A/HRC/31/3/Add.2
64.
Internally displaced persons represent the largest group of registered victims:
6,897,450 persons. In 2015, 76,017 new displaced persons were registered. This represents
an enormous challenge for providing support and reparation, requiring action in isolated
zones where displacement is recurrent, such as the Pacific coast and Antioquia, and special
protection for indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities.
2.
Transformative reparations
65.
The greatest number of awards of individual compensation was paid to victims in
Medellín, Bogotá, Apartadó, Bello, Cúcuta, Villavicencio and Cali. In some cities,
complementary transformative and non-recurrence measures were implemented. In rural
zones and other cities, compensation lost its transformative potential due to the relatively
low level of human rights enjoyment and the inaction, inadequate budgets, technical
capacity or political will of local authorities.
66.
OHCHR-Colombia continued to advise and support UARIV, whose enormous
efforts merit recognition. However, the mandate, work and achievements of UARIV alone
cannot replace a coordinated State effort to improve the enjoyment of economic, social and
cultural rights in marginalized zones. As UARIV has insisted, with inadequate response
from other entities, complementarity between reparation processes and development action
is necessary. The Victims and Land Reparation Law has been applied for four years in
municipalities such as Tumaco, Nariño; Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca; Turbo, Antioquia;
and Riosucio, Chocó. Yet communities and victims continue to suffer profound
vulnerability for structural and historical reasons. Weak fiscal and political controls over
resource implementation compound this.
67.
OHCHR-Colombia observed that, despite State efforts, the collective reparation
regime has not achieved its principal objectives of repairing collective damages; providing
means to transform inequality, violence, stigmatization, mistrust and pain; ensuring
opportunities to reconstruct memory, the social fabric and identity; and ensuring nonrecurrence in affected communities. OHCHR-Colombia also observed difficulties in
coordinating the collective reparation of territorial rights with other collective AfroColombian and indigenous peoples’ rights. Of 153 ethnic communities owed collective
reparation, only 24 are at the stage of prior consultation.
68.
OHCHR-Colombia advised the Government on reconceptualizing State responses
through improved national-local coordination and coherence among development plans;
basic provision of services related to the rights to, among others, health and education; and
victim support and reparation. It is important to build trust, capacity and local community
participation to create required social and economic transformations.
3.
Land restitution
69.
At year’s end, the Land Restitution Unit reported having received 87,119 requests
for inclusion in the land-theft register, of which 42,325 (49 per cent) were being responded
to in “micro-focus” zones where the Ministry of Defence had authorized the initiation of
the processes. A total of 30,593 applications (35 per cent) have been finalized; 11,374 (13
per cent) are being processed by the judicial authorities and rulings have been issued in
3,160 cases (4 per cent) relating to 20,000 people. A total of 51 per cent of claims are
outside these micro-focus zones and have not advanced, given State difficulties in ensuring
adequate security conditions for its personnel and for victims. Partial implementation of
restitution claims has led to frustrated expectations on the part of claimants. In November,
the Constitutional Court ordered the Government to develop a plan, within six months, to
respond to all claims by 2021, the end date for the process.
13
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