Cocomacia

 Wed, 05/13/2009 - 21:52

Local Zones of Peace: General Survey and Map; Associations 
 
                                           COCOMACIA.
                                                                                                                                              
Official Title: Consejo Comunitario Mayor de la Asociacion Campesina Integral del Atrato.
Departamento:  Choco and Antioquia.
Region:
Municipal Members/Settlements: 91 communities in Choco; 28 in Antioquia
Overall Population:
Location: NE of country, bordering Uraba and Lower Atrato
Ethnic mix: Afro-Colombian
IDP population:
Date of establishment: 1982.
Traditional political affiliation:
Trigger event[s]:
 
Persons/organisations involved in establishment:
Leadership:
Supporters: From early 1980s, Dioceses of Quibdo & Apartado; Red de Solidaridad Social.
 
Declared objectives: established under Law 70 [1993] to oversee development of community owned land via a Community Council.
 
Relations with departmental  government bodies
Governor’s office:
 
National government departments:
 
Memberships of regional or national organisations:
 
Organisational structure:
 Plenary meetings:
 Decision making bodies
 Functional committees.
 
Valued goods produced in region: Mainly subsistence agriculture & fishing. Exploitable woods, mining and land for African Palm. Smuggling across Panamanian border. 1990s saw infiltration of ranching from Uraba, plus fish farming and coca.
 
Local armed actors in the region:
 Armed forces:   
 Paramilitaries: AUC entered region in 1996.  
Guerrillas: small but unchallenged presence until mid-1990s.                                             
Arrangements with L.A.A.s; Governed by complex set of reglamientos de conducta drawn up and agreed by all community members.
 
Significant events: 1997 ACIA successfully applied for single land title to 700K hectares of land communally owned by 119 Afro-Colombian communities.
 
Further comments: A region in which the local Afro-Colombian and indigenous population had, by the mid-1990’s, registered collective legal title to all land. Collective decisions required regarding use and sale of land. Struggle developed over d facto control over land, but legal ownership thus provided strong incentive for local population to stay on their land or to return if temporarily expelled. A similar association [OREWA] was set up for indigenous people in the region.
 
Contacts:  Web site -  http://www.cocomacia.org
 
 
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