The road goes straight between the sugar cane fields, under the sun of this region of northern Cauca, in the south-west of Colombia. “Past governments have pledged to give land to indigenous people and they haven’t kept their promises. Today, it is we, the producers, who are paying the price for this government abandonment”explains Alvaro Franco, at the wheel of his 4 x 4. Owner of 150 hectares, he takes his car on the dirt road which goes towards the mountain and points to a razed field: “The natives ransacked everything. And, look, they blasted the bridge,” he shows, while emphasizing that “The problem of land occupations here goes back more than fifteen years”. The coming to power of Gustavo Petro on August 7 rekindled tensions.
Convinced that the very high concentration of land ownership is one of the causes of the poverty of the country and the violence of the rural world, the first left-wing president of the country promised an ambitious agrarian reform. By occupying private properties, in the Cauca and all over the country, natives and peasants intend to put pressure on the new government.
“But they don’t make it easy for him, sighs a close friend of the president. Sending in the army as the right did is not a solution, let it be either. » For the Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia Lopez, “Land occupations and other assaults serve the discourse of those who do not want agrarian reform. It limits the room for maneuver of the government”.
Conflict between natives and Afro-descendants
The north of the Cauca department extends between two mountain ranges separated by a vast fertile plain. Land occupation remains sporadic. Here and there, makeshift tents, made of plastic sheeting on wooden stakes, mark the presence of small indigenous groups, descended from the nearby mountain. Masked faces and machetes on their sides, young people stand guard near the few roadblocks – three pieces of wood across the road – which prevent the passage of tractors and trucks on the roads.
“The government calls us invaders, but we’re just taking back what’s ours,” abstract Arcadio Escue, 56 years old. Indian from the Nasa community, he was in all the fights for the “Earth Liberation” organized by the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC). Founded in the early 1970s, the CRIC is one of the most solid – and combative – organizations in the country.
You have 67.67% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.