authorities.
Like other communities that have joined this practice, the Nasa justify the invasions alleging the poor quality and overpopulation of the highlands that surround the fertile valley where cane is grown.
According to the most recent data from Oxfam, the 1% of the largest farms own 81% of land in Colombia.
