A/HRC/16/45/Add.1 former combatants have been placed in reintegration programmes, increased security has been achieved, and new spaces for dialogue have opened up. 61. The right to restitution of dispossessed lands of Afro-Colombians is an urgent matter that remains pending. The new Government has initiated two legislative reforms including a Bill for the restitution of land to forcibly displaced people and a Bill relating to the rights of the victims of the armed conflict. These legal initiatives are important and should include legal mechanisms clearly aimed at providing restitution of lands to Afro-Colombian communities as part of a complete reparation programme which considers victims on an equal basis while establishing specific measures for Afro-Colombians. 62. Given cases of intimidation, threats and murders against community leaders who are claiming land restitution, documented by OHCHR in 2008, 2009 and 2010, it is vital to take effective measures to protect victims and to investigate the perpetrators of such crimes. The independent expert’s consultations with many affected individuals and communities lead her to concur with the conclusions of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions who visited Colombia in June 2009 and stated: “groups composed of formerly demobilized paramilitaries, have also carried out many killings and the numbers are rising. The groups’ existence and growth are largely due to demobilization and transitional justice processes that have resulted in impunity for paramilitaries’ human rights violations. Neither victims nor the nation at large have seen justice done. The truth of why tens of thousands died and who was responsible remains hidden, and victims and their loved ones have been deprived of reparations.” G. Findings of the Constitutional Court 63. In decision T-025 of 2004, the Constitutional Court analysed hundreds of cases of forced displacement and declared the situation to amount to an “unconstitutional state of affairs”. According to Decision T-025: “The public policies for assisting the displaced population have failed to counter the serious deterioration of displaced persons’ conditions of vulnerability, they have not secured the effective enjoyment of their constitutional rights, nor contributed to surmount the conditions that cause the violation of said rights”. The decision emphasized the requirement for affirmative action measures for special groups within the displaced population. It identified 18 measures to be taken within strict timescales. In response the Government adopted a National Plan of Assistance for the Displaced (Decree 250 of 2005). 64. In Order 005 of January 2009, the Constitutional Court noted that Afro-Colombians suffer from a disproportionate impact of displacement on their collective and individual rights. It found that the Government has failed to respond with comprehensive, practical measures to solve the critical situation and that “[…] a policy focusing on the special needs of the displaced Afro-Colombian population is missing: attention to this population is limited to programmes and policies designed for the displaced population in general, and the Afro-Colombian displaced population has marginal access to this attention”. 65. The Court concluded that the causes of disproportionate Afro-Colombian displacement are (i) structural exclusion that results in greater marginalization and vulnerability, (ii) mining and agricultural processes which impose severe strains on their ancestral territories and has encouraged dispossession, and (iii) inadequate judicial and institutional protection for the collective territories of Afro-Colombians, which has 15