The Peasant Guard

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Illustration by Estefanía Henao via femiñetas

Contributors

Natalia Vargas Zamora, Ana María Malagón Pérez, Sofía Forero Alba

Summary

The Peasant Guard in Colombia is a civil group created by the peasant movement to mediate and resolve conflicts in the territory. This text explores the experience of the Peasant Guard of Catatumbo, pioneers in this type of initiative, who were formed to promote dialogue, safeguard lives and defend fundamental rights in their region. In this article, we will explore some of the barriers they face, such as stigmatization, criminalization and a lack of legal recognition. At the same time, the text covers some of the benefits that the Peasant Guard can bring to the peace process in the Colombian territories, building on their capacity to mediate and resolve conflicts, their operating network – which has galvanized other forms of community guards – and their experience in providing security and ensuring coexistence. Given the experiences of the Peasant Guard, this article argues for the need to rethink the role of police in Colombia and Latin America, recognizing the conflict-resolution strategies that have been developed by peasant and ethnic communities.

Foreword

Peasant leader Guillermo Quintero of the Catatumbo Peasant Association (Ascamcat) agreed to share information with us and asked us to pay tribute to Emérito Buendía, a member of the Peasant Guard who was killed in 2019 by law enforcement officials in the confrontations between the army and peasant communities during a forced eviction carried out by the military. “He was killed precisely while fulfilling his role in a scenario of resistance. He died with his patriotic bolillo [baton] on his shoulder, with his Peasant Guard T-shirt on.”

Emérito Buendía, a member of the Peasant Guard who was killed in 2019 by law enforcement officials

What are the Peasant Guard?

On 2 August 2022, a bill was submitted to the Colombian Congress that sought to recognize the Peasant Guard as a community mechanism for the collective and territorial protection and defence of human rights. This initiative of the Comunes party¹ courted controversy and drew the attention of opponents and reactionaries to the defence of peasants’ rights. Statements stigmatizing peasant organizations followed, and many accusations were levelled against them.

In contrast to the disinformation and stigmatization certain sectors of public opinion have promoted, this article poses the following questions: who are the Peasant Guard, how do they relate to the dimensions of peasant life and what are the challenges and opportunities they currently face? To provide some answers, we explore literature on this community configuration – especially the work developed by the National Association of Peasant Reserve Zones (ANZORC) in the framework of their project “Peasant Lives Matter” – and on the experience of the Peasant Guard of Ascamcat, through the voice of Guillermo Quintero, peasant leader and Regional Coordinator of the Peasant Guard.²

In recent years, Dejusticia and ANZORC have made progress in shedding light on the rights of peasants, understood as “intercultural subject[s]³ who self-identif[y] as such, [are] involved primarily with working the land and with nature, [and are] immersed in forms of social organization based on unpaid family and community work or on the sale of their own labour power.”⁴Both organizations have also highlighted the effects of stigmatization as it arises from the persecution of peasant leaders and organizations by security forces.⁵ Stigmatization is understood as the process by which an individual or a group is “reduced, marked or devalued”, which has an impact on relations within and without the community.⁶ The long history of the armed conflict in Colombia has demonstrated the impact of stigmatization against this population, which resulted in a breakdown in their relationship with institutions and in human rights violations.

The long history of the armed conflict in Colombia has demonstrated the impact of stigmatization against this population, which resulted in a breakdown in their relationship with institutions and in human rights violations.

Stigmatization of the peasantry in Colombia has been encouraged by means of three state-promoted narratives. First, the fight against insurgency and terrorism produced labels such as “internal enemy,” used to describe the peasant population since the 1960s, or “insurgent subject,” used since the 1970s.⁷ Second, the war on drugs reached its peak in the 1990s, when peasants were first defined as “lawbreakers” or “drug traffickers.”⁸ Third, in the context of recently incorporated mechanisms to control deforestation, labels such as “criminals” or “environmental predators” have been introduced.

Due to the stigmatization caused by these labels, in recent years the Colombian government has favoured military actions led by security forces as strategies to combat armed conflict, drugs and deforestation. These terms have also fed the repertoire of violence used by outlaw groups. Consequently, peasant communities have been caught in the crossfire, which has worsened their living conditions. The stigmatization of peasant communities has had obvious impacts. Some of the violence triggered towards the community entails persecution, accusations, selective assassinations and extrajudicial executions.⁹ This has resulted in an undeniable convergence of violence against the peasantry. According to our own estimates, 63.6% of victims of forced displacement and 58.5% of victims of other types of violence in the country are peasants.¹⁰ This trend is corroborated in the estimate produced by the Commission for the Clarification of Truth (CEV),¹¹ which calculated that 45.5% of the total number of victims in the country are peasants.¹²

According to our own estimates, 63.6% of victims of forced displacement and 58.5% of victims of other types of violence in the country are peasants.

To preserve life, guarantee their permanence in the territory and re-establish a dialogue with the state, the peasantry and organizations in different regions of the country have devised a series of mechanisms for resistance, protection and self-protection¹³ of human rights.¹⁴ One such mechanism is a network of humanitarian safe areas and camps, human rights shelters, verification commissions, humanitarian corridors and spaces for inter-institutional dialogue, which are both individual and collective tools for peasant community protection. Another is the Peasant Guard, a non-violent mechanism that emerged to defend the territories, ensure collective security, defend the environment and protect the community. The idea of “territory” is defined in this analysis as “a social space constructed by its inhabitants, who develop within it the majority of their economic, political and social life.”¹⁵

Illustration by Estefanía Henao via femiñetas

A commitment to peasant community justice

The Peasant Guard are a self-protection mechanism that contributes to the recognition of the peasantry as political rights holders. They originated at the core of peasant communities and organizations to foster dialogue, safeguarding life, enabling permanence in the territory and promoting the defence of fundamental rights, especially in areas where the intensity of the armed conflict and the permanent or temporary presence of outlaw groups has generated mistrust between the peasantry and the state. Some of the antecedents to this configuration are the Indigenous Guard, who are constitutionally recognized under their special jurisdiction,¹⁶ and the Maroon Guard (Guardia Cimarrona), the first to enjoy full constitutional recognition.

As such, the Peasant Guard constitutes a proposal based on peasant authority and community justice. Peasant authority refers to the forms of peasant organization that allow for government action and acts of governance over the territory. On the one hand, peasant authority is the power possessed by the peasant community to forge and enforce agreements and rules of coexistence that allow it to maintain its identity and guarantee dignity.¹⁷ This authority is applied through the mandates provided by the community to the peasant organizations at different levels and according to their competence. On the other hand, community justice¹⁸ is the set of rules and procedures through which a group or community (peasant, ethnic or class-based) addresses its conflicts or governs its life in accordance with its identity, without resorting to the state justice system. Community justice aims to reconcile rather than punish, to seek what is most just in each case and to preserve harmony within the community, thus making a valuable contribution to conflict resolution and social transformation.¹⁹

As such, the Peasant Guard constitutes a proposal based on peasant authority and community justice.

Thus, the Peasant Guard is a civilian strategy that mainly implements dialogue as a mechanism for conflict resolution. This mechanism is based on three of the four dimensions of peasant life: territory, culture and organization.²⁰ Concerning territory, the Peasant Guard are stationed in the areas where peasant organizations are located; culturally, they showcase distinctive and symbolic elements of peasant identity in their uniforms (such as boots); and in terms of organization, they are closely related to local peasant associations and organizations.²¹

At the organizational and territorial levels, the Peasant Guard must be mandated by the communities that inhabit the territories where they function. For this reason, the Peasant Guard are governed by the Community Action Boards (JACs) of each vereda²² in which they operate, and by the regional peasant organizations working for the recognition of peasant rights.²³ The structure of the Peasant Guard is defined by these two groups, and the Guard’s effectiveness depends on them, especially during emergencies that require rapid and immediate support.

Challenges of the Peasant Guard

Although the Peasant Guard have consolidated in recent years and have gained legitimacy and recognition by communities,²⁴ they still face challenges in the exercise of their work to defend the territory. From our exchange with Guillermo Quintero, we were able to identify at least five obstacles. Two of them are internal – alignment within the peasant movement and with other forms of community guards – and three are external: stigmatization, criminalization and a lack of legal recognition. In this article, we focus on the latter three, which, although distinct from one another, are closely related. This is due to the limits on the length of this article and the information we have at our disposal from conversations with Guillermo.

The Peasant Guard suffer from the same stigmatization and criminalization that previous organizational processes and their territories were subjected to. The prevalence of stigmatization built by linking the peasantry to illegal armed groups has become evident in their relationship with the public sector and the security forces. It leads to the impossibility of establishing a dialogue between peers and fuels distrust and distress. This is also pinpointed by peasant leaders. According to Guillermo: “At first, the stigmatization was enormous, huge. We were attacked through social media, mass media, in person, by guerrilla members, terrorists, you know – by militiamen, too.” The use of negative labels led to an upsurge in violence in many territories. In particular, stigmatization targeted those who have organized themselves socially and politically to defend the peasant identity.²⁵ This stigmatization paved the way, in many cases, for the criminalization of peasant leaders through the attribution of crimes such as terrorism and kidnapping. In other words, criminal prosecution was used to intimidate, suppress and delegitimize their communal work.

The lack of legal recognition of this configuration – meaning that it is neither protected by the constitution or by law as a legitimate form of community protection and organization nor endorsed by the Colombian legal system – has resulted in the criminalization of members of the Peasant Guard over non-violent actions carried out in pursuit of their duty

The lack of legal recognition of this configuration – meaning that it is neither protected by the constitution or by law as a legitimate form of community protection and organization nor endorsed by the Colombian legal system – has resulted in the criminalization of members of the Peasant Guard over non-violent actions carried out in pursuit of their duty.²⁶ For example, Peasant Guard members are facing criminal charges for the alleged kidnapping of soldiers during the custody of peasant settlements,²⁷ where standard procedure is to initiate a non-violent action before establishing a dialogue: “If we are threatened by any person, what we do is to surround them and form a circle with our bolillos [batons] to keep them there without resorting to any type of aggression – neither verbal nor physical – and without making any physical contact. After that, we engage in dialogue with them.” Many of the kidnapping charges are used to intimidate the Guard and jeopardise the continuity of their work.

Opportunities for the Peasant Guard

The consolidation of Peasant Guard groups in territories in recent years has entailed the recognition of their conciliatory efforts and the construction of spaces for dialogue with different actors – including the security forces – while maintaining peasant autonomy. Despite the stigmatization promoted by previous administrations, this mechanism favours conflict mediation and resolution in peasant territory and constitutes a crucial tool for peaceful coexistence. The use of this system has prevented violent confrontations and encouraged dialogue as a solution to conflicts.

It should be acknowledged that the external obstacles described above also represent opportunities for strengthening the Peasant Guard. The alignment of the various Peasant Guard groups is key given that, while they all share a purpose, organizational structures, functions and strategies vary from one Peasant Guard group to another. It is paramount to find mechanisms to coordinate and align the Peasant Guard on specific issues related to their configuration and to long-term strategies or projects.

Moreover, coordination with other forms of community guards would give way to enhancing intercultural dialogue in the territory. The peasantry generally coexists with Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples, who have autonomy over their territories, their own ways of defending those territories and their own cultural dynamics. Against this backdrop, the Peasant Guard constitute a space that can foster dialogue with ethnic peoples and people of colour, to find commonalities and reinforce the community fabric through the identification of shared experiences and alternatives to emerging conflicts. On this issue, meetings with Indigenous and Maroon Guards have been organized before, such as the National Meeting of Indigenous, Maroon and Peasant Guards and Self-Care Networks held in November 2019.

Closing reflections

Considering all of the above, it is important to highlight the extensive experience of the Peasant Guard in providing protection and security in their territories. Their historical role in conflict resolution has been essential to ensure peaceful coexistence within communities and has enabled the possibility of communicating with law enforcement, as they must also assume their functions per their constitutional mandate. In this regard, it is of fundamental importance to promote dialogue with institutions to begin overcoming the stigmatization and criminalization of the Peasant Guard, and afterwards create spaces for constructive exchange.

To rethink the role of police in Colombia and Latin America, it is also important to recognize that peasant and ethnic communities have already developed their ways to resolve conflicts and ensure cohabitation and security, based on their own history, knowledge, practices and traditional ways of interaction among themselves and within their territories. Based on these experiences, a model of community security could be developed that would respect the diverse forms of organizing. This would dispel the idea that police can barge in and try to solve conflict where there is already a solid, legitimate organization that better fulfils this role. Police action without sensitivity to the strategies and customs of the community can unleash other types of conflicts or even violence within and among communities.

Endnotes

1
In 2016, the final peace agreement was reached between the Colombian state and the former FARC-EP guerrilla group, which had been in armed confrontation with the Colombian state for nearly 60 years. As a result of this agreement, members of this armed group were guaranteed political participation and became members of the Congress of the Republic, first as the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (FARC) Party, and currently as the Comunes Party. This party has also been represented in Congress by victims of the armed conflict and members of civil society.
2
Guillermo has assumed an important leadership role in the defence of the Peasant Guard at both regional and national levels. He has taken part in Ascamcat since its foundation and experienced the process of appropriation and materialization of this configuration in the territory first-hand. Ascamcat has set an important precedent for Peasant Guards in other territories.
3
“Sujeto campesino [peasant subject] is a social category that includes all persons, regardless of age, sex and gender.” Cited in Güiza Gómez, D. I., Bautista Revelo, A. J., Malagón Pérez, A. M., & Uprimny Yepes, R. (2020). La constitución del campesinado: luchas por reconocimiento y redistribución en el campo jurídico [The Constitution of the Peasantry. Struggles for Recognition and Redistribution in the Legal Field]. Editorial Dejusticia.
4
Acosta Navarro, O. L., Duarte Torres, C. A., Fajardo Montaña, D., Ferro Medina, J. G., Gutiérrez Sanín, F., Machado Cartagena, A., Penagos Concha, Á. M., & Saade Granados, M. M. (2018). Conceptualización del campesinado en Colombia. Documento técnico para su definición, caracterización y medición. [Conceptualization of the Peasantry in Colombia. Technical Document to Arrive at its Definition, Characterization and Assessment]. Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH). https://www.icanh.gov.co/recursos_user/ICANH%20PORTAL/SUBDIRECCIÓN%20CIENTÍFICA/ANTROPOLOGIA/Conceptos/2020/Conceptualizacion_del_campesinado_en_Colombia.pdf. Cited in Güiza Gómez, D. I., Bautista Revelo, A. J., Malagón Pérez, A. M., & Uprimny Yepes, R. (2020). La constitución del campesinado: luchas por reconocimiento y redistribución en el campo jurídico. Editorial Dejusticia.
5
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019) Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. [WAR AGAINST THE PEASANTRY (1958–2019). Dynamics of Violence and Histories of Struggle]. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf; Commission for the Clarification of Truth. (2022). El campesinado y la guerra. Colombia Adentro. Relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. [Peasantry and War. Inland Colombia. Territorial Accounts of the Armed Conflict]. [Historical clarification report]. CEV.
6
Yang, L. H., Kleinman, A., Link, B. G., Phelan, J. C., Lee, S., & Good, B. (2007). Adding Moral Experience to Stigma Theory. Translation into Spanish retrieved from Este País, 12.
7
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019) Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf; Commission for the Clarification of Truth. (2022). El campesinado y la guerra. Colombia Adentro. Relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. [Historical clarification report]. CEV.
8
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019). Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf; Ciro Rodríguez, E. (2016). Cultivando coca en el Caquetá: Vidas y legitimidades en la actividad cocalera [Cultivating Coca in Caquetá: Lives and Legitimacies in the Coca-Growing World]. [PhD thesis]. National Autonomous University of Mexico; National Center for Historical Memory. (2019). El Tigre no es como lo pintan. Estigmatización y conflicto armado en el bajo Putumayo [El Tigre Is Not What They Say It Is. Stigmatization and Armed Conflict in the Lower Putumayo Region]. NCHM. https://centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/EL-TIGRE_EN-BAJA.pdf; Ramírez Lamus, M. C. (2001). Entre el estado y la guerrilla: Identidad y ciudadanía en el movimiento de los campesinos cocaleros del Putumayo [Between the State and the Guerrilla: Identity and Citizenship in the Coca Growers’ Movement in Putumayo]. ICANH. https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll10/id/2898/; Ramírez, M. C. (2001). Los movimientos sociales en el Putumayo: El poder visible de la sociedad civil y la construcción de una Nueva Ciudadanía. In Archila, M., Pardo, M. (Eds.). Movimientos sociales, Estado y democracia en Colombia [Social Movements in Putumayo: The Visible Power of Civil Society and the Construction of a New Citizenship. Social Movements, State and Democracy in Colombia]. National University of Colombia.
9
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019) Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf; Commission for the Clarification of Truth. (2022). El campesinado y la guerra. Colombia Adentro. Relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. [Historical clarification report]. CEV; Special Jurisdiction for Peace. (2021). Macro Case 03: Killings and Forced Disappearances Presented as Combat Casualties by State Agents. https://www.jep.gov.co/macrocasos/caso03.html
10
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019) Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf
11
The CEV emerged from the final peace agreement with the former FARC-EP guerrilla group, with the aim of contributing to the country’s memory to avoid the recurrence of violence; their estimates differ from ours due to differences in database use, since we based our work on a reading of the Socio-political Violence database and, for information on forced displacement, on the Single Registry of Victims database. The CEV, however, only used the Single Registry of Victims.
12
Commission for the Clarification of Truth. (2022). El campesinado y la guerra. Colombia Adentro. Relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. [Historical clarification report]. CEV.
13
In the report “Protocolo de autoprotección en DD. HH. con enfoque de género de la Asociación Nacional de Zonas de Reserva Campesina – ANZORC” [Protocol for human rights self-protection with a gender-based approach] published by ANZORC in 2021, as a result of the process of systematization carried out by the project “Peasant Lives Matter,” protection is defined as “the process of implementing preventive care in view of possible risks, with the purpose of preventing the realization of threats and to bolster capacities (both individual and collective) to safeguard life, freedom and integrity; these actions may involve building physical barriers or developing non-material elements such as regulatory frameworks and legal mechanisms in force in order to guarantee the observance of rights.” In this case, protection entails the implementation of external legal mechanisms that safeguard and guarantee human rights. Moreover, self-protection is defined as “the measures, tools and capacities of individuals and communities that are implemented, on a daily basis, with the aim to reduce the risks faced permanently by people in their territories and/or in the exercise of organizational activities.” In this regard, self-protection mechanisms are created, implemented and sustained with a context-sensitive and community-based approach.
14
Since 2020, ANZORC has been implementing the “Peasant Lives Matter” project, within the framework of its strategic line of action on peasant rights and human rights. This project has allowed the systematization and visibility of community protection and self-protection strategies that exist within Peasant Reserve Zones, especially in Catatumbo, Meta and Guaviare.
15
According to the Political Constitution of Colombia, indigenous peoples’ authorities may rule on and apply the law within their territories, according to their own rules and procedures, provided that these are not contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic.
16
Article 246, Political Constitution of Colombia. “The authorities of the indigenous peoples may exercise their jurisdictional functions within their territorial jurisdiction in accordance with their own laws and procedures as long as these are not contrary to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic. An Act shall establish the forms of coordination of this special jurisdiction with the national judicial system.”
17
ANZORC. (2021). ABC de la Guardia Campesina [The ABCs of Peasant Guards].
18
Constitutionally, community justice has been recognized as a strategy created by the civilian population, especially in areas where access to justice is insufficient for the peaceful resolution of conflicts; this allows parties to resolve disputes and conflicts in a non-violent manner (Ruling C-631-12, 2012).
19
ANZORC. (2021). ABC de la Guardia Campesina; Salazar Gallego, J. (2021). El papel de la justicia comunitaria en el escenario de construcción de paz en Colombia [The Role of Community Justice in the Peacebuilding Scenario in Colombia]. Derecho del Estado, 50, pp. 323–351. https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n50.11; Uprimny Yepes, R. (1994). Justicia y resolución de conflictos: La alternativa comunitaria [Justice and Conflict Resolution: The Community-Based Alternative]. Pensamiento Jurídico, 1.
20
According to the evaluation conducted by a commission of experts on rural affairs, peasant life in Colombia is characterized by four building blocks: culture, production, organization and territory. Acosta Navarro et al. (2018). Conceptualización del campesinado en Colombia. Documento técnico para su definición, caracterización y medición. Commission of Experts on Peasant Affairs, ICANH.
21
Personal communication with Guillermo Quintero. July 22, 2022.
22
JACs are a democratic form of social and community organization, legally recognized by the Colombian state, in which people over 14 years of age can participate, and whose objective is to attend to community needs and solve territorial problems. This form of citizen organization is found in both rural and urban areas, the centre being neighbourhoods in the former and veredas in the latter. Veredas are territorial delimitations within municipalities, established with the objective of improving administrative management of the territory and population therein.
23
ANZORC. (2021). ABC de la Guardia Campesina; Salazar Gallego, J. (2021). El papel de la justicia comunitaria en el escenario de construcción de paz en Colombia. Revista Derecho del Estado, 50, pp. 323–351. https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n50.11
24
Albarracín, J., Campo, D., Castaño, C., Useche, V., Vargas, L., & Valencia, I. H. (2022). Las guardias comunitarias como protectoras de vida y constructoras de paz [Community Guards as Protectors of Life and Peace Builders]. Universidad ICESI; ANZORC. (2021). ABC de la Guardia Campesina; Salazar Gallego, J. (2021). El papel de la justicia comunitaria en el escenario de construcción de paz en Colombia. Revista Derecho del Estado, 50, pp. 323–351. https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n50.11
25
ANUC, FENSUAGRO, CNA, ANZORC, CIMA, PUPSOC, MUA, Dejusticia, & IEI Universidad Javeriana de Cali. (2022). GUERRA CONTRA EL CAMPESINADO (1958-2019) Dinámicas de las violencias y trayectorias de lucha. https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Informe-ejecutivo-Guerra-contra-el-campesinado.pdf; Commission for the Clarification of Truth. (2022). El campesinado y la guerra. Colombia Adentro. Relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. [Historical clarification report]. CEV.
26
Carrillo, A. (2021, October 28). “Campesinos liberan a los 180 soldados en el municipio de Tibú, Norte de Santander” [Peasants Liberate the 180 Soldiers in the Municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander]. W Radio. https://www.wradio.com.co/noticias/regionales/campesinos-liberan-a-los-180-soldados-en-el-municipio-de-tibu-norte-de-santander/20211028/nota/4174633.aspx.
27
Peasant settlements are a strategy for territorial defence, used in cases of violent evictions of groups growing illicit crops. In these cases, the community settles peacefully and indefinitely where the security forces are intervening.

Contributors

Natalia Vargas Zamora. Sociologist from Universidad Externado de Colombia, specializing in public policy and gender-based justice in FLACSO Brazil. Coordinator of the human rights project “Las Vidas Campesinas Importan” (“Peasant Lives Matter”) and member of the Human Rights Support team of ANZORC.

Ana María Malagón Pérez. Sociologist with a specialization in social economy from Universidad Externado de Colombia. Former researcher on the topic of peasant groups and land for Dejusticia, where she developed research projects on the rights of rural workers, armed conflict and rural development.

Sofía Forero Alba. Political scientist and lawyer from Universidad de los Andes, where she is a candidate for an MA in law, government and justice management. She also has a certification in security, violence and democracy from Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO). At Dejusticia, she has worked as a researcher for the workstream on judicial systems and is currently part of the international team. Her areas of work and advocacy, both nationally and internationally, include judicial politics, access to justice, the closing of spaces for civil society participation, social protest and police.

Illustrations by Estefanía Henao via femiñetas

Estefanía Henao is a researcher and comic artist. She is the author of the comics Tres picas (2020) and El canto de la golondrina (2023). She is a co-investigator of Incógnitas: Women in the Colombian Comic Yesterday and Today, a project that seeks to make visible the women who are part of the comics scene in Colombia.

femiñetas: feminism in vignettes. Femiñetas is an illustrated and transoceanic collective and media. It comprises some 300 illustrators and writers from different parts of the world who form a story-telling community in the language of comics.

Flor Coll is the coordinator and founder of @feminetas. She is a journalist and Social Communication graduate from Universidad Nacional de Rosario (Argentina) and holds a Master’s in Gender and Communication from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). After working for more than 15 years as a journalist in Argentinian radio, TV and print media, she currently carries out gender and sexuality campaigns for the NGO Sexus and teaches at the Master’s in Communication and Gender at the Barcelona Open University in Spain (UAB). She co-created Chamana Comunicación, a consultancy firm based in Barcelona where she is the director of communication and capacity building.