Alternative Developments, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Uraba by Moritz Tenthoff
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Drug Policy Briefing Nr 27 Septiembre 2008 Alternative Developments, Economic Interests and Paramilitaries in Uraba By Moritz Tenthoff Recommendations The following document analyses how the Forest Warden Families Programme and the • Until there is a strict monitoring of the Productive Projects of the Presidential funds earmarked for Programmes in the Programme Against Illegal Crops in Colom- framework of the battle against drugs in bia have been used to legalise paramilitary Uraba, different international donors should structures and implement mega agro- impose a moratorium on the resources to the industrial projects in the Uraba Region. Colombian government. • Involved donors and international orga- The Uraba region is located in northeastern nisations should examine the practice of the Colombia on the border with Panama and is Presidency Programmes against Illegal Crops made up of 17 municipalities in the depart- in Uraba – Forest Warden Programmes and ment of Choco and Antioquia. In Antioquia, Productive Projects – from their origins as a the Uraba region extends toward the border requirement to continue the international aid with Panama, including the Gulf of Uraba that is earmarked for them. They should also into which the Atrato River flows. The region examine the ownership of the land where the includes the municipalities of Arboletes, San projects are developed and determine who Juan de Urabá, San Pedro de Urabá, Necoclí, are the true beneficiaries of the Programme. Turbo, Apartadó, Carepa, Chigorodó, Mutatá, Dabeiba, Murindó and Vigía del • Peasant farmers or communities linked to Fuerte. In Choco, the Uraba region is made these Programmes should not be obliged to up of the zone known as Lower Atrato, which collaborate with the public forces. This not includes the municipalities of Riosucio, only increases the situation of risk that these Unguía, Acandí, Carmen del Darién and up people are living through by converting them until 2007 Belén de Bajirá, which now forms into supporting actors in the conflict but also part of the Antioquia part of Uraba. represents an infraction of International Humanitarian Law. The area is known for its natural resources of minerals, oil, lumber as well as its water, • The Productive Projects they seek to fertile land, and extensive biodiversity. Uraba develop in the collective lands of indigenous also acts as the bridge between South Ameri- and Afro-Colombian peoples must be ca and Central America and has access to the consulted with them previously as stipulated Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and in Law 70 of the ILO 169 Agreement. When therefore offers unprecedented economic and there are denouncements about presumed strategic military opportunities. In the Natio- ties to the paramilitary movement, inter- nal Development Plan (NDP) of the national support should be frozen until there successive Uribe governments of 2002 and are control and follow-up mechanisms about 2006, Uraba has been considered a priority the use of these resources. zone. Transnational Institute | 1 In order to facilitate the exploitation and EL URABÁ: CRADLE OF THE AGRO- export of its diverse natural resources the INDUSTRIAL PARAMILITARY PROJECT NDP advocates the expansion of regional infrastructure. This includes river integration Paramilitary activity in general is a phenome- plans such as the Arquimedes Plan and the non that dates back a long way in Colombia’s Atrato-Truando inter-oceanic channel, an history. The common denominator of the international port in Turbo, the Panamerican contemporary paramilitary movement has Highway and an energy grid. been collaboration with the public forces, its connections to powerful economic groups in The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that the the region, its counter-insurgency discourse Colombian government is currently negotia- and the violence it has wielded against the ting with the United States, along with civilian population. approaches to the Asia-Pacific Economic Uraba in Antioquia is one of the cradles of Cooperation Forum (APEC) and negotiations the modern day paramilitary movement. In in the framework of the Andean Community 1996, the so-called Peasant Farmer Self- of Nations (CAN) with the European Union, Defence Patrols of Cordoba and Uraba recognise the strategic role that Uraba plays (ACCU, for its initials in Spanish) under the in Colombia's economic liberalisation. command of Carlos Castaño and in open In this context, the Colombian government is collaboration with the Colombian army1 pushing agro-industrial development and an entered Uraba in Antioquia giving rise to infrastructure that fails to take into consi- what was known as the “pacification” of deration the characteristics of the zone's Uraba. Municipal leadership was brought ecosystem. It seeks to take advantage, for under its control at the cost of dozens of example, of the fertile zone of Uraba, which massacres of the civilian and peasant-farmer still shelters hundreds of thousands of population, forced displacements and the hectares of tropical jungle, for the develop- political killings of councillors, mayors and ment of agro-industries such as teakwood, member of left-wing political parties. rubber, cacao, palm oil, bananas and exten- The expansion of the paramilitary project sive cattle farming. took on strength with the formation of the Since the 1980s, Uraba has also been one of Colombian Self-Defence Units (AUC, for its the main maritime ports for the illegal initials in Spanish) in 1997. From that date up exportation of drugs and the illegal import of to today, paramilitary control extended arms and chemical supplies, used in drug throughout nearly all of Uraba, above all in trafficking. Money from drug trafficking and the agro-industrial banana, palm oil and contraband has been laundered and invested lumber zones and in tourism areas, with in the area in profitable sectors such as agro- some presence of insurgents in the more industry, ranching and tourism. Uraba went isolated parts of the mountains and jungle. from being a marginal and scarcely populated National and international companies like zone to a place that brought together land Chiquita and Coca Cola, along with lumber, settlers, multinational companies and armed palm and ranching companies have taken groups. advantage of the military power of the AUC Social organisations, unions and left wing in Uraba in order to defend and promote parties on the one hand and diverse insurgent their economic interests in the zone. Several groups on the other constituted an obstacle of these companies are now facing criminal for the economic interests of the ranching processes, accused of having ties to 2 sector and land-holders, groups of drug paramilitary groups. traffickers and the State itself. Since the In the Tulapa zone, which forms part of the 1990s, the convergence of interests among municipalities of Necocli and Turbo “the this final group has lead to the creation and undeniable fact has been confirmed that there support for paramilitary groups in the zone. was a group of people who organised the Self- defence patrols… [who] as a result removed 2 | Transnational Institute the owners of the land and the animals, who TOWARD THE LEGITIMISATION OF THE did not belong to the emerging organisation. PARAMILITARY MOVEMENT The organisers kept the land of the dispos- sessed as war trophies [...] therefore it is In 2002, shortly after the first government of established that there was a group of people Alvaro Uribe was installed, several com- who, through prior agreement, organized the manders from the AUC, including Vicente AUCC and the AUC, who in their thirst for Castaño and Salvatore Mancuso publicly wealth used the criminal method of forced declared that they controlled 35 per cent of displacement of the population, as the main the National Parliament, while the political, form of attack and accumulation of wealth… social and economic control of some regions This type of offence is known as collusion for such as the Atlantic Coast and the Uraba aggravated crime, which has led to endless zone was 100 per cent. In this context of deaths, as well as the countless displacement paramilitary dominion, the AUC unilaterally of the population, caused, particularly decreed a cease-fire in December 2002 in between 1994-1997, in the Tulapa region.”3 order to begin negotiating a possible military demobilisation. One of the motors of the paramilitary move- The demobilisation process brokered ment in the country has been access to and between the government and the AUC ended control over large tracts of land. In the armed at the end of 2005 when the Uribe govern- conflict of the past six decades there are no ment declared the end of the paramilitary exact figures about the total amount of land groups. However, between the alleged cease- that has been accumulated through violence. fires in 2002 to the beginning of 2006, the However, according to the Attorney General, same paramilitary groups murdered an paramilitary forces were responsible for average 600 people per year.7 Several Colom- stealing 7 million hectares as of 1997.4 In bian human rights organisations denounced order to do this, in the past 10 years alone, in 2007 the existence of 87 “new” paramili- close to 4 million people have been forcibly tary groups, including “Aguilas Negras” removed from their land.5 (Black Eagles) as the group is known that It is difficult to find exact figures in terms of operates in Uraba.8 expropriation of land in Uraba. In the zone At the same time, the process to integrate the known as Tulapa, which includes 32 districts AUC into society has been accompanied by from the municipalities of Turbo and Necocli an open intensification of military actions on “the total amount of stolen land is ...17,000 the part of public forces. There has been an hectares and 2,640 hectares… I think that the increase in large-scale detentions. According owners (of investments Tulipa) are Mr.