Publisher's Synopsis
"Violence associated with Colombia's long-running internal armed conflict has driven more than 4.8 million Colombians from their homes, generating the world's largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Colombian IDPs are estimated to have left behind 6 million hectares of land, much of which armed groups, their allies, and others seized, and continue to hold. In June 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos took an unprecedented step towards addressing this problem by securing passage of the Victims Law, which aims to return land to hundreds of thousands of displaced families over the course of a decade. Despite some notable gains in applying the Victims Law, major obstacles stand in the way of its effective implementation. IDPs who have sought to recover land through this new law and other restitution mechanisms have faced widespread abuses tied to their efforts, including killings, new incidents of forced displacement, and d
