In the implementation of the recent peace accords in Colombia, a key question will be how to make collective reparations to indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities that have been disproportionately affected by the conflict. Yet a future ethnic reparations program need not reinvent the wheel; recent precedent from Colombia in the form of land restitution to ethnic communities since 2011 offers important lessons for the present moment.
Collective reparation for conflict-related harms is not the only pending debt the Colombian government has to ethnic communities, however: ethnic communities are also disproportionately likely to be deprived of basic social rights (whether owing to discrimination or to lack of state services in their territories) and constitutionally-guaranteed ethnic rights. These groups still have not received reparations for violence, exploitation, genocide, and slavery they have historically suffered. The “Ethnic Chapter” of the revised peace accords with the FARC, published on November 14, 2016 explicitly acknowledges this historical violence as a context and justification for taking a differential approach to reparation for ethnic communities. Failure to recognize and remedy historical discrimination and violence against minority groups as part of transitional justice efforts prevents the transformation of material conditions that characterized the previous unjust political context. Such an omission calls into question to what extent such processes can be said to mark a true transition. In other words, repairing ethnic and racial injustice must be a critical focus of transitional justice efforts in the coming years, if they are to be truly “transitional” for minority communities in more than just name.
