Barriers and tensions in political participation for victims in the context of collective reparation processes in the case of El Dorado y El Castillo – Meta in the context of Colombia’s political transition

Abstract

The present paper aims to reflect about barriers and tensions that are presented to victims in political participation processes in the context of collective reparation framed in Ley 1448 which regards victims and land restitution in 2011. All of it in relation to the visibility of damage and detriment, the participation in political decisions about planning and executing diagnostics, the elaboration of plans to repair and follow-up these, which finally causes their voices to not be heard and historical memory of the facts to get damaged, the concealment of participants and the collective dimension of reparation to be diluted in the middle of revictimization, the lack of sustainability of the processes and corruption, which play a fundamental role in the implementation of a slow and scarcely effective law. Firstly, the paper contextualizes the conflict in the municipalities of El Castillo and El Dorado – Meta, afterward locates the role of the memory in the processes of visibility of damage, in a third section it illustrates some barriers that have been exposed by organizations and collectives of victims in the processes of political participation of the victims, and finally the case of the mentioned municipalities is presented; In which the testimonies of 20 victims belonging to the Comités de Impulso and 4 institutional participants of the municipalities were gathered, via narrative approach in-depth interviews in the year 2018. Additionally, the investigation process counted with a process of victim organizations follow-up during this period which was recorded and systematized in field journals.