Don José has lived in the La Europa farm for twelve years and, despite the presence of various armed actors in the region, he and his family continue to work their land. Photo: Charlotte Kesl

In June 2011, the Sucre Chapter of the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) received five threats[1] with intimidating language, in which the authors threatened to kill four members of the organisation.

Getting to the La Europa farm is no easy task: it is even more difficult when the weather does not cooperate. One must follow a trail through more than five kilometres of thick undergrowth, through mud and over hills that leave one short of breath and with boots sunk deep in the mud. Nonetheless, for Don José[2], 67, it is a daily trip and not exhausting at all. After all, he has lived here since he was a child.

The sight of 1.600 hectares of lush, fertile farmland is well worth the effort of getting there. The farm is located in the municipality of Ovejas in a region known as Montes de María in Sucre department. It is not just the landscape that one appreciates, but also the welcoming people.

“Yuca, corn, yam… In this land whatever you grow, flourishes”, says Don José, while showing his extension of land before him that he works with his tool of choice: the machete. The small farming community wants to maintain their way of life, their crops, their sustenance and, above all, their dignity in working for truth and justice under the pressures and harassments of those who wish to usurp their land and their livelihood. As Don José says, “Before, we could sleep wherever we wished, but that is not longer the case. This cannot be.”

Members of MOVICE Sucre Chapter regularly make the trek to these beautiful hamlets. The work that the organisation of human rights defenders has carried out since 2006 consists of accompanying and providing legal counsel to small farming communities as part of their process of returning to the lands from which they were forcibly displaced, especially those pertaining to Montes de María.

There are plans to build a highway called “The Sun Route” through this geographically strategic area. The highway would cross the entire region from Valledupar to Bogotá.[3] Moreover, this is a place that is emblematic of the struggle of the small-scale farmer. In the 1990s, the fighting between the Army and the insurgency forcibly displaced many agricultural workers.[4]

Return and land restitution

In this area there have been two processes of return and land restitution in which MOVICE Sucre Chapter has played a very important role, despite the personal costs for its members.

The first is La Alemania farm in San Onofre (Sucre). The farm of 558 hectares was acquired in 1997 by 52 families of small-scale farmers who united to negotiate directly with the Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform (INCORA) within the framework of Law 160 of 1994—a law that created the National System of Agrarian Reform and Rural Development for small-scale farmers, which reformed INCORA. A year after moving to the land, paramilitaries commanded by Rodrigo Mercado Pelufo, alias ‘Chain’, threatened families of the Alemania Community Association. These paramilitaries were part of the Heroes of Montes de María Block of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC). Following the assassinations of several community leaders, the families fled and the paramilitaries took over the farm and turned it into one of their centres of operations. During 2008, several families attempted to return, but in May 2010 paramilitaries murdered Rogelio Martínez. They still have not been able to return to their farm.[5]

Rogelio Martínez was a leader and member of one of the 52 families that make up the Alemania Community Association. Julia, Rogelio’s wife, continues in the struggle for truth and justice, but to date there has not been any significant progress in Rogelio’s case.

The second process is La Europa farm, located in the municipality of Ovejas (Sucre). Here, local inhabitants, the majority small-scale farmers, have been engaged in a constant struggle to defend their land for more than 30 years.

In 1969 , the recently created Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA) presented a collective land title to the 113 families that inhabited La Europa farm.[6] Currently, 53 families live on the farm. These families were all displaced at different times and for different reasons, but now have all returned and are attempting to permanently remain on their land. Nonetheless, their return has not been easy. When they first began to return in 2006, they discovered that a person named Gabriel Jaime Vélez —known as “The Paisa”— had supposedly purchased some parts of the farm under the name of an association not registered before the Chamber of Commerce called “Don Juancho’s Arepas”.[7] According to the document that recorded the sale, this ‘business owner’ purchased a total of 12 hectares of land for 3 million pesos. Despite the signature on the contract, Don José insists, “we signed nothing.”

MOVICE has accompanied this process since 2010 at the invitation of the families of small-scale farmers, the true owners of the land who wish to return, and since then have actively participated in meetings with the Mayor of Ovejas, Antonio José García de la Rosa, and other department and local authorities with whom they attempt to work out agreements that not only permit their return, but also to protect what is legally theirs.

But MOVICE has also had problems with the Mayor of Ovejas. Ingrid Vergara, spokesperson for Sucre Chapter, has accused him of publicly stating that members of the organisation pertain to the guerrilla insurgency. “During a meeting with the Governor and the Consumers Association, we had to put up with him calling us guerrillas with all the risk that the word entails; because of that incident, we have already filed suit for slander and defamation.”

For now, the inhabitants of La Europa wait for the response to their request for a moratorium on land sales, so that other people, or the business owner Vélez, cannot acquire more land until the true landowners have been determined through a legal process. “When you run across these people, you lose your composure and calm,” confesses Don José, referring to “The Paisa”, the person attempting to take away their lands.

MOVICE directly connects the increased threats of the past few weeks with their accompaniment of the two processes of land restitution in the department. This accompaniment is being sponsored by the United Nations. As Ingrid Vergara says, “It seems as though we are doing a good job.”

The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights has recognised the risk that Ingrid faces as a result of her work as a human rights defender. She has been a beneficiary of precautionary measures since 8 November 2006, in addition to 17 other social leaders in Sucre department after they all appeared on an assassination hit list.[8]

Also among the beneficiaries of these measures are the Technical Secretary of MOVICE Sucre chapter, Carmelo Agámez Berrío, who is currently detained[9] and faces criminal charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, and the political spokesperson of MOVICE Sucre Chapter, Juan David Díaz, son of the assassinated former Mayor of El Roble Eudaldo Díaz Salgado, and who is currently in exile as a result of the repeated threats against he and his family.[10]

Ingrid Vergara is worried by recent events, despite the fact that she has a security detail provided by the Ministry of the Interior. She knows that her family, as well as the rest of her friends and colleagues who appear in the threats, could be attacked. However, although their situation is delicate, both the analysis and the position of MOVICE Sucre are clear. “It fills one with uncertainty to not know what the enemy looks like, but we know that it is the politicians allied with the paramilitaries who give the orders, and we have to continue to defend our friends,” affirms Pedro Geney, a member of the organisation.