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The granting of land titles to Afro-Colombians in the Naya region begins

Published: February 2013
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During this trip in January 2013, we had the privilege of accompanying Maria Eugenia Mosquera and Laura Chaparro from the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission. The aim was to visit the Afro-Colombian community who live on the shores of the river Naya, which divides the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca in the South-West of the Country, near the Pacific Coast. The reason behind this trip was some very happy news: the beginning of the allocation of land titles in the Naya region. The community has been waiting 14 years for this moment.
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During this trip in January 2013, we had the privilege of accompanying Maria Eugenia Mosquera and Laura Chaparro from the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission. The aim was to visit the Afro-Colombian community who live on the shores of the river Naya, which divides the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca in the South-West of the Country, near the Pacific Coast. The reason behind this trip was some very happy news: the beginning of the allocation of land titles in the Naya region. The community has been waiting 14 years for this moment.

NayaColombiaInter Church Justice and Peace CommissionPeace Brigades Internationalland titlesAfro Colombians

  • During this trip in January 2013, we had the privilege of accompanying Maria Eugenia Mosquera and Laura Chaparro from the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission. The aim was to visit the Afro-Colombian community who live on the shores of the river Naya, which divides the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca in the South-West of the Country, near the Pacific Coast. The reason behind this trip was some very happy news: the beginning of the allocation of land titles in the Naya region. The community has been waiting 14 years for this moment.
  • Our journey began at 5am in Buenaventura, the most important maritime port in Colombia due to the volume of cargo that moves through it (over 60% of the country’s trade). To get to the Naya River it is necessary to go by motorboat for two hours on the open sea before getting going up the Naya River.
  • We travelled up to San Francisco, one of the oldest villages in the region and full of wooden houses, some of them painted bright colours. In the village’s 120 year-old church representatives form the various communities congregated to receive the news of the land title allocation. There were also representatives from the Colombian Institute for Rural Development (Incoder), the state agency responsible for the granting of land titles.
  • Approximately 200 people from 64 Naya communities that make up the Community Council arrived to hear detail on the process of granting collective titles and agricultural project proposals. The granting of land titles means a legal acknowledgement that the property of these territories belong to the communities that have lived there since 1680, in other words more than 330 years.
  • It is thanks to the leadership and perseverance of the Community Council that these land titles are finally being granted. This process is being undertaken in view of Law 70 of 1993, and in accordance with sentence T-909 of 2009 that acknowledges the collective territorial rights due to the ancestral occupation of territory. The collective title will benefit more than 18,000 people and covers some 100,000 hectares in the department of Valle del Cauca. Collective lands are inalienable, immune from prescription and cannot be revoked.
  • The Naya community has also requested that a collective title be granted to an additional 100,000 hectares on the other side of the river, in the department of Cauca, an area that is also claimed by the University of Cauca. This judicial dispute is before the State Council and the community is awaiting the outcome.
  • The Nayan Communities cultivate rice, taro, peach-palm and plantain. Nevertheless, many agricultural products are brought in from other regions. The need for food security is well understood by the region’s leaders. At the moment they want to invest in the cultivation of organic rice for their own consummation and commercialization. On average a family consumes 2.5 pounds of rice daily- rice which is currently bought in from outside. At present a project is underway that looks to sustain some 214 families.
  • During our stay we ate in the house of Auntie Flora, as everyone affectionately calls her. She is a 72 year-old woman who can dance the Currulao to perfection, a folkloric and ancestral music from the pacific region. She remembers a time when everything they ate was from the Naya area. Her mother and herself would make honey while her father fished for shrimp and the mojarra fish. Everything was natural back then. Now panela (unrefined sugar cane) has replaced honey.
  • The community also lives from fishing. In the sea they catch small sharks, ray and turtle, and in the river they catch milkfish, sardines and shrimp.
  • One of the biggest challenges is to find a way that young people can find a future in the villages. Due to lack of work, many young people have moved to the larger cities in search of employment. Not all have left however; here in San Francisco a group of young men have opened a water-motor repair workshop.
  • And Maria Teódula makes hats.
  • As opposed to many young people, the older generation have strong ties to the territory; but many grow old alone and without their families who work in the cities and do not have enough money to get to the Naya region. A one-way trip on the boat from Buenaventura to San Francisco costs $80,000 COP (USD 45) so for many this is a luxury. Heliadora, 92 years of age, lives alone.
  • It is hard to believe that this idyllic place is the location where a massacre took place in 2001 when 400 paramilitaries of the Bloque Calima, under the leadership of Hérbert Veloza (alias HH), killed, tortured and displaced the communities of the Naya region. About 4,000 people were forced to leave their homes.
  • The exact number of those who were killed is still unknown, but according to the Centre for Memory and Dignity it is more than 200. In Concepción, a village an hour outside of San Francisco, paramilitaries tortured, raped and killed Juana Bautista, a 45 year old woman. Twelve years on, the case of Juana and the displacement of Naya communities continues in impunity. The lawyer Laura Chaparro told us that even if there is a sentence this year or the next, the paramilitaries will still go free because under the Justice and Peace Law the maximum prison term can only be seven years. “Seven years have passed since the Justice and Peace Law came into force and paramilitaries demobilized, and so the expectation is that they will now go free.”
  • The Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission began to accompany the Naya community after their displacement in 2001. The Commission petitioned for the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to grant an injunction to protect the community, which was then granted in 2002. Laura Chaparro (right), a lawyer with the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, is responsible for the legal processes related to the 2001 massacre, and follows-up on the legal processes related to the granting of the land titles. She is hopeful that the land titling process, which began this month, will be completed this year.
  • Maria Eugenia Mosquera has been accompanying vulnerable communities as part of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission for the past 19 years. She travels regularly up the Naya river to advise the leaders of the Community Council. In order for her to safely reach these communities, she is accompanied by PBI on these trips. PBI has accompanied members of the Commission since 1994.
  • Support us in our accompaniment of human right defenders. Please make a donation. Your support is very valuable to us in order to enable us to continue our accompaniment of human rights defenders in Colombia. <a href="http://www.pbi-colombia.org/los-proyectos/pbi-colombia/haz-tu-aporte/?L=1">http://www.pbi-colombia.org/los-proyectos/pbi-colombia/haz-tu-aporte/?L=1</a>
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