A portion of collectively owned land in Lower Calima, Buenaventura has yet to be rightfully returned to the Afro-Colombian Crucado community living at the 9.5 kilometer mark. This territory is slated as a mega port expansion project, Agua-Dulce. In spite of constitutional rights, under Colombian Law 70 of 1993, which provides for the protection of ancestral territory of Afro-descendants, guarantees investment in local economic development, and affords protection of Afro-Colombian cultural identity and civil rights; the community faces a critical situation.
On February 7, 2012, our Witness for Peace delegation visited with some of the 468 community members who are seeking humanitarian justice and the legal right to their territory. These community members invited us into their home to share their stories and struggles. Among the struggle to maintain their cultural identity and territorial land, the community has faced a multitude of devastating forces such as a lack of jobs, loss of subsistence crops due to flooding and fumigation, and the invasion of multi-national corporate interests into their rich and bio-diverse land. The area is a prime target for expansion of the Buenaventura port in order to support the anticipated increase in imports and exports under the recently ratified Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
For example, traditional artisanal gold mining is currently jeopardized as big mining companies are coming in with heavy machinery and hiring workers from outside the area. Armed actors looking to exploit resources and use of heavy-duty chemicals in the modern mining process pose serious dangers to the livelihoods of the El Crucero community. Furthermore, the expansion of the port infrastructure is proceeding without the proper consultation of the Afro-Colombian community and with total disregard for the rights guaranteed under both national (Law 70, 21) and international law (Universal Declaration of Human Rights; American Convention Human Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ILO Convention; UN Guiding Princples on Internal Displacement). The situation is dire. Many community members have been displaced from their homes and are unable to work their own land. They are barely surviving.
Although this community has some legal assistance provided by human rights organization Justice and Peace, they are up against wealthy multi-nationals who use tricky tactics to make it look like they are abiding by the law. They have met with community leaders but, according to the community members with whom we met, these meetings are superficial and intended to avoid the consequences of a 'real' meeting, in which the whole community is consulted. Multi-nationals also employ the 'divide and conquer' strategy by providing some jobs to workers in the community, which has the potential to pit those with jobs against those without (even though those with jobs can be fired at anytime and replaced by outsiders).
A recent development in struggle for their territory was unsuccessful in producing results desperately needed by the displaced people of El Crucero. The community called a meeting to request an update of a previous consultation in which the legal [land titling] process was under evaluation. They demanded that all development of the Agua Dulce mega project stop while the land titling issue is sorted out. Their request was ignored; the project has not stopped.
The abuse of human rights of Afro-decendants in Colombia is a legacy of colonialism which led to racism and the enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Although the Afro-decendants where liberated in 1852, they still remained victims of structural discrimination and racism. In 1959, the Colombian state deemed Afro-Colombian's and Native American's ancestral territory to be wastelands and therefore State property. This denied them their common law property rights. Today, the Afro-Colombians have the so called protection of the law in accordance with the International Convention to end all forms of racial discrimination (Law 22) but the denial that human right violations exist and the lack of reparation for the victims of violence and displacement is pervasive in Colombia. This situation makes these already vulnerable populations the perfect targets for further exploitation under the auspices of Free Trade and neo-liberal development policies.
Our delegation members shared these stories with the U.S. embassy. We asked that the embassy human rights department put pressure on the Colombian government to uphold both national and international law. Our demands as U.S. citizens, concerned about the violations occurring in a country with whom we are supporting through military assistance and trade agreements, echoed the demands of the displaced Crucero community: we asked that the development stop until their is resolution in which the territory is rightfully returned to the Afro-Colombian community. Additionally, prior to any development in the Afro-Colombian territories the community ought to be consulted according to the Law of Black Communities (Law 70).
