Over 100,000 acres illegally acquired in northwest Colombia

Source: Colombia Reports

Over 100,000 acres illegally acquired in northwest Colombia
Friday, 26 August 2011 06:18
Travis Mannon

More than 100,000 acres of land has been acquired through illicit means in the northwest region of Uraba, President Juan Manuel Santos announced Thursday.

According to the president, the Notary and Registry Superintendency conducted a study on 70% of the land in the region and determined that 103,265 acres of land, representing 1,400 properties, was acquired through "the falsification of documents, mass sales to corporations, pressured sales, impersonation of people, and the presentation of false powers, among others."

Santos pointed to notaries, registrys, several agricultural institutions such as the Agrarian Reform Institute (INCOR), and even mayors. He explained that most of the time large companies are acquiring large amounts of land illegally.

"A tremendous irregularity was found in the Livestock Fund of Cordoba, that they took a lot of land. It is the corporation that more land has been bought in the Uraba region by incorrect means such as pressure to bestow power, the registration of false powers, and granting powers to a single person," Santos explained.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18572-over-100000-acres-illegally-acquired-in-northwest-colombia.html

That deserves attention.

It has been a practise for a very long time for the gov't allied paramilitaries (death squads) to approach the owners and offer to buy the property for a couple of pesos, then, if the owner declines, to tell him it's o.k., they'll take up the matter again, but with his widow.

By threats, and sometimes outright murders, or simply scaring the people away from their own land, sometimes where their ancestors lived, displacing them, making them homeless, so they have to migrate to the cities to try to find shelter and employment, the paras take over the land, sometimes selling it to large corporations for either mining, or farming, or the new palm oil plantations.

In the last few years, it was discovered the former President Alvaro Uribe's own cousin, Mario Uribe Escobar had been doing business with these narcotrafficking paramilitaries, and buying large tracts of land himself for personal use and enrichment. It's an old pattern.

Banana plantations have also acquired land through illegal means, just like the palm plantations, and the mining companies, etc.

Once they own the businesses on the land they also employee the death squads to terrorize workers in order to keep docile, afraid to organize for better working conditions, and less exploitive salaries.

Colombia DOES have the largest displaced population in the entire world, AHEAD of Sudan.

Drug traffickers in general, whether or not they happen to be pro-government or simply seeking their own benefit at any given time, and other local interests such as politicians and ranchers have also been involved in either outright stealing land by force or pushing its original owners to sell at low prices. As you posted elsewhere, there are officials and state agents who have supported this horrific process, yes, but others haven't. Incidentally, this wouldn't even be making the headlines today if the entire government was fine with the current state of affairs. Even if the intentions behind this revelation aren't entirely selfless, the likes of Uribe and his dear friends would prefer to ignore the topic altogether instead.

At the same time, you also have a fair share of land that initially dropped in price due to violence in general and even guerrilla activity, often ironically ending up in the hands of the same sort of people we have previously described, regardless of their being directly or indirectly responsible for forcing peasant communities off their territories. Naturally though, these thugs tend to resort to intimidation and threats to keep the land anyway, no matter how they earned it, so the distinction might seem mostly academic once you put things into perspective and look at the millions of hectares that have been affected.

:sarcasm:

Saw it as their shelter, their livelihood, their world.

People stealing it see it as another means to more wealth.

Continues to do a great job!

Officials colluded in Uraba land theft: Investigator
Friday, 26 August 2011 13:26
James Bargent

The Superintendent of the Notary and Registry has claimed there was widespread official collusion in the illegal acquisition of over 100,000 acres of land in Uraba.

Jorge Enrique Velez told La FM the majority of the land passed into the hands of the Livestock Fund of Cordoba with the help of public officials and local mayors.

The investigation revealed officials allegedly forced the owners of the land to sign away their rights. According to Velez, a three month investigation into the illegal land acquisition implicated at least 15 public officials.

"In Uraba we found impersonations, false documents and every trick there is to appropriate land,” Velez said.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18588-officials-colluded-in-uraba-land-theft-investigator.html