Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Indigenous Rights,
Land Restitution, and Extractive Industries
In the context of the
Colombian Victims and Land Restitution Law (1448/2011)
The following policy brief highlights major implementation challenges that have
emerged in relation to the prioritization of the extractive industry sector over
the redistribution of expropriated land as outlined by the Colombias Victims
and Land Restitution Law 1448/2011 and provides a recommendation to
ensure a more transparent and accountable reparations process.
Leta Spencer
GISDE Graduate Student
November 2016
Overview
Since the 1960s, Colombia has been in a
state of continuous internal conflict, with
numerous factions vying for social,
economic, and political control. The
situation has played out in extreme
violence and been the cause of massive
waves of forced displacement. Between
1985 and 2014, over 6,044,000 people were
internally displaced in Colombia as a direct
result of the internal conflict that continues
to the present day.i According to the
National Administrative Department of
Statistics (DANE) 2005 census, Colombia is
home to more than 90 indigenous peoples,
comprising some 1,374,000 inhabitants or
3.2% of the national population.ii Due to
lack of awareness or out of fear, indigenous
groups and Afro-Colombians under register
their status, making official statistics on
internally displaced persons (IDPs) difficult
to validate but nonetheless, these
vulnerable groups represent a
disproportionate percentage of Colombias
IDPs population.
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margins.
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indigenous group.
In 2000, in La Toma, an Afro-descendant community in the Cauca Department, paramilitary forces seized
control of communal land displacing hundreds. Shortly thereafter, international mining companies began to
register mining applications in the territory; many of which were granted without adhering to the process of
consultation and free, prior and informed consent as required by Law 685/2001. xixii In response, the
Colombian Constitutional Court ruled in 2010 to suspend the mining operation in La Toma and on all
expropriated registered and titled communal land. In spite of this monumental verdict, enforcement has been
lacking and mining activities continue to the present day. xiiixiv Criminal investigations into those suspected of
illegally appropriating lands have also made little progress, underlining serious implementation challenges to
Law 1448/2011.
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Mapping Accountability
expropriation in Colombia.
ii
iii
https://www.tni.org/files/download/martinezvictims-law-web.pdf.
x Returning Land to Colombias Victims.
ABColombia. May 2011.
http://www.abcolombia.org.uk/downloads/returni
nglandreportforweb.pdf
xi Betancur, Ana Cecilia and William Villa. Mining
and Indigenous Peoples in Colombia. International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA).
February 2016.
www.iwgia.org/iwgia_files_publications_files/
0739_Mining _a
nd_indigenous_peoples_in_Colombia.pdf
xiiColombia: Restoring the Land, Securing the
Peace. Amnesty International. November 2015.
Accessed November 12, 2016.
https://www.amnesty.nl/sites/default/files/public/
colombia_land_-_briefing.pdf.
xiii Ibid.
xiv Meja, Claudia Helena and Luis Jos Azcarate.
Restitution of Ethnic Territories in Colombia: A
Contribution to Peace in Rural Areas." The World
Bank. March 2016.
xvii Glade, Jim. Colombias comptroller warns mining
could impede land restitution. Colombia Reports.
May 11, 2013.
http://colombiareports.com/comptroller-warnsthat-mining-could-impede-land-restitution-incolombia/
Figure 1.
Mingorance, Fidel. Territorios Indigenas en
Colombia. HREV/Tierra Proeanada. November 24,
2015. http://geoactivismo.org/territoriosindigenas-en-colombia/
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