Grupo Argos chief executive officer Jose Alberto Velez on Thursday said that the Colombian conglomerate is set to donate money and a large piece of land to a charity for poor farmers in a bid to support peace amid uncertainty about land reparation efforts.
Laws on how to compensate victims of a five-decade war as well as a partial land reform agreement reached at peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have prompted some business leaders to worry that land purchased for company operations might be reclaimed by displaced inhabitants.
Argos plans to donate US$20.9 million and 6,600 hectares of land located in the Montes de Maria region, near the nation’s northern Caribbean coast.
Velez said the land was purchased “in good faith” for a reforestation project funded by the group, one of Colombia’s largest holding companies.
The land might previously have belonged to farmers who were displaced by illegal groups, Velez told local Caracol Radio, so the company felt it was better to donate the land to a charity which works with that group.
“There is the possibility that there are claimants on the land, who we did not purchase the land from, but who might have sold it years ago, displaced by violence or pressured by paramilitaries or the guerrillas,” Velez said.
“So we decided to give all the land, about 6,600 hectares, a thousand of which have been reforested, to an independent foundation,” Velez said, adding that the cash donation is set to go to the Grow in Peace Foundation.
The charity plans to use the land and money to create a “peace laboratory” for 600 farming families, who can grow avocados, tobacco and sesame, among other agriculture projects.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and millions displaced as a result of the Colombian government’s war with leftist guerillas.
In 2011, Colombia’s Congress approved the Law of Victims, under which displaced people can reclaim their land and get reparations.
Businesses and investors now fear they might be asked to return land they thought had been purchased legally.
Any peace deal must be approved in a public referendum before it becomes law.
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