ASOCATDAME
ASOCATDAME
The Association for Peasants, Rural Workers and Defenders of the Environment from Meta – ASOCATDAME (for its initials in Spanish: Asociación de Campesinos, Trabajadores y Defensores del Medio Ambiente del Meta), was started in late 2016 by the local human rights defender Ruby Castaño, along with a group of local peasants in the Castillo municipality of the Meta department of Colombia.
ASOCATDAME’s goal is to organize as many of the landless peasants living in the area, and create an association that will work for the recognition and reparation of the many rural poor, who are victims of the armed conflict, by granting them access to land for them to live and work on.
An important part of the association is also to create community amongst the peasants and through small cooperatives help improve the difficult economic situations many live with.
And finally, the hope is to be a good example for others, and especially the younger generations, to be proud of their strong peasant heritage, and to bring pride and love for the countryside back, after many years of armed conflict.
The association was formally legalized in start 2018 and has currently more than 200 members.

Ruby Castaño 55 years old
Ruby has fought for the rights of the local peasants in the Upper Ariari area of the Meta department since she was 14 years old. For that she has survived at least two assassination attempts, being kidnapped by paramilitaries, and displaced to Bogota, where she now lives with armed protection. She continues to help landless peasants and displaced communities despite constant death threats from paramilitaries.
Background
Baggrund
The Meta region has been one of the most heavily impacted areas in Colombia by the armed conflict. For
more than 30 years the region was a FARC strong-hold, and for decades it was deemed a ‘red zone’ with
the local rural population being caught in the middle of ongoing combat between several different armed
groups.
During the gruesome decade of the nationally organized paramilitary reign of the AUC, the rural
population became their direct objective, and was victim of countless massacres, thousands of forced
disappearances, and the forced displacement of so many people, it left almost half of the towns and
villages of the Castillo municipality completely abandoned by 2005.

Trinidad Rubio 56 years old
Displaced in 2005 from the Floresta village by guerilla and paramilitaries in combat in the village. Her son was killed 1st may 2005 in a landmine and another son disappeared the 1st July 2005. Her husband died in 2004. She was displaced with her two daughters to Villavicencio for one year. After that they went to live in Campo Alegre for four years. She now lives in a small house in Medellin del Ariari with her daughters and a granddaughter, but her dream is to have a little piece of land with chickens.
ASOCATDAME’s Fight for Land
ASOCATDAMEs kamp for jord
The local peasants are slowly returning to the area, after years of poverty in the cities, but they are returning to find that their houses, land and animals are gone. Gone are also the local cooperatives and peasant unions, the ties that kept the communities together and the local economy going.
There are hardly any municipal, regional or state authorities present. Instead what they find is the land has been sold or leased to large corporations, like extensive palm oil or banana plantations, to large cattle farms, or mining companies drilling for oil or mining for natural resources.
The lack of access to land for the large majority of the Colombian rural population, and the unequal distribution of land is the issue at the heart of the Colombian armed conflict. Which is why the agreement on land reform is a central part of the peace agreement between the guerrilla group FARC and the Colombian government, that was signed in November 2016.
It is on the shoulders of the land reform, and the official end to the armed conflict, that the peasants are returning to the region, and have formed ASOCATDAME. But unfortunately, ASOCATDAME has struggled for two years to start a legal process with the government’s Land Agency, to gain access to land for the landless peasants. So far, they have not been able to even start the process, and the peasants continue to live under very precarious economic and social conditions.
Most of ASOCATDAMEs members are victims of the armed conflict in different ways. More than half are victims of forced displacement, and many of families only count on one parent or provider. Most are day laborers, who manage to gain only one to two days of work per week.
While the association continues to fight for the legal process to begin, they are seeking economic help to be able to start several cooperatives, with the objective of creating more stable work and income for the peasants in the association.
Your support will help finance:
- Rent five acres of land to grow yuca or corn –
to eat and sell at the local market - Rent or buy a piece of land suitable for planting native trees and other native plants
- Rent a piece of land to grow vegetables –
for a basic food ration programme for the families in the association - Production of 8-10.000 egg laying chickens –
to be run by a women’s cooperative and sold at local markets - Production of coconut oil and lotions –
to be run by a women’s collective and sold at local markets

Jesus Albeiro Zapata, 49 years old
Jesus was displaced in 2003 from the Yucapé village. The paramilitaries came and forced everyone to flee, and he lost everything. All he has left is his wife and three children. He received a small house in the regional capital, for being registered as a displaced person, but he’s from the countryside, so he’s come back to work and make a living. He works as a day laborer harvesting yuca, but it’s hard and there is little work. He has a hernia in his back and it’s hard to work because of the pain. He hopes to receive a small piece of land to rest on.
21% of €2000
€ 420 reached in total
FAILED on 4/6/2020
