Ensayos de biocompatibilidad in vitro

O

ne pervasive effect of the paramilitary violence in the mining region of Cesar is the displacement of thousands of peasant families from their homes. This chapter clarifies the circumstances and aftermath of two emblematic cases of mass forced displacement for which the JAA Front –which allegedly received financial support from Drummond and Prodeco – is responsible and from which both mining companies have ultimately benefited.

These concern the cases of displacement of members of the rural communities of Mechoacán and El Prado in the municipality of La Jagua de Ibírico. In the ensuing years, the paramilitaries’ the fraudulent purchase of the victims’ lands by intermediaries and their subsequent sale to Drummond and Prodeco.

Displacement in Mechoacán (La Jagua de Ibírico, 1999–2004)

The rural hamlet of Mechoacán was still a large hacienda in 1990. It was adjacent to Drummond’s La Loma mining concession. In 1990, the partly undeveloped hacienda was occupied by a group of landless farmers. In August 1994, after years of occupation and negotiation, INCORA acquired the 4,700-hectare hacienda from the original owner and distributed it among 133 families. 240

INCORA issued their ownership papers some time later.

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PAX ! The Dark Side of Coal

heavily armed men sowed panic and fear among the local population. One of them, Aquiles de agitated about who they were going to murder or kidnap.” 241 _{The paramilitaries appeared to be}

well informed and set to work purposefully. Pompilio, a member of a displaced family, reported that his family’s farm had been visited by paramilitaries while he was away in Bogotá. “‘If your wife. On that day, there were farm labourers at our house, there were many people, and they their land on 23 January 1999 and temporarily sought refuge in Valledupar. 242

In his statement to the Registry of Displaced Persons (where victims denounce their displacement),

243 _{leading to}

them being driven from their land in 2000. “Together with my neighbour I had 20 cows, and the paramilitaries said I had to give them a couple. I said that the cows weren’t all mine, and that I couldn’t just give them away. My son told the paramilitaries that we didn’t have to give them any other way to pay them. I didn’t know what to do, so I sold my share of the cows to my neighbour to pay the paramilitaries. They came back to our house late at night and told us we had to leave the hamlet, but my son protested, saying: ‘We don’t have to do anything for anyone!’ At that point, the paramilitaries pushed my son’s face into the ground and interrogated him, and they said that they were going to kill him if they saw him again. My wife and I begged the paramilitaries to let our son go. In the end they did, but the paramilitaries gave us 12 hours to leave our land.” 244

who had been granted a plot in Mechoacán in the second half of the 1990s, 11 were already

245

neighbourhood committee was killed by paramilitaries on 2 August 2004. 246 _{In total, in the 1999–}

2004 period, at least 33 families from Mechoacán were displaced as a consequence of threats, violence, and murder. Seventeen of these families registered themselves as displaced, but others did so only later, if at all. 247

wanted to use the proceeds to build new lives for themselves elsewhere. The sales were private, which is to say without INCORA’s knowledge. 248 _{Because the transactions were made in haste,}

hectares, 249 _{the owner in many cases would receive only a fraction of the original price paid by}

INCORA. 250

After the threat, Pompilio’s family sought help from the then mayor of the municipality of La Pompilio, she said that otherwise they would be certain to be murdered. 251 _{The mayor then offered}

to buy their land. The plots of other threatened families in Mechoacán were also bought up by members of the local elite, in particular by municipal administrators and local businesspeople. 252

A number of those who bought up displaced families’ land reportedly worked for Drummond. Legally speaking, these persons should not have been able to buy this earmarked land, because not qualify for participation in INCORA’s agrarian reform programme. 253 _{In total, in Mechoacán,}

at least 12 plots of displaced families were transferred to members of the local elite. 254 _The

other plots were taken into possession by other families in the region. In some cases, the plots remained abandoned for some considerable time.

however, and before any land transfer could occur, the title deeds to the land had to be ‘legalized.’ with ties to the paramilitary, 255 _{in collaboration with a local land notary, applied various administrative}

tricks to achieve this aim, which frequently involved forgery of documents. 256 _{The Attorney-}

General’s CTI unit in Valledupar discovered at least 32 cases in Mechoacán of sales contracts with forged signatures, in three cases even of people who were already dead. 257 _{In this way, the}

original, displaced landowning families were now also legally removed from the Land Registry. 258

Drummond ultimately entered into a joint sale contract for all plots with all of the 131 (we cannot account for two of the original 133) Mechoacán landowners in November 2008, amongst which several families that were not among the original inhabitants. 259 _{In early 2010, when the Attorney-}

protection of the institution. 260 _{Of these 48 plots, 33 had belonged to displaced families. The}

protective measures came rather too late: Drummond’s preparations for mining operations in the area started as early as 2009. So, even though the land rights of these families were later

In document Desarrollo de biomateriales basados en estructuras tridimensionales porosas (página 87-90)