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The 10th of December is International Human Rights’ Day and, ironically, coincides with the displacement of our partner organization, ASOTRACAMPO, violently displaced from their lands one year ago today.

One year after the displacement, ASOTRACAMPO remains in conditions of total abandonment.

The past 10th of December, ironically on International Human Rights Day, our volunteers accompanied the members of ASOTRACAMPO in the displacement of the Humanitarian Space El Mirador, the only space remaining from the El Tamarindo settlement in Barranquilla.

Despite the untiring struggle of the members and the political accompaniment carried out by FOR Peace Presence and others, 62 families that make up ASOTRACAMPO continue to remain, one year later, in conditions of extreme vulnerability, completely forgotten by the state.

The only offers of compensation have been made by private individuals claiming the land, interested in the value acquired after it was declared part of the International Free Trade Area of the Atlantic Department.

These families, vulnerable farmers displaced by violence and victims of the armed conflict, have not received even the slightest attention from Colombian State institutions, while the State seeks to construct peace in Colombia following a signed agreement with the FARC.

For members of ASOTRACAMPO, peace in Colombia will be built when effective restitution for victims can be provided and guarantees against repetition can be assured; these cannot compete with economic interests.

Please support members of ASOTRACAMPO in their struggle for dignity by signing this letter of concern directed at Colombian State entities by the 10th January 2017.

Juan Manuel Santos, President of the Republic

Paula Gaviria, Presidential Office for Human Rights (Consejera Presidencial para los Derechos Humanos)

Miguel Samper, National Land Agency Director, (Director Agencia Nacional de Tierras)

Alan Jara, Director of the Unity for Attention and Integral Reparation for the Victims (Director de la Unidad para la Atención y Reparación Integral a las Víctimas)

Carlos Alfonso Negret Mosquera, National Ombudsman (Defensor Nacional del Pueblo)

Juan Fernando Cristo, Ministry of the Interior

10th January, 2017

Concern regarding state abandonment of ASOTRACAMPO, El Tamarindo, Barranquilla, one year after their displacement.

Dear Sirs and Madam,

Through this letter we would like to express our profound concern for the lack of State attention for the members of ASOTRACAMPO, Association of Land Workers (Asociación de los Trabajadores del Campo), one year after the displacement of the last remaining plots of the El Tamarindo settlement, the Humanitarian Space El Mirador, which occurred on the 9th, 10th, 18th, and 23rd of December 2015. No State institutions have assumed responsibility for this case and, to date, State entities responsible (UARIV, National Land Agency [Agencia Nacional de Tierras], and the Presidential Office for Human Rights [Consejería para los Derecho Humanos]) have not acted effectively, exposing 62 member families of ASOTRACAMPO to conditions of complete vulnerability. Neither the meeting carried out on the initiative of ASOTRACAMPO with the UARIV, INCODER, and the Ministry of Agriculture in May 2016, nor a subsequent meeting with the UARIV in Barranquilla in October 2016, have resulted in any concrete guarantees of protection and dignified living space for the families of ASOTRACAMPO.

Formed in 2012 by the population residing in the 120 hectares of the El Tamarindo settlement in Barranquilla, ASOTRACAMPO was formed with the collective purpose of subsistence farming. However, since 2000, they have faced several eviction proceedings, threats (pamphlets and intimidation, amongst other tactics), attacks, the assassination of the vice-president of the settlement’s son, and four displacements (2012, 2013, 2014, and the most recent in December 2015). Economic interest in the zone has increased since 2007 with the creation of the International Free Trade Area of the Atlantic Department and the Ruta del Sol highway project began between Barranquilla and Cartagena. El Tamarindo was nominated by Amnesty International as an emblematic case noted in their November 2014 Report “A property title isn’t enough: for a Sustainable Restitution of Land in Colombia”.

 
In times of transition towards a lasting peace, we find it incongruent that the victims of multiple displacements from the armed conflict, and farmers in vulnerable conditions due to structural causes of the conflict with inequitable land distribution, have again become victims of displacement due to economic interests, with no guarantee of protection of their basic rights from the state at all levels. The only land grant was issued for private individuals (10 hectares in the municipality of Luruaco, Bolívar), after the displacement in December 2015.

Therefore, we urge:

 
That the President assure coherence between the politics of economic investment and the restitution of victims and the guarantees of no-repetition, preventing and avoiding a surge of new victims of displacement due to economic interests.

That the Presidential Office for Human Rights and the Ministry of Interior to effectively and immediately assume their role as intermediaries between institutions to guarantee attention, as much for the victims as for vulnerable farming families.

That the UARIV to treat the case as a priority, as promised by Paula Gaviria in her directorship of the UARIV, resolving the situation of reparation for each of the victim member of ASOTRACAMPO, and taking into account the proposal for collective relocation.

That the National Land Agency, in close collaboration with the UARIV, to adjudicate a terrain with sufficient plots for families from ASOTRACAMPO which correspond to the needs of the farming families for their subsistence.

That the Ombudsman, to watch over and supervise the protection for the rights of the population in a dignified and effective relocation.

We look forward to your support and response,

Sincerely,

[Signatures]