Colombian State Questioned for Inefficient Compensation to Conflict Victims and Land Restitution

In an interview with W Radio, the Forging Futures Foundation researcher, Carolina Alzate, expressed her concern about the actions that have been taken by the State to compensate the victims of the armed conflict in the country. According to what he highlighted, those citizens who lost their land in the midst of violence have not received enough attention, even though the Victims Act came into force a little more than ten years ago. With the pace that has been taking so far, the expert said, it would take 62 years to repair, not counting the 178 years that would require municipalities PDET (development programs with a territorial focus).

“We are talking about administrative compensation, within the budget we are told that 117 billion are allocated for comprehensive reparation, we verify and 8 billion appear, just one million hundred thousand people have been compensated for about seven million victims,” he said in the interview. In other figures, he pointed out, is a worrying balance in terms of land restitution because barely 8% of the total amount of land has been reached to return to their real owners or compensate.

“Since implementation began, when we take stock at the national level, we identified that progress has only been made by 8.6% and we do so by looking at how many applications citizens have submitted to the Restitution Unit, and then we review which ones have reached the judicial instance and actually returned or compensated”, he added in his talk with the station. He said that, in addition, it is necessary to emphasize the way in which violence continues to affect different populations, for example, since the signing of the peace agreement, he emphasized, more than 1,200 have been killed, of these more than 1000 people 516 belong to PDET areas.

Parallel to this, it was precisely reported that the Fourth Civil Decongestion Court of the Circuit Specialized in Land Restitution of Santa Marta ruled, this week, in favor of indigenous people from the Sierra Nevada who had been evicted by guerrilla and paramilitary groups from their places of residence. The beneficiaries of land restitution, in this case, are members of the Issa Oristunna (New Hope) and Kajmanta-Itti Takke Reserves, and the Ette Butteriya-Nara and Diwana settlements located in Magdalena and Cesar.

The Land Restitution Unit revealed that the court ruling benefits 360 families belonging to the Ette Ennaka ethnic group, settled on 2,463 hectares, distributed in Sabanas de San Angel and Santa Marta, foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in particular, in the basins surrounding Ariguanicito, Fundación, Nabusímake and the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta; and to the south, from the Ariguaní, El Copey, Caracolicito, Bosconia and Valledupar basins, in the department of Cesar.

Faced with the decision, the governor of the people's Ette Ennaka, Victor Alfonso Rojano, commented: “the scope of the orders, the responsible entities and the need for prior consultation between governmental and indigenous authorities became clear, as fundamental elements for the realization of the sentence.”

“Socialization seeks to vindicate the territorial rights of this indigenous community that requires preserving its customs, carrying out its traditional spiritual ceremonies and visiting sacred sites, among other orders,” added territorial director Cesar-Guajira, Claudia Mireya Manotas Mejía.

The decision, emphasize the authorities, was taken to 'protect and restore' the territorial rights belonging to the Ette Ennaka (Chimila) people with respect to the Cacahueros reservation, Issa Oristunna; the Ette Butteriya and Nara Kajmanta settlements, in the department of Magdalena; and Itti Takke and Diwana, in the department of Cesar, all affected by violence in the country.

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