One out of four Colombians is black. Yet, Colombia's black community historically has faced discrimination on a racial, social, political, economic and cultural basis. And the community now faces a new risk. On the Pacific Coast, in particular, it is caught in the crossfire between guerrillas and paramilitary. Forced displacement has resulted in a serious humanitarian crisis.

 

The Afrocolombians in these areas suffer directly from violence, forced migrations, internal and external displacement. In Atrato Chocoano, for example, 40,000 families have been displaced, virtually threatening the Afrocolombians' existence as an ethnic group.

In addition, a law from 1959, designating the Pacific Basin a reservation zone, set up regulations to conserve and protect natural resources, limiting the black communities’ access to individual and collective rule of their traditional lands. As a result they lost 40 percent of their traditional territory, which was divided among diverse institutions, mostly private businesses. Since then, legal efforts to grant Afrocolombians' autonomy in their territories have been realized on paper only.

As for policy making, the primarily Afrocolombian territories lag behind. Management and administration of government is inadequate. Due to poor technical capacity and a lack of professional, stable and qualified employees, the management and administration of local governments is inadequate.

To resolve this inequality, the Constitution of 1991 established that the state recognize and protect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the nation, enacting a special law securing the definitive recognition of black communities' ethnic, territorial, cultural, economic and political rights. These constitutional mandates have spurred many important legislative sanctions for indigenous peoples to assume control of their own institutions and ways of life and maintain and strengthen their cultural identities.

Arguably the most significant piece of legislation was "Law 70" of 1993 granting black communities the right to own collective property within their ancestral territories. The law takes into consideration traditional practices of production—rooted in the relationship between Afrocolombian peoples and nature—and promotes their sustainable development.  Especially in the Pacific region, Afrocolombians now collectively own their land and thus enjoy more freedom to practice traditional means of earning a living, such as farming. As a result, they help conserve Colombia's most abundant and rich variety of natural resources and bio-diversity.

So far the Colombian government has awarded black communities 113 titles equaling more than 9.88 acres. Almost 50,000 families and 256,848 people have benefited, but nevertheless people are still without land. The government still must distribute an additional 3.21 million acres to reach their projected goal. And, as collective titles are not possible in urban areas, Law 70 guarantees individual rights to buy land.

Law 70 also recognized Afrocolombians as a diverse ethnic group with their own cultural identity. It signaled the state’s obligation to design special and suitable means of promoting the Afrocolombians’ economic and social development, guarantee their autonomy in administering and benefiting from their existing natural resources, strengthening their organization processes and stimulating their participation in decisions of concern to the country.

Despite Law 70’s mandate for the creation of a sustainable development strategy for black communities, ten years later not one concrete action has been taken. But hope remains: the Senate just recently adopted a “national plan for development for black communities,” a simple but strategic plan to guarantee that resources—both current and potential—of import to the Afrocolombian community will be utilized to their advantage.

The national government also vowed to recognize Colombia's black community as an ethnic group. In looking towards the country’s future, policy makers must recognize that ethnic and cultural diversity are an advantage. Indeed, it must be understood that Afrocolombians have contributed to the creation of the multiethnic, cultural and biologically diverse nation that is Colombia. To finally grant the Afrocolombian community their merited value, every form of discrimination, racism and social exclusion must be eliminated.

Afrocolombians now face the highest poverty, illiteracy, and mortality rates compared with the rest of the country. 74% of the black community lacks health care, compared to the national average of 24%. And this is only one example.

Since 1993 there have been a handful of black delegates in national advisories: two in the national advisory for agrarian reform and rural development, one delegate in the national advisory on the environment, one in the national advisory for peace, and another in culture. Also created were: an Institute for Environmental Investigations of the Pacific, the Pedagogical Commission for Black Communities in the Ministry of Education and the University of the Pacific. This looks like progress on paper, but in reality there has been meager concrete progress because these new entities lack the financial resources or necessary infrastructure to intervene in a significant manner in the life of black communities. 

Most of the norms created under Law 70 remain ideas only. Colombia continues to be a racist, exclusionary and discriminatory society. To influence policy makers to make good on promises made a decade ago, Afrocolombian communities and organizations are uniting with national and international NGOs. The teaming of grassroots efforts with groups of national and international clout will help ensure that the government immediately transforms the ethnic and territorial rights Afrocolombians have won into realizable projects.

Towards this end, the associations have demanded the continued distribution of collective land titles to black communities until the goal of 13.84 million acres is reached, hopefully in 2004. They also promote continued support for the formation and strengthening of community councils, the internal administration of newly titled territory. It is important to strengthen the community advisories’ judicial and management capacities, thus providing them with the legal, institutional, financial and logistic tools they need to effectively administer political, social and economic proceedings in Afrocolombian community territories.

The coalitions are also demanding that the Colombian government support financial projects that favor traditional production practices of these communities—money-making projects in agricultural, fishing, foresting, agro-industry, artisanship and ecotourism oriented towards commercialization and production of a surplus. In addition, they are calling for the commercialization of environmental services based on the abundant offering of oxygen, water, biodiversity and other natural resources in their territories and the strengthening of micro-businesses and farm industries. Indeed, financial rights need to be of greater consideration, especially in blacks’ collective territories. The coalitions are thus lobbying the government to let communities create associations and unions to safeguard the sustainable benefits of their resources.