Español (English below)
Tras décadas de conflicto interno que abarcaron gran parte del siglo XX y todo el XXI, Colombia también ha sido un escenario de una rica experiencia de reconstrucción comunitaria liderada por personas internamente desplazadas, así como de otras formas de activismo comunitario que han trabajado en alianza con instituciones nacionales e internacionales para reconstruir hogares y familias.
Fuertes redes regionales de confianza y liderazgo comunitario, junto con una notable orientación cultural hacia el futuro, una disposición a adaptarse a diferentes formas de gobierno —incluso a gobiernos criminales— y una larga tradición de tolerancia estatal frente a la ocupación ilegal de tierras y el asentamiento urbano informal, han permitido la reconstrucción comunitaria de hogares y de la vida familiar para millones de familias a lo largo de las décadas.
Desde finales de la década de 1990, un marco de comprensión de las crisis humanitarias basado en los derechos humanos, junto con la relativa fortaleza del Estado colombiano, han dado lugar a diversas formas de experimentación institucional para responder a las oleadas de personas internamente desplazadas provenientes de zonas de conflicto. Algunas de estas iniciativas se han orientado hacia la asistencia humanitaria; otras han enfatizado la participación política; otras han optado por reparaciones en pagos únicos; y más recientemente, por la justicia transicional restaurativa y la restitución de tierras.
Los beneficiarios de estos programas no han sido receptores pasivos: han navegado con habilidad los cambios en los marcos institucionales para avanzar sus propios intereses en la sanación del trauma, la superación de la pobreza y la construcción de nuevas formas de vida en los lugares donde se asentaron tras huir de la guerra. Los programas estatales y los esfuerzos humanitarios internacionales deberían tener en cuenta esta historia de agencia, supervivencia y capacidad de sobreponerse, que está inscrita en los éxitos y fracasos de las múltiples experiencias institucionales desarrolladas a lo largo de las décadas.
English
After decades of internal conflict spanning most of the XXth century and all the XXIst, Colombia has also been the site of rich experience with grassroots reconstruction by internally displaced people, as well as other forms of community activism that have partnered with national and international institutions to rebuild homes and families.
Strong regional trust networks and community leadership, together with a notable cultural orientation toward the future, a willingness to adapt to different forms of governance, even criminal governance, and a long tradition of state forbearance of illegal homesteading and urban squatting, have enabled grassroots reconstruction of homes and family life for millions of families over the decades.
Since the late 1990s, a rights-based framework of understanding of humanitarian crisis, and the relative strength of the Colombian state, has produced a variety of institutional experiments to address the waves of internally displaced people from conflict areas. Some of these experiments have been oriented towards humanitarian assistance, others have emphasized political participation, others have turned to lump-sum reparations, and more recently, to restorative transitional justice and land restitution.
Beneficiaries of these programs have not been passive recipients, navigating skillfully the changing institutional frames to advance their own interests in healing from trauma, recovering from poverty, and thriving in the new settings after fleeing the war. State program and international humanitarian efforts should take into account this history of agency, survival and resourcefulness, embedded in the successes and failures of many institutional experiments over the decades.
Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll is an Associate Professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. Her research areas are law and social movements, law and violence, violence against women, and sexual and reproductive rights. Ripoll is also a Magistrate in the Chamber for the Recognition of Truth, Responsibility and Determination of Facts and Conduct of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in Bogotá, where she works on truth-building, determining responsibilities and promoting restorative justice in the context of the Colombian armed conflict.
She has numerous academic articles published in important journals such as The International Journal of Constitutional Law (Pennsylvania), Harvard Human Rights Journal (United States), Feminist Legal Studies (Switzerland), Law and Society Review, and Social and Legal Studies (United Kingdom).
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The lecture was followed by a roundtable with:
First IHSA Annual Lecture | War and Humanity | May 2024
The first lecture took place on Thursday 23 May 2024, at the Literature House in Bergen. The inaugural lecture was introduced by Antonio De Lauri (President, IHSA), and given by Khaled Quzmar, (General Director of Defense of Children Palestine).
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The roundtable was moderated by Antonio De Lauri with attendees both in person in Bergen (Norway) and online.