Colombia: Expropriate the expropriators
Featured Image:Revista Semana
We publish an unofficial translation of an article published on the Colombian news-site Nueva Democracia. This article was published some time ago but we believe it would be interesting for our readers because of the land situation in Colombia.
The subject of expropriation has been a constant since Gustavo Petro have been campaigning. Some representatives of the big bourgeois and the big landlords, agents of imperialism in our country, all the time provoke an uproar over the possibility of seeing their assets and wealth minimally cut. The current opportunist government constantly tries to remove this fear through declarations and compromises, such as the well-known agreement reached in Notary Office 17, where the then candidates for president and vice-president of Colombia committed themselves to non-expropriation.
The most recent facts regarding this polemic has been presented with the approval of the modification of Article 55 (that was named Article 61 in the presentation) of the National Development Plan, the following paragraph being the most thorny of the current conflict:
“In those cases in which the owners do not proceed with the sale, the ANT (National Agency of Land) will advance the analysis of the economical exploitation of the property, requiring the owner for a single time, to proceed with the disposal of those areas that are not under economic use and that exceed the extension of the UAF (Family Agricultural Unit). When the owner does not agree to the sale, the ANT will apply the procedures where appropriate.”
Some sectors of the ruling classes have once again raised their shrieks, suggesting that this will allow for the “express expropriation” of their properties.
Traditionally, there are struggles between the ruling classes. In addition, the current situation characterized, among other things, by the crisis of bureaucratic capitalism that looms over our country and the strong crisis of governability that saw its most explicit expression in the great popular uprising of 2021, subjects these classes to a more complex panorama, where the traditional struggles sharpen.
Which path to take in order to load the crisis on the shoulders of the people while suppressing popular protest and organization that wants to get out of the limits imposed by this State? To give or not to give concessions to the people in order not to lose their positions of power? Which factions will benefit the least from the chosen path? These are some of the dilemmas facing the different factions of the ruling classes, and what has become known as “express expropriation” is no more than another symptom of this struggle.
In the following, we will present some elements to contribute to the analysis of this situation from the point of view of the people:
In Colombia, the structure of land tenure shows that there are 9500 large landlords owning 47 million hectares against 1.8 million small landowners owning only 5.5 million hectares. There are hundreds of thousands of peasants who do not have even a small portion of land to cultivate. This means that a minority of landowners, among which are the rich and large economic groups of our country, own the vast majority of the land, while the overwhelming majority of peasants own only a small percentage of the land.
We can look for the origins of this configuration of the agrarian structure in the conquest and the colony, a historical, military and political process that violently and through dispossession established the large estates in our country. Since this epoch this form of property has deepened through the appropriation of land by the landlords. In the first periods of the republic, for example, since the power structure stimulated that the peasants colonized territories to make it suitable for their use. When they had already invested their work in clearing the land, it was usual that neighboring landlords appropriated it, dispossessing the peasants of their land. Indigenous and peasants facing this situation were subjugated to displacement and/or servitude. These practices continue today in a deeper way. The tendency of concentration of the land and dispossession that the peasants are subjected to, are some of the barriers that mark the impossibility of developing the countryside in Colombia.
There are several ways in which the dispossession of land by the big economic powers have been executed in the most recent history. But the main way has been through violence. The most relevant example in this regard is the paramilitary structures in full collusion with the State and with the political and economical powers of the country.
The landlords, from the lower to the upper strata, implemented this modus operandi in the middle of the anti-subversive war developed by Yankee Imperialism and the Colombian State to try to annihilate any revolutionary possibility in our country and to annihilate the combative spirit of the peasants that struggle under the desire of land to those who work on it.
The examples that give account to these facts are many. We have the case of the Bellacruz farm:
“The construction of this farm (…) that became one of the largest in the country, was realized through the expulsion of the legitimate owners of the land: peasant families that had colonized it many years before. Later, after the start of a legal struggle for the recuperation of their land and at a time when they had all the arguments in their favor in front of the court, the Marulanda family, the owners of the farm, hired a paramilitary group that through committing serious human rights violations, including more that 40 murders, forces around 600 families to be displaced and abandon their land in the year 1996 (…) Carlos Arturo Marulanda was both the ambassador of Colombia to the European Union and in charge of the Bellacruz farm together with his brother Francisco Marulanda, who is said to be personally the commander of the ultra-right paramilitary group that committed the murders, disappearances and harassment that forced the families to be displaced.
(…) at the end of the eighties, the Marulanda family succeeded in getting the state to, instead of expropriating the land that belonged to the nation, buy it to give it to the peasants. Moreover, with violent dispossession and displacement, the Marulanda family kept both the money paid to them by the state as well as the land, a very profitable business”.
This is not an isolated case, on the contrary, it is a emblematic case that shows the way that the economic, political and military powers (both state and paramilitary) operated in to impose the land dispossession on the peasantry. The large regional farms were the headquarters for meetings, coordination, parties, and training of the paramilitary groups. The big landlords paid extra salaries for entire police squads to protect their lands, lands that in many cases, according to the peasants, were snatched from the families who lived there. That is, the police operated as the private army of the land dispossessors.
Of course, they have also made use of the legal ways that the State itself has at its service. The mega-projects of different kinds have been sheltered in the figure of general interests to displace sectors of the population and occupy their lands. Such is the case in the example of Hidroituango, where the land necessary for the execution of the mega-project was declared to be of public utility and social interest through Resolution 317 of the 26th of August, 2008. As a consequence, hundreds of families in the areas of influence were displaced from their territories.
The foundation Forjando Futuros (Forging Futures), which in 2020 delivered a report to the truth commission after reviewing more than 5000 sentences from the land restitution information system, proved that in addition to the traditional landowners who have little territorial reach, large companies such as Agros, Uniban, Banacol, Bananeras del Urabá (the latter associated with Augura), which are partners in the construction of the port in Urabá, as well as imperialist companies such as Anglo Gold Ashanti, Continental Gold and including Ecopetrol, are also involved in these. As if this was not enough, Banco Agrario, the BBVA, and Davivienda (which absorbed the agrarian bank, the cattle bank and the coffee bank), also had their share.
As we can see, they systematically use all possible mechanisms to dispossess the peasants. The paramilitaries in collusion with the armed forces of the State produced forced displacement of the peasantry, the large companies (national and multi-national) and the landlords, with direct participation in the events, or at least with full knowledge of the situation, bough the land at ridiculous prices or invaded it, while the banks mortgaged the lands and became opponents of the peasants that claim it today. In fact, more than 60 companies, including, multi-national, agro-industry and banks, have been ordered to return the land. In spite of this, today the dispossessed land is still in the hands of these companies and the landlords that appropriated them.
It is worthwhile in this article, in addition to the mentioned facts, to raise the position of José Félix Lafaurie and the role of FEDEGAN (National Federation of Cattle Ranchers) in the process of land dispossession. This is because both Lafaurie and FEDEGAN have been among the voices that have resonated most in the media denouncing their fear of “express expropriation”.
We mainly talk about Jorge Visbal Martelo, who was the president of FEDEGAN and also ambassador to Canada, ambassador to Peru and a senator. Visbal was sentenced to prison for financing and promoting the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The declarations of the former paramilitary bosses state that this character had an ideological affinity with the AUC, provided direct advice to the leaders of the group and constantly stayed in their camps for long periods of time. He participated in the planning of massacres, forced displacement and land dispossession. There is one testimony that especially call attention and that is that of Don Berna (paramilitary boss), that stated that Visbal belonged to the “Group of Twelve”, made up of military men, businessmen and politicians. According to these testimonies and the ones of Carlos Castaño himself, he went to the “Group of Twelve” – as if it was an advisory counsel – before any important decision.
For his part, Lafaurie is today accused by Benito Osorio, who in 1996 was the manager of the Córdoba Rancher Fund, an organization involved in land dispossession of approximately 200 thousand peasants of Urabá by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, as well as by Salvatores Mancuso, boss of the AUC, of having close ties to the group. Additionally, he had to accept in 2006 that members of FEDEGAN had financed paramilitary groups. As if this was not enough, faced with the last wave of land seizures by the peasantry in the country, Lafaurie proposed the “groups of solidaric reaction”, to protect the land that they themselves had disposed the peasantry of. Old tactics (very well known and executed by him and his association), new name.
It is estimated that paramilitary groups are connected to more than 84% of the cases of dispossession. UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), shows that more than four million people were displaced, at least six million hectares of land were abandoned or dispossessed and between 1980 and 2010 the income the dispossessed people would have received was 59,8 trillion pesos.
Through these elements we want to show how the classes of the big bourgeoisie and big landlords, in service of imperialism, acted systematically to achieve their purposes of maintaining the large estate structure of the land, the control of the country and of its people, waging a war against the people to eradicate their revolutionary spirit. They combined all the means they deemed necessary for this purpose, both those within their legality (laws, armed forces) and those that are outside of it (paramilitary). With this, these classes, dispossessed the peasantry of its land, deepened its concentration. Those who today say they fear that their land will be expropriated, are those who picking up the despicable legacy of the ruling classes of the past and perfecting its forms, have expropriated the peasantry that yesterday and today struggle for a piece of land to work.
What is the response of the opportunist government of Gustavo Petro to this? As has been usual in his actions, despite knowing the reality of our country, the character of those who today complain about a possible expropriation and despite giving high-sounding speeches on balconies and in the streets, what he proposes is conciliation with those that have expropriated the people with blood and fire.
The accusations that they make about the possibility of expropriation are far from reality. In the end the most “serous” thing that could happen is that the current president, with riches that is in the hands of the State, but are produced by the working people, buys a few hectares of land from those who have expropriated the peasantry with blood and fire. That is the same formula that those who claim the land of the Bellacruz farm denounce. If this was not enough, Petro is also offering loans to the landlords to make their farms more productive, that is, to turn them from unproductive large estates to productive large estates: “less land, more cows, more productive”. Although when the peasantry seize land, as demonstrated in August, he does not hesitate to send the UNDMO (ESMAD), to evict them, protecting the property of the landlords.
If this is the situation, who is there so much alarm from the media? It is, as we have said, a struggle between the ruling classes and their visions which are strongly linked to who can make the most of the situation, economically and politically.
The solutions that Petro proposes to the problem of the countryside, would not modify the structure of land ownership significantly not even if it is fulfilled in its totality, since he in his framework considers the large estates as something good as long as they are productive.
Here it is key to understand that contrary to what Petro states that “the real problem is the unproductive large estates”, the problem of backwardness in our country and the poverty of the peasantry, of which the large majority does not have land to work, is the existence of the large estates – both productive and unproductive- and the imperialist domination that uses and evolves this structure of landownership to impose their economic projects, introducing their companies and extract the maximum profit from our nations by violently subjecting the peasantry, precisely though the big landlords that are happy agents of imperialism.
Where there exists productive large estates and peasantry with little or no land (which is in part the model that the current president proposes), there exists no freedom for the peasantry, but subjugation of prices and products. In one way or another, the peasantry remain tied to the ruling classes.
To give an example, let’s take the coffee: more than 80% of national coffee crop is destined for foreign trade. Coffee growers with less than 5 hectares produce 96% of the coffee exported by the National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC). The price at which they sell their products is of course not set by them. The members of the federation, have to contribute money to the FNC, for loans, purchase guarantees (often bellow the production price) and technical assistance. The small coffee growers, with only small plots of land, have not other option than entering in the the productive paths imposed by those who control the majority of the productive land. In this case, the FNC profits at the expense of small coffee growers , with almost no risk. The same is the case with the coca growers, the large sugarcane growers, the large palm growers, etc.
Actually, an agrarian reform that in Gustavo Petro’s own words, is supported by the International Monetary Found and the President of Yankee imperialism, Joe Biden, can not bee a reform that benefits the people of our country. The interests of the people and the interests of imperialism are antagonistic.
José Carlos Mariátegui’s approach for Peru is relevant here and is applicable to Colombia: “The agrarian problem is first and foremost the problem of eliminating feudalism (…) There are two expressions of feudalism that survive: the latifundium and servitude. Inseparable and of the same substance, their analysis leads us to the conclusion that the servitude (…) cannot be abolished unless the latifundium is abolished.”
In conclusion, if we approach the problem from the point of view of the people, we can only say that the path that the peasantry and the Colombian people must follow to transform their reality is not that of paying for the land that the landlords dispossessed them of, nor that of making the unproductive large estates productive to evolve feudalism, but it is that which is already outlined by Karl Marx with his call to: “Expropriate the expropriators”. The peasants must continue taking the land from the landlords, as hundreds of families are currently doing in places like Cauca, César, Bolívar, Sucre, Antioquía, among many other areas of the country. What is more, it is necessary to raise little by little the popular organization to develop an Agrarian Revolution that definitively destroys the large estates.
