Christian Peacemaker Teams UK

by Eloy García

On 21 August 2009, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPTers) Laura Ciaghi, Chris Knestrick and Eloy García visited the displaced community of Las Pavas and, accompanied by a member of the community, viewed firsthand the ongoing destruction of the communal forest once used for wood gathering, hunting, and fishing.  The forest lies about a two-hour walk outside the township of Buenos Aires, where the displaced families are living.  During their visit, the CPTers could hear the noise of the power saws and bulldozers clearing the trees around them.

Teams of campesino contract employees from other communities work swiftly, cutting huge old-growth trees with chainsaws and clearing paths for the encroaching bulldozers.  The plan for the forest involves clear-cutting the area, destumping and burning the residue, and then planting all the cleared land with oil palm.  Within two to three years,  the oil palm trees will begin to produce fruit, which manufacturers will convert into agro-fuels used in the global north.  A popular refrain among social activists is: "la palma aceitera llenando tanques en el norte y desplazando comunidades en el sur."  "Palm oil trees filling gas tanks in the north and displacing communities in the south."

As they visited the land with the CPTers, members of the Las Pavas community picked up a few ears of corn remaining after the bulldozers had razed most of the lot where Don Efrain planted corn.  They identified other lots, and noted how little remains of their simple dwellings and crops.  Even though the land claim is under pending litigation, the judge's controversial order allows the palm industry contractors to occupy and clear-cut the land in the interim.  Community members may not even collect the felled trees for firewood or to sell as timber.  Contract employers are under orders to burn everything.

The lack of overhead tree cover is also changing the local ecosystem.  Lush lagoons formerly serving as havens for fish and other wildlife are now drying up from the intense daytime heat and lack of shade. Local fauna have all but disappeared, heading further inland towards the mountains while their once sprawling habitat diminishes.

In Las Pavas, CPTers encountered a squad of Colombian National Army soldiers from the Nariño Battalion, encamped on the lands to protect the palm company's contract employees.  The CPTers were told that some employees with known links to paramilitaries were also present.  Their presence is further evidence of what CPT has already witnessed: that the Colombian national government, through the use of military and paramilitary groups, supports and assists large transnational companies in the displacement of indigenous peoples and campesinos so that the corporations can acquire the peoples' land. Thus, the destruction of communal forest continues under the protective watch of Colombian national soldiers, supported by U.S. government financing.

For further background information about the Las Pavas community, see this article.  To learn more about the community's displacement on 14 July, see this urgent action release and this follow-up urgent action.

Originally at http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2009/09/10/colombia-destruction-las-pavas039s-communal-forest-continues