Wire Partner Colombia Informa interviewed peasant senator Robert Daza, who welcomed Congress' recognition of peasants as subjects with rights and special protection. The approval of the legislative act reforms the constitution and creates the Agrarian and Rural Jurisdiction.
Colombia Informa: After so many years of seeking the recognition of peasants as subjects with rights, how do you welcome this achievement?
Robert Daza: With great joy. As a peasant senator, I am grateful to God, grateful for all the efforts made by the speakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
This project had been defeated seven times before and now, under this government of change, it has been approved. It is a great joy but also a great responsibility because we have to make this constitutional recognition a reality.
This does not end here, this is just the beginning. We have to convert all these public policy measures into a statutory law that recognises the rights of the peasantry. There is a lot of work ahead so we, the peasantry, have to organise ourselves. It's difficult to organise because there are so many of us but it's time to pull together and move forward.
Peasant senator Robert Daza
CI: What are the implications of the approval of this legislation for the Colombian State? What are the obligations of the Colombian State in recognising the peasantry?
RD: The Colombian State has to start taking the peasant population into account in public policies, in territorial planning, in agrarian policies. As peasants, for example, we had been denied the right to participate in the Ministry of Agriculture's budget, in the public policy of our peasant economy.
A culture of our own, our own education, are things the national government needs to start recognising. Also that there are peasant communities and that these communities need to be governed by peasant communities.
That is why it is important to organise ourselves and demand that the national government implement these regulations so that they can be put into practice as soon as possible.
CI: What impact does the recognition of the peasantry have on agrarian reform?
RD: This legislative act has profound implications, because it is one of the pillars of agrarian reform. Peasants, as subjects with rights, now have the right to the land and our territory.
CI: Senator Daza: How can we ensure that this does not become an empty promise, as is the case with many things in the Constitution?
RD: Well, that depends on us. If we as peasants fall asleep, nothing will happen.
That is why we call on the peasantry to get our act together. This is merely the break of a new dawn.
CI: What are the views of the peasant communities you have worked with?
RD: They were represented by a delegation in the National Congress. There was also a farmers' market as an expression, a sample, of what the peasants produce and do in their territories.
Likewise, they are aware and know that this message has to be taken back to all the communities and peasants, but above all that we have to organise ourselves once again.
