AFRO-COLOMBIAN REPORT FOCUSES ON DISPLACEMENT

UNCLAS BOGOTA 001427 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV KJUS CO SUBJECT: AFRO-COLOMBIAN REPORT FOCUSES ON DISPLACEMENT -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. AFRODES, an Afro-Colombian human rights group that focuses on displacement issues, released a report on April 4 focusing on exclusion of Afro-Colombians from GOC land development plans. AFRODES claimed the GOC has a "deliberate and planned strategy to drive the communities out of their ancestral territory." The presentation also focused on the needs of Afro-Colombian women as a vulnerable group that lacked government attention. AFRODES called for greater community participation in formulation of public policy on Afro-Colombian displacement issues. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- CLAIMS OF SYSTEMATIC EXCLUSION AT CENTER OF REPORT -------------- -------------- ¶2. On April 4, AFRODES, an Afro-Colombian human rights group that focuses on displacement issues, presented its report, "The Human Rights of Afro-Colombian Communities: Point and Counterpoint about Exclusion" to the diplomatic community, the Ministry of Interior and Justice (MOIJ),human rights groups, and members of the Afro-Colombian Congressional Caucus. AFRODES had previously given the report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The report focuses on what AFRODES called the systematic discrimination and exclusion of Afro-Colombians from GOC programs and developmental models. The report claimed Afro-Colombian displacement is not the by-product of drug-trafficking and the internal conflict, but reflects a "deliberate and planned strategy by both the State and various illegal armed groups to drive the communities out of their ancestral territories." ¶3. The report found that displacement in Afro-Colombian municipalities is on the rise, and that 90% of the 50 municipalities that have collective territories have displaced. AFRODES called for communities to be the subjects, as opposed to objects, of international cooperation, and urged the creation of collaborative mechanisms to allow communities to participate in the decision-making process. AFRODES also called for greater international and GOC support to develop the capacity of grass-roots organizations to work on developmental models, including establishing stronger links between such groups and the academic community. ¶4. AFRODES also reported that Afro-Colombian women suffer disproportionately from violence in their territories as well as rejection by receptor communities. Luz Marina Bacerra, a member of AFRODES' board of directors and a displaced Afro-Colombian, said Afro-Colombian women who are displaced suffer three types of discrimination: for being female, Afro-Colombian, and displaced. She said there is currently no GOC policy to provide a differentiated approach for displaced women. Global Rights who helped fund the AFRODES report, stated they would also fund a separate study on the situation of Afro-Colombian women. As an outcome of their recent studies of GOC policy, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are working with the GOC to develop differentiated but equitable attention to IDPs based on ethnicity, gender and age. BROWNFIELD