Restitución de tierras

16 September 2019 · Colombia

Restitución de tierras

Colombia's returning farmers

“One day the paramilitaries came to my place; they said ‘Either you sell us your farm, or we’ll buy it from your widow.’ We took all our stuff and we left. They never paid for the land. They gave me some rubber checks…” (Grajales, 2011, p.771)

Colombia suffered more than fifty years of armed conflict, in which guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels battled each other and the state — producing the second-largest population of internally displaced people in the world.

To set something against the sheer scale of the problem, in 2011 former president Juan Manuel Santos initiated the Victims and Land Restitution Law. Its purpose is the material and legal return of “stolen” land to its former owners, and it promises a return in conditions of safety, sustainability and dignity.

While the Colombian government has been praised by the international community for the legislation, it is the returning farmers who bear the burden of rebuilding what they lost.

Their largely invisible faces are the centre of this work. For them, the land makes up a large part of who they are: “A farmer without land is nothing,” as Pablo puts it. For him, the return is bound up with great hopes.

Yet even where there is gratitude for the recognition of their situation, those hopes often go unfulfilled. On returning, farmers are confronted with threats to their lives, traumatic memory, water scarcity, a lack of housing, and meagre income. And still they keep fighting — for a life in peace.

A weathered concrete water tank standing among trees on a returned farm
A weathered concrete water tank standing among trees on a returned farm
A stony path through dense bush leading back to a farmhouse
A stony path through dense bush leading back to a farmhouse
A farmer leaning against a pale blue wall
A farmer leaning against a pale blue wall
A half-rebuilt farmhouse, a thin dog crossing the yard
A half-rebuilt farmhouse, a thin dog crossing the yard
A farmer seated at home beside his rubber boots
A farmer seated at home beside his rubber boots
A man seated outside his house in town
A man seated outside his house in town
A young mother with her two children against a bare wall
A young mother with her two children against a bare wall
A woman in a red headscarf at her kitchen table
A woman in a red headscarf at her kitchen table
A woman in a red headscarf outside her home
A woman in a red headscarf outside her home
The mud-and-lattice wall of a house under construction
The mud-and-lattice wall of a house under construction
A hand-dug well and pump in an open field
A hand-dug well and pump in an open field
A farmer in his kitchen, a roll of barbed wire at his feet
A farmer in his kitchen, a roll of barbed wire at his feet
A woman standing beneath a mounted bull's skull
A woman standing beneath a mounted bull's skull
A farmer in a eucalyptus plantation on his land
A farmer in a eucalyptus plantation on his land
A couple in their garden at dusk, a dog and hen nearby
A couple in their garden at dusk, a dog and hen nearby
A bed under a mosquito net in a mud-brick room
A bed under a mosquito net in a mud-brick room