ACCESS TO LAND AS A MEASURE FOR THE COMPREHENSIVE REPARATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES VICTIMS OF THE ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA: THE CASE OF THE YUPKA PEOPLE IN CESAR, COLOMBIA" EDWIN NOVOA ALVAREZ Land and Rural Development Program - USAID, Bogota, Colombia
[email protected] Paper prepared for the “2017 WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY” The World Bank - Washington DC, March 20-24, 2017 Copyright 2017 by author(s). All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. Summary The internal armed conflict in Colombia has not just perpetuated the land problems experienced by indigenous people; it has also resulted in serious consequences with regard to their ability to survive, by putting their culture, environment and identity at risk, which are specific to each indigenous people. Thus, these violations of their fundamental rights have had severe implications for the collective land rights of each of these peoples. The Serranía del Perijá mountain range is located in the northern area of Colombia, in the border with Venezuela. The Yukpa people, victims of the internal armed conflict, have traditionally inhabited this area. The Land Restitution Unit (LRU) of Colombia initially conducted three characterization/ diagnostic studies on land and ethnic rights. In 2016, USAID's Land and Rural Development Program (LRDP) supported three additional studies and issued a series of recommendations on how to improve the methodology. These three studies included all of the Yukpa community, which became the first indigenous people to complete the administrative phase of the restitution process.