The Land Returns · Episode 7 of 14 · 21 min
Colombia: Resguardos and a War's Stolen Land
Colombia asks whether a country can return land stolen during an armed conflict while that conflict still smolders. The episode examines resguardos, which are collective and inalienable Indigenous territories, and the 2011 Victims and Land Restitution Law. It covers Yaigoje Apaporis, a national park created at Indigenous request to block a mining title, and the gap between a strong legal framework and the danger faced by land defenders.
Where it happens
- Yaigoje Apaporis, Amazonas and Vaupes, Colombiaresguardo and national park of roughly one million hectares
- Colombian Amazonregion of the Yaigoje Apaporis resguardo
Timeline
- 1991Constitution makes resguardos inalienable, imprescriptible, and unseizable
- October 2009Yaigoje Apaporis declared a national park at Indigenous request
- 2011Law 1448 and Decree-Law 4633 enacted
- 2014Constitutional Court ruling T-384A upholds the park
- 2016government-FARC agreement includes an Ethnic Chapter
- 2024Global Witness records 48 land defenders killed in Colombia
Still debated
Courts and communities dispute whether prior consultation is a true veto or a duty to consult that the state can override. Whether restitution figures show a functioning process or one too slow for the scale of dispossession is also contested.