State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2015 - Colombia

Conflict continues to affect Colombia's indigenous and minority communities disproportionately. Colombia has a long history of armed conflict, involving the military, opposition forces and paramilitary groups, which over decades has caused the deaths or displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians belonging to minorities or indigenous peoples. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), 137,200 people were newly displaced in Colombia during 2014 alone, although that figure is expected to rise considerably as more people are registered.

The IDMC, looking back at trends over the previous year, highlighted that the representation of indigenous communities, who comprise around 3.4 per cent of the total population, account for more than double that proportion among the displaced. Afro-Colombians are also over-represented; IDMC noted that Afro-Colombians from four Pacific coast departments alone accounted for 30 per cent of the total number of displaced in 2014. When combined, the indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations make up the large majority of displaced persons: according to an August 2014 estimate by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), close to three-quarters of those displaced earlier that year were Afro-Colombian or indigenous. In both cases land grabbing, conflict and resource exploitation such as mining are factors driving this displacement.

Indigenous peoples are especially vulnerable to violence. In their 2014 report on indigenous peoples' rights in Colombia, the national organization of indigenous peoples of Colombia (ONIC) recorded 3,193 human rights abuses carried out against indigenous communities between January and September 2014, including 2,819 incidents of forced displacement, 10 known homicides and numerous threats, kidnappings and illegal imprisonment. ONIC report that in these multiple violations of human rights of indigenous peoples in Colombia the victims have often been traditional authorities, indigenous leaders and community members, threatened by different armed groups, criminal gangs and security forces. These attacks and threats occur principally in the zones of internal conflict between the armed groups and the government soldiers, as well as the government soldiers and police abusing indigenous peoples during peaceful demonstrations.

In June, reports emerged of the forcible displacement of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities in Chocó by criminal groups seizing control of land, natural resources and drug trafficking routes. It was subsequently estimated that more than 2,800 people had been forced to flee their homes between May and June.

Indigenous activists continued to protest against rights abuses and targeted attacks against their community. On 20 May, indigenous peoples across Colombia published a joint manifesto highlighting the threat posed to their survival, the central importance of their territories to their cultural traditions, their respect for the environment and the need for sustainable peace in the country. Later in the year, in an attempt to halt the mass displacement of indigenous peoples from their lands, President Juan Manuel Santos signed Decree 1953 in October to implement a special interim system to enable indigenous communities to administer their territories until Congress can issue the Organic Law on Territorial Regulation.

Yet both indigenous and Afro-descendant communities continue to experience severe social prejudice. In November, the country's 2011 anti-discrimination law was used for the first time to convict a local councillor who had described Afro-Colombians, indigenous peoples and displaced persons as a 'cancer'.

The Afro-Colombian community numbers around 4.3 million people, most of whom are based in urban areas. They are the majority population in towns in the north-west, and also live in low-income settlements in the major cities, including the capital Bogotá. Widespread displacement from communal lands has contributed to this process. According to one estimate, more than 70 per cent of Bogotá's sizeable Afro-Colombian community were born outside the city, a proportion that suggests the significant role that displacement has played in the urbanization of Afro-Colombians.

In this context, reinforced by existing discrimination, many urban Afro-Colombians have been exposed to poverty, exclusion and physical insecurity. Violence is a common problem in other urban areas, too, epitomized by Buenaventura, a coastal settlement of 400,000 people, of whom an estimated 84 per cent are Afro-Colombians. It was widely reported in the media during the year that this was the most violent city in the country; an HRW report published in March described how the local population were constantly terrorized by criminal gangs and extortion rings. Against a backdrop of social exclusion and poverty, with an unemployment rate of 40 per cent – around four times the average for the country as a whole – perpetrators have been able to operate with total impunity. Of over 2,000 investigations opened on disappearances in the city over the last two decades, reportedly not a single one has led to a conviction.

As in other South American contexts, the urban experience has often not been positive for the displaced minority indigenous or Afro-Colombians, but initiatives exist and have succeeded in turning lives around. Since 2011, USAID's Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Program (ACIP) has supported public-private partnerships between Afro-Colombian community organizations, local municipalities, and companies that train ethnic minorities and generate economic opportunities for them. As a result, by 2014 over 5,000 internally displaced people from marginalized urban areas of Bogotá, Cartagena, Cali and Barranquilla had achieved a measure of stability.