Colombia: Magangue Peasants in Struggle
The peasants in Magangué, Bolívar department, have been fighting for land for decades. Almost half of their population is rural, but despite living in the countryside, most are landless or have very little land.
Nueva Democracia reports that the peasantry has organized into associations to demand lands, a struggle that has involved local peasants since the 1970s. Nueva Democracia explains that from the very beginning of this struggle “[the State and the big landlords] attacked the peasant movement by massacring, murdering, displacing, and dispossessing them again.” However, despite this, “as long as the living conditions of the peasantry do not change, as long as the peasant does not have land and is subjected to poverty by the big landlords, the struggle will arise within them time and again; they will organize to continue demanding and fighting for land for those who work it, until they conquer it.”
In Magangué, there has been a process of land reconcentration, with large areas left unproductive; at the same time, there are large masses of poor landless peasants. There are numerous examples of big landlords and their role in the area, such as Enilce López Romero, alias “La Gata,” who had considerable political influence, participated in the military control of the region, and supported military operations, including massacres against the people.
Despite the fact that Petro’s government has championed agrarian reform as one of its flagship measures, after three years in office, “thousands of peasants, despite having completed all the legal processes required for agrarian reform to receive land, remain landless, and the hopes placed in agrarian reform and the promise of land delivery made by Petro are beginning to fade. There is disillusionment and distrust regarding the implementation of agrarian reform in the territories, which has led them to pressure the government through direct action.”
The peasants organized in the National Association of Peasant Users – ANUC Magangué have exhausted all legal and institutional procedures and have mobilized. On June 3, they blocked an important road, National Route 78. They demand the presence of government officials to explain “what is happening with the land and to make agrarian reform a reality.” The roadblock lasted for three days, during which they received a promise of an institutional visit to provide explanations to the peasants, a promise that was not fulfilled.
The peasants regrouped their forces to block the roads again from June 24 to 28. During these days, there were several simultaneous blockades demanding land. On July 1, they managed to meet with the national government. Nevertheless, the blockades resumed that same day as the peasants “believe they must continue to pressure until there are concrete advances regarding the delivery of land.” Nueva Democracia concludes that “Today, as in the struggles of the ANUC in the 70s, direct action to realize agrarian reform is back on the agenda, given the exhaustion of institutional mechanisms.”
