Curvarado

                                  Local Zones of Peace: General Survey and Map.

                                                              Curvarado

                                                                    

Official Title: The Curvarado Humanitarian and Biodiversity Zone;  

   Humanitarian  zones of Cano Manso, Argenito Diaz, Andalucia, Apartadocito, Camelias, Caracoli

Departamento: Choco  [nearest  municipal center is Carmen del Darien.]

Region: The Bajo Atrato region of Uraba.

 

Population:

Location:

Ethnic mix: Mainly Afro-Colombian

IDP population: Most of the communities consist of people who have been displaced several times but have returned to try to reclaim their communally owned  ancestral territories.

Date of establishment: The first of the humanitarian zones was estab;lished at CanoClaro in March 2006 when about 100 former residents of the region returned to land previously farmed by Don Petro and then under palm oil cultivation

Traditional political affiliation:

Trigger event[s]: As with the neighboring communities of Jiguamiando, La Balsita de Dabieba and CAVIDAD in Cacarica, those from the  Curvarado river basin  were originally displaced by ‘Operation Genesis’ and ‘Black September’ carried out in 1996-7  by the Colombian army’s  4^th and 17^th Brigades, together with paramilitaries of the AUC. In these operations, which included aerial bombardment and invasion by paramilitaries, over 140 people were killed.

 

Persons/organisations involved in establishment:

Leadership:

 

Supporters: Comision de Justicia y Paz; Witness for Peace; Peace Brigades International – all have accompaniers within the communities.

     The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued a provisional judgement that the communities have to be provided protection by the Colombian Government and security forces.

 

Declared objectives:

 

Relations with local government bodies:

 Mayor’s office:

 

Governor’s office:

 

Memberships of regional organisations:

 

Organisational structure: Each community has its own “Community Council” and overall there should also be a regional council for Curvarado, but there have been  disputes about who is qualified to vote for Council members.

 Community meetings:

 Decision making bodies; Article 4 of  Colombian Law 70 (1993) gives Community Councils the right to receive and occupy collectively its ancestral territory  and  to “…watch over the conservation and protection of the rights of collective property , the preservation of cultural identity , the use and conservation of natural resources…”

Functional committees.

 

Valued goods produced in region: Afro-Colombian communities in the region have traditionally practiced subsistence farming.

      However, from 1996 onwards, international [Chiqita Bananas, Banadex/Banacol] and national companies have expanded plantations in the region, often illegally and through paramilitary violence onto appropriated  land on which they have helped to settle displaced mestizos and former paramilitaries, following President Uribe’s policy of demobilizing the AUC and other para formations.

     More recently, African palm oil companies [for example, Urapalma SA,  Palmas de Atrato, and Palmas de Atrato]  have established large scale plantations in the region, often on land formally and collectively owned by Afro-Colombian communities from which the latter have been driven by paramilitary threats and violence. [By 2008 over 4500 hectares in the Curvarado basin were under palm oil cultivation.]

     The whole region is witnessing a struggle between indigenous communities trying to make effective legal rights and  judgments awarding them title to the land, and agro-industrial  companies seeking to retain control over land previously seized and used for growing commercial cash crops.  The struggle has involved much - one sided - violence and the murder of community leaders  [e.g. Walberto Hoyos of Cano Manso in October 2008; Manuel & Samir de Jesus Ruiz of Apartadocito in March 2012] .

 

Local armed actors in the region:

 Armed forces:  4^th and 17^th Brigades of the Colombian Army. There are rumours that in the late 1990’s and the early 2000s,  some members of the army operated a “dual shift” systems, becoming covert para-militaries at night.

  Paramilitaries:  Up to 2004 the region was dominated by the “Bloque Elmer Cardenas”  but after the “demobilization” this domination was replaced by that of the “Black Eagles”.

 

  Guerrillas:                                              

                    

Arrangements with L.A.A.s

 

 

Significant events:

 

 

 

Further comments:

The Colombian Government has recognized that 86,000 hectares of land in the Curvarado basin has to be returned to its original owners. BY 2008 1,200 hectares had actually been handed back.

 

 

 

Contact details:

 

Last Updated: September 2012.