Promised land? Colombia makes slow progress on land rights since FARC peace deal

By Nelson Bocanegra

President Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first leftist leader, promised his government would acquire 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land for victims of the country's six-decade conflict, to meet the terms of a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

It has not proved easy.

Thousands of farmers gathered in the northern city of Monteria last month for the handover of some 20,800 acres once seized by paramilitaries - the top perpetrator of both forced disappearances and killings during the height of the conflict and a major player in forced displacements.

"Today a hope of many years will become real: having a piece of land to work," said Dalel Bitar, the head of a farmers' association in Buenavista, about 50 miles from Monteria.

Bitar said his family members, displaced in 2003, had recently lost hope of receiving compensation. "It's been justice after so many injustices."

But others are still waiting.

After Petro was elected in 2022, his land redistribution goal was quickly halved. The government has come up against the enduring presence of crime gangs and rebel groups, budget constraints, lethargic bureaucracy and the unwillingness of some landowners to sell, officials, farmers and academics say.

Land redistribution – a longstanding demand of many poor farmers who supported Petro's election - has particular urgency amid Colombia's ongoing conflict.

Failure to improve victims' lives could perpetuate violence, keeping them poor and vulnerable to new rights violations or forced recruitment by armed groups, analysts, academics and authorities agree.

Meanwhile, Petro is struggling to make concrete progress at stop-start negotiations with armed groups in Colombia, where violence remains a harsh reality in certain regions.

Colombia is among several countries worldwide - including South Africa, Brazil and Mexico - that are struggling to live up to mass redistribution promises.

Colombia's conflict was originally sparked in the 1960s by land rights demands, with Marxist rebels promising to redistribute land and wealth held largely by a small group of elite families.

A 2016 peace deal between the state and the FARC rebels gives Colombia until 2031 to address land reform in two parts: to formalize the ownership of some 17.3 million acres, some of it occupied by poor farmers who may have farmed there for generations but lack deeds; and to buy 7.4 million acres to be used as reparations for victims of the conflict.

In the two years since Petro took office, the government has purchased about 1 million acres for some $600 million, a sharp rise from the 45,000 acres purchased under previous President Ivan Duque, said Felipe Harman, the director of the National Land Agency (ANT).

Officials are focusing first on buying and distributing unused land and land expropriated from criminals or handed over by former right-wing paramilitaries who demobilized in 2006, he said.

Petro's government has also formalized ownership of 3.2 million acres and may add up to another 1.2 million before the end of the year, Harman said.

A knotty bureaucracy makes carrying out reparations for Colombia's victims difficult.

The country's Victims Unit cannot directly hand over land or other assets that have been seized or received from armed actors, but must sell them and pay reparations with money.

To raise funds and get land handed over by rebel groups, criminals and former paramilitaries off its books, the Victims Unit is now selling that land to the public and to the ANT, which can then distribute it.

Victims of displacement may be offered land as restitution, but can also ask to receive a monetary payment if they do not want to return to their previous home or prefer to move to another location. Other victims - like kidnapping survivors or descendants of murder victims - usually receive money.

"We are in limbo, there is no solution, they go, they visit, they do one thing and tomorrow another and then never call us again," said Jose Martinez, who was displaced by paramilitaries in 2006 from the town of Ayapel alongside hundreds of others, and was at the Monteria event hoping to speak to authorities.

"We have fought for 18 years and the government, the National Land Agency, still haven't solved the problem," said Martinez who returned home after promises from ANT officials that he would receive land as reparation.

ONGOING CONFLICT

The government has about $1.1 billion to compensate about 600,000 people before the end of Petro's term in 2026, double the figure of victims who received reparations under Duque, said Lilia Solano, head of the Victims Unit.

How much each victim receives depends on their individual case. About a fifth of Colombia's population, 9.75 million people, are registered as conflict victims. Eighty percent suffered displacement, sometimes combined with other violations like murder of a loved one or rape.

"We would hope the figure wouldn't keep growing but that depends on us not having an armed conflict," said Solano. "The conflict is a well-oiled machine for producing victims."

It would cost $80.6 billion to pay reparations to all the conflict's victims, she said, adding many end up in extreme poverty, making them easy targets for forced recruitment.

Mireille Girard, the United Nations refugee agency's Colombia representative, told Reuters some 580,000 people were newly displaced in 2022 and 2023 and more international support is needed for reparation and peace efforts.

Colombia's four main illegal armed groups grew during 2023 as they consolidated territorial control financed by drug trafficking and illicit gold extraction, according to a secret security report seen by Reuters, while the International Committee of the Red Cross has said thousands were displaced last year.

"We are in a vicious cycle where new hubs of violence could be created," said Carolina Montes, the director of the Environmental Law department at Externado University in Bogota.

Land reform efforts in other countries have also faced delays and complications.

In South Africa, successive African National Congress (ANC) governments have launched efforts to transfer farmland from white to Black owners. The repeatedly delayed target is to transfer 30% of farmland by 2030.

Academics have estimated about 20% of farmland owned by white farmers in 1994 has passed into Black hands, either through government programs or private purchases, but opinions vary widely on whether significant progress has been made.

Brazil distributed 221 million acres, settling around 1.4 million families, between 1993 and 2018, while the administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who left office this year, redistributed about 250,000 acres to Indigenous communities and poor farmers.

Some Colombian officials are urging the government to redouble its efforts.

Comptroller General Carlos Rodriguez, Colombia's top fiscal oversight official, recently told a forum: "If immediate and effective measures are not taken, the dream of access to land and rural development for millions of Colombians will remain an empty promise."