Colombia Is Charting a New Path Forward After a Brutal Civil War

The ravages of civil war are painfully clear: Apart from massive numbers of injuries and deaths, families and communities are forced to flee, abandoning their property and possessions. Syria, Libya, South Sudan, Mali, and the Central African Republic show the depth of the crisis. Bringing the fighting to a close is difficult enough, but the legacy of discord can be tenacious, especially when it comes to land lost. Some disputes—such as those at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—have lasted generations.

In Latin America a critical experiment in land restitution is under way. On June 23 the government of Colombia agreed to a cease-fire with the armed leftist rebels called Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), officially ending hostilities in a conflict that raged for more than 50 years. The fighting has cost about 220,000 lives (80 percent civilian), with more than 6 million people—about 1 in every 10 Colombians—pushed off their land or out of their home. The country has the world’s second-highest number of internally displaced people, only recently eclipsed by Syria’s 7.6 million. They are estimated to have lost a combined 19 million acres, an area roughly the size of South Carolina. Key to the peace that’s slowly taking hold in the nation is an orderly restitution of property.