The Humanitarian Tragedy of the Colombian Pacific Region

Abuses of fundamental rights against the black, indigenous and peasant populations in the Colombian Pacific Region (considered by all the armed forces and groups -both official and irregular- as "collateral damages" in any armed conflict), have different and independent objectives from those of the internal armed conflict. Territorial eviction is an additional goal, not a consequence of the confrontation. This is deduced by the unnatural alliance between armed operations, dispossession of community-owned lands and the fake legalization of such dispossession. Disintegration of their tenitories puts the survival of these peoples at risk. The Colombian State, after important affirmative actions in favour of indigenous peoples (like the demarcation of reserves) and of Afro Colombians (recognition of and constitution of collective territories) has been reluctant to exert sovereignty over these regions, leaving the population under the dictatorship of illegal armed groups that have committed atrocities and breaches of lntemational Humanitarian Law, in many cases in collusion with military and civilian authorities.