A programme promoting collective reparation for a community that
has suffered violence and human rights violations at the hands of
guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and drug traffickers for more than
20 years in the south-west of the Colombian department of Santander
is giving hope of a more peaceful life among inhabitants.

The remote community of La India, 240 kms from the departmental
capital of Bucaramanga, and other nearby settlements belonging to
the Association of Farm Workers of Carare (ATCC), is one of eight
social collectives around the country where the National Commission
for Reparation and Reconciliation (NCRR) has targeted for
collective reparation.

For more than two decades, La India and the municipality in
which it is located, was at the scene of fighting between
guerrillas and paramilitaries and victim to displacement and
anti-personnel mines. Drug traffickers were also using the area for
coca plantations, bringing with them their own pressures on the
community.

The ATCC, the oldest peaceful resistance movement in Colombia,
won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 three years after
more than 4,000 farm labourers rebelled against armed groups
operating in the region. Ten members of the ATCC have been murdered
since.

The programme in La India, funded by the US government's Agency
for International Development (USAID) and implemented by IOM, is
focusing on stabilizing the 4,000 inhabitants La India and other
nearby settlements by establishing vital basic services.

IOM has equipped three health posts, purchased motorized canoes
to be used as ambulances, built and equipped a community radio
station and refurbished the ATCC centre in La India as a first
step. A proposal for collective reparations focusing on the
building of 15 schools and a park as well as activities helping
people learn the truth about the crimes committed by the illegal
armed groups in the region and rebuilding the collective memory of
the community will be officially presented to the national
government.

Work on the programme in the other seven communities funded also
by USAID and with technical assistance from IOM, is also
progressing.

For further information, please contact:

Jorge Gallo

IOM Colombia

Tel: +571  5946410 ext 140

E-mail: "mailto:jgallo@iom.int">jgallo@iom.int