(Bogota) The Colombian government on Tuesday rejected the invasion of agricultural land by indigenous people and peasants, a phenomenon on the rise in recent days as an agrarian reform promised by the new left-wing president Gustavo Petro raises many expectations in the country.
Posted at 8:26 p.m.
“We do not accept and we reject, and we ask those who today are violently invading […] private lands throughout the country to refrain” from this practice, Vice President Francia Marquez told a press conference.
Elected this summer as the first left-wing president in Colombia’s history, Mr. Petro plans to implement “agrarian reform” to redistribute land in a country where agrarian ownership is concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
Access to land is also at the heart of the conflict that has bloodied Colombia for nearly six decades. In the 1960s, it was one of the main fuels of the armed struggle launched by several peasant self-defense movements.
In the decades that followed, far-right paramilitaries violently dispossessed thousands of peasant families of their land for the benefit of large landowners and cattle herders.
Pending the land reform promised by Mr. Petro, indigenous people have multiplied in recent weeks the occupations and confiscation of land by force, mainly in Cauca (south-west), one of the departments most affected by the violence of armed groups and drug trafficking.
The region is also home to huge sugar cane farms, owned by large Cali families, where workers are employed, often from the black community of African origin. Strong tensions have recently been observed between indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians on the occupied lands.
“We confirm that there will be an agrarian reform to seek equity in access to land, but we ask Colombians to respect property,” Agriculture Minister Cecilia Lopez added during the meeting. the same press conference.
In recent months, cattle ranchers and sugar cane growers have been confronted with “almost daily” invasions, the daily was alarmed on Tuesday. El Tiempo.
More than 1000 hectares have been illegally occupied since the beginning of 2022, indicates this newspaper, which notes that the phenomenon has spread to three other departments, Valle del Cauca, Huila and Cesar.
“Big landowners, livestock breeders and farmers are asking the government to be more careful in the messages that the government sends on its land reform”, writes the daily.
According to the NGO Oxfam, 81% of the land in Colombia is concentrated on 1% of farms.