The Economist UK - 31.08.2019

The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 39

1

C

ities builtaround seaports are often

prosperous. Not so Buenaventura, on

Colombia’s Pacific coast. Its four ports col-

lect more customs revenue than those of

any other city in the country. Yet two-thirds

of Buenaventura’s 400,000 inhabitants are

poor, according to a government measure.

Few have access to piped drinking water or

sewerage. Rows of metal shacks on stilts jut

into the sea. Vegetation devours the only

public hospital, which lacks equipment to

perform even minor operations.

Conditions are no better elsewhere in

the Pacific region. Three-quarters of the

workforce in Tumaco, the second-busiest

Pacific port, is unemployed. The poverty

rate in Chocó department exceeds 60%. Co-

lombia is the only South American country

with Pacific and Caribbean coasts. Whereas

the Caribbean attracts tourists and enter-

prise, the Pacific has been a backwater.

Corruption is partly responsible. The

four previous mayors of Buenaventura, the

region’s largest city, are or recently were in

prison. But the central government in Bo-

gotá bears much of the blame. Since inde-

pendence in 1810 it has invested in the Ca-

ribbean ports to encourage trade with

Europe and the United States. The rise of

trade with Asia since the 1990s should have

enriched the Pacific. But the government

imposes conditions that thwart the build-

ing of infrastructure and investment.

Among the most important (and least

known) is Ley (Law) 70 of 1993, under which

60% of the land on the Pacific coast—6m

hectares—is communally owned (see

map). Colombia enacted it to benefit the re-

gion’s mainly Afro-Colombian people. The

area was settled by fugitives from slavery,

then by freed slaves after abolition in 1851.

Ley 70 gave their descendants rights simi-

lar to those of indigenous peoples, includ-

ing the right to form councils that can

claim title to government lands they have

long occupied. Unlike indigenous re-

serves, this land cannot be transferred to

third parties even if a community agrees.

Borrowers cannot offer it as collateral.

The law’s defenders say it preserves the

environment and Afro-Caribbean culture.

Families dwell in huts made from wood

gathered nearby, cultivate plantains and

coconuts and hunt iguanas and turtles.

Some bury a baby’s umbilical cord to affirm

their ties to the land. Juan Camilo Cárde-

nas, an economist at the University of the

Andes in Bogotá, contends that families on

communally owned land have lower levels

of extreme poverty than others in the re-

gion. Collective titling discourages defor-

estation, which has soared elsewhere. Gra-

ciano Caicedo, a leader of the Yurumanguí

river community, claims that a return to a

way of life that pre-dates white settlement

would make hospitals unnecessary.

But in some ways Ley 70 and the related

right of communities to be consulted on

projects that affect them, derived from the

International Labour Organisation’s (ilo’s)

convention on indigenous peoples, hold

back the region’s people. The effect is made

worse by the government’s failure to issue

rules that define the application of both

rights. That makes unclaimed land subject

Colombia

No-man’s land

BUENAVENTURA

Collective land ownership keeps the country’s Pacific coast poor

PACI F I C

OCEAN

Caribbean

Sea

COLOMBIA

PANAMA

ECUADOR

Bogotá

Chocó

Collective titles

Source: Observatory of

Ethnic and Peasant Territories

Cali

Tumaco

Buenaventura

200 km

The Americas

40 Bello: Bolsonaro plays with fire

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