The Sikuani and Piapoco peoples recovered their ancestral territory Florida Kawananae, located between the municipalities of Puerto Gaitán, Meta and Cumaribo, Vichada.
This obeys the ruling issued by the Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bogotá, Specialized Chamber for Land Restitution, in which it restores the territorial rights of this semi-nomadic community over a total of 16,035 hectares and 250 square meters.
The decision responds to the work led by the Land Restitution Unit by demonstrating that the community over the course of four decades has suffered all kinds of violations of their fundamental rights, losing, in addition to their territory, their culture, cosmogony, and traditions. The Sikuani and Piapoco, before this ruling, seemed like a people doomed to extermination.
The sentence recognizes the status of victim of the Sikuani and Piapoco Indigenous Partiality of Florida Kawinanae, for the facts, situations, violations and affronts suffered such as: displacement, confinement (as a form of abandonment and/or forced dispossession of lands) in the framework of the internal armed conflict.
According to the investigation carried out by the Land Restitution Unit, the extinct INCORA, in 1968, reserved the region known as Planas, in the departments of Meta and Vichada as an exclusive zone for the occupation of indigenous communities and with this declaration the reservations were established. Awaliba, Domoplanas and Iwiwi. A process that was favorable for the communities in question, but that excluded the Sikuani and Piapoco communities of Florida Kawinanae, as a result of this decision, part of the territory was formalized to non-indigenous communities between the years of 1984 and 2011.
Over the years, the interest in land and territorial control promoted the forced disappearance of representative leaders for the indigenous communities of the area, forced displacement and the origin of the phenomenon of confinement of the Sikuani and Piapoco community.
Subsequently, in 1970, the State promoted the exploitation of hydrocarbons that affected the access of the communities to the water sources and simultaneously began the expansion of crops for illicit use in the area, aspects that generated the colonization of the area by actors illegal armed groups, at that time the Eastern Bloc of the Farc-EP, Front 16.
The enormous natural wealth of the Sikuani and Piapoco lands made legal and illegal interests seek control of this territory in which laboratories for coca processing proliferated, clandestine landing strips were built for use by illegal economies. In addition, various sectors of the territory were designated as mass graves.
The victimizing acts intensified in 1980 with the rise of drug trafficking and the purchase of land by emerald growers. This situation became more difficult for the inhabitants of the area with the arrival of the self-defense groups.
The way in which the Sikuani and Piapoco community was displaced from their territory caused it to be occupied by a non-ethnic community and the way in which they proceeded to acquire the territory led the Superior Court of Bogotá to not recognize good faith without fault in four cases. In addition, it determined the absolute nullity of the adjudication resolutions in four other cases and declared the inexistence of written agreements that transferred real rights to the land in five cases. Finally, it ordered the immediate closure of registration pages in six other cases.
The orders also establish the opening of a new real estate registration page in favor of the Reservation of the Sikuani and Piapoco Indigenous Partiality of Florida Kawinanae. For its part, the National Land Agency and the Ministry of the Interior, through its Directorate of Indigenous Affairs, must immediately establish the safeguard with the due population census, identifying the traditional authorities and, in parallel, installing demarcation plates of the territory.
For its part, the Land Restitution Unit will have to advance the material delivery of the restituted territory in a joint effort with the National Ombudsman and the accompaniment of the Military and Police Forces of the departments of Meta and Vichada. In addition, in a joint effort with the Unit for Victims, it will implement the Comprehensive Plan for Collective Reparation for Indigenous Peoples and Communities (PIRC).
This ruling is the first ruling in favor of the indigenous community in the department of Meta and the second in the department of Vichada.
Source: Land Restitution Unit – URT