IN 2017 Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) gave up its weapons and began a process of demobilisation, based on a 2016 peace agreement which promised the Farc political legitimacy and protection from capitalist-backed paramilitary violence, as well as comprehensive rural reform for the benefit of peasants.

Highlighting that the exploitation and victimisation of peasants by powerful capitalist interests, alongside gross land inequalities, explains the persistence of civil war, the peace agreement calls for the “progressive access to rural property to those who live in the countryside, and in particular, to rural women and to the most vulnerable communities, and by legalising and democratising property and promoting broader ownership of land, so that it fulfils its social function.”

Colombia’s land distribution is the most unequal in Latin America and, according to 2018 data, 81 per cent of land — commonly the most fertile land for production — was owned by 1 per cent of the largest farms. This is in spite of multiple land reforms passed in Congress, such as one in 2011, all of which have been progressive in theory but opposed by capitalist-oriented institutions in practice. In Colombia, “anti-restitution” paramilitaries are regularly funded by landowners to oppose the practical implementation of land reforms.