On August 24, the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas – Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) came to a peace agreement after negotiations that lasted nearly five years. It is hoped that the peace deal will mark an end to some of the bloodshed from battles between the government, paramilitaries, and FARC guerrillas. The stakes for peace are high, particularly for Colombia’s marginalized indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations, who constitute the majority of those affected by mass displacement. For some of these communities, however, the peace agreement means little to nothing. In many areas of the country, other active armed groups and demobilized paramilitaries-turned criminal gangs continue to wage war against the state and amongst each other over territory control, drug trafficking, and illegal mining, among other illicit activities. Civilians continue to displace and face the humanitarian consequences of ongoing conflict.
While Colombia and its international partners have the immense task before them of implementing the peace agreement, Colombia still struggles with meeting its commitments to the conflict’s victims. More than eight million people are awaiting reparations for the violence they have had to endure – the deaths of loved ones, forced displacement, sexual violence, kidnapping, amongst other acts legally recognized as acts of victimization by the Colombian government.
Celebrations in a Bogotá plaza on August 24, 2016, the evening that FARC guerillas and the Colombian government came to a final agreement. The announcement was broadcast live from Havana, Cuba.This quilt on display during a victims’ remembrance vigil includes names of lives lost to the conflict in the department of Chocó.In the absence of a strong government effort to educate rural populations on the peace agreement, women’s activists such as this one in Putumayo province, are traveling to remote areas throughout Colombia, oftentimes with their personal resources, to get the word out about the peace deal.Dense jungle such as this area in the department of Norte de Santander’s Catatumbo region is home to multiple armed groups, such as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), EPL (Ejército Popular de Liberación), and criminal groups who vie for territorial control, particularly for the lucrative production of coca, the base material of cocaine. People living in these areas are at constant risk of displacement.Some cities have neighborhoods that are entirely composed of displaced people, such as this one in the department of Chocó. The dwellers live in confinement, and are continuously subject to violence. Some of the women in this neighborhood have sent their sons away out of fear that they will succumb to the violence.Colombian police and army deploy to areas of the country where communities carry out strikes over the lack of government services or discontent with international extractive industries, such as this force in the department of Putumayo. However, few communities living in confinement benefit from such robust protection, thereby paving the way for armed groups to fill power vacuums.Colombia struggles with meeting its commitments to the conflict’s victims. Anger is rife amongst women who feel they haven’t gotten humanitarian assistance or compensation due to them per Colombian law. These women in the department of Chocó demand land, freedom, and reparations during a protest.This woman is demanding that her entire riverside community, displaced some years prior, receive collective reparations. She laments that government representatives rarely keep appointments to travel to her community and assess the damages they have incurred.Some women victims who are still waiting on reparations have been able to support their families by participating in micro enterprise schemes with the help of missionaries or small UN-funded programs.This indigenous community has been displaced for ten years, and its members are still awaiting plots of land so they can farm. They question whether they will be go able to home in spite of the peace agreement, as their kin in government-titled indigenous reserves communicate that they still live under confinement and cannot hunt or fish.Of particular concern to indigenous communities displaced from their reserves to the peripheries of urban areas is the loss of their culture and identity.
