‘Authorized’ Minga? The Challenges of Popular Movements

By Micheál Ó Tuathail and Manuel Rozental

Last fall, Colombia’s social and popular movements captured the world’s attention. Emerging initially from the indigenous territories in Northern Cauca and expanding to unite diverse sectors, the Social and Community Minga burst onto the national and international scene with a popular agenda for radical change, a “country of the peoples without owners." The collective screams of the indigenous movement, Afro-Colombian communities, women’s, worker, student and other social organizations across the country reached a fever pitch, garnering much attention from abroad.

A year later, the Minga appears to have arrived at a crossroads, where a once powerful popular agenda risks being manipulated in favour of a narrow and domesticating one. While its capacity to mobilize remains strong, the Minga’s direction is increasingly contested.

Read more here: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2196/1/


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RECALCA: On the territorial minga de pensamiento, Toez, Cauca

Colombian Action Network in Response to ‘Free Trade’, RECALCA

Webpage: www.recalca.org.co

Email: recalca@etb.net.co

Indigenous Territory of Toez - Caloto, 29 September, 2009

ON THE TERRITORIAL MINGA OF THOUGHT: ECONOMY-ENVIRONMENT

Between the 28^th and 30^th of September, hundreds of indigenous peoples from the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), Colombia, met to debate the environmental, territorial and economic situation in Latin America, Colombia, and in their own communities. RECALCA, as a participating organization in this process, gave the following declaration at the event:

The superpowers of the world, especially the United States, the European Union and Canada, the same that have tried to sign ‘free trade agreements’ with Colombia, have found themselves struggling for control over the exploitation of natural resources and biodiversity wherever it is found.

The advance of infrastructure megaprojects – dams, highways, telecommunications projects, mining, and fossil and agro-fuels – occurs quickly and voraciously through the activities of transnational corporations with the support of governments at the service of private interests. This occurs against the sovereignty and autonomy of countries and communities, the true owners of these territories.

The pace has quickened over the past 20 years, robbing countries and generating misery, hunger and poverty for the majority of the inhabitants of Latin America. In Colombia, the situation is extreme: 4 million internally displaced, 4 million Colombians forced to leave the country, 22 million living in poverty and 8 million homeless.

If that weren’t enough, the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez has signed ‘Free Trade Agreements’, at the behest of companies from these countries, to ensure control over natural resources, food and inexpensive labour. This project goes against indigenous, Afro-descendent and peasant communities, workers in the fields and in the cities, students, women, average citizens and national companies. It is a project of re-colonization, not unlike that from which all of the Americas suffered during the Spanish colonization.

The Cauca Department, and especially its indigenous territories, is one of the primary targets of the FTAs and the transnational corporations. In these territories, there is an abundance of resources: water, arable land for agriculture, rich biodiversity, coal, gold and other minerals.

The principal priority of the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, as demonstrated by its actions over the last 7 years, is to hand this territory over on a silver platter to foreign capital through policies such as ‘Investor Confidence’ and ‘Democratic Security’. Feigning to minimize the effects of the armed conflict, the government has increased its military presence in the region, repressing all expressions of social organization and resistance to neoliberalism and, in so doing, opening the way for the penetration of big extractive and agro-fuel companies.

The submission of the government of Uribe Vélez to the interests of Empire pushes forward the destruction of democracy and national institutions, stigmatizing and persecuting critics of his policies. Moreover, he is perpetuating his power in order to continue this project, which successively diminishes national sovereignty to the point that he is willing to give 7 military bases to the United States, so they can continue their intervention in Colombia and expand into other South American countries.

The only way out for indigenous, Afro-Colombian and peasant communities in Cauca is to strengthen their resistance against this model, defending their ‘life projects’ within their territories and without falling into appeasements meant to ruin us. An important example of this is that – through resistance – the Social and Community Minga has enjoyed important victories with its 5-point agenda. Through this agenda, the Rural Development Statute came down, and not a single FTA negotiated by the government has been ratified.

What is required is an expansion of the unity of all democratic sectors in Colombia and Latin America, an unavoidable precondition for reversing neoliberalism and the recuperation of sovereignty. May the project at the service of all triumph.

* RECALCA brings together the 53 most important social and worker organizations in Colombia to coordinate strategies of education, information and mobilization against the Free Trade Agreements pushed forward by the national government.

Upcoming Vancouver Events in Support of Indigenous Communications Network in Cauca, Colombia

La Chiva (with the help of many friends) has begun a major fundraising campaign in Vancouver to support of the Tejido de Comunicación of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, Colomba (http://www.nasaacin.org).

The Tejido has asked for our help in raising funds to repair the equipment for Radio Pa-Yumat, their community radio station, which was destroyed last December by unknown saboteurs, seriously hindering their ability to accompany their communities.

This and many other attacks and threats have come from all of Colombia's armed actors. The attacks are clearly in response to their community's position of non-violent resistance to war and the effectiveness of the Tejido's communications strategy in bringing that message to the national and international scene (see: http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=9919).

For the Nasa indigenous communicators, communication is simultaneously community accompaniment and resistance to what they call the 'death project' presented by transnational interests and the armed actors that threaten the viability of popular community-based responses, or 'life plans'.

Truth, participation and democracy derived from the communities are what social movements seek to strengthen within society. They are confronting the mass media, which engages in what might be more accurately regarded as propaganda rather than communication: the domination of the media landscape to ensure passive audiences and to halt the development of communication based on raising consciousness from social movements. Is this confrontation why the Communications Weavers are currently being singled out, persecuted, and threatened?

-- Vilma Almendra, member of the Tejido de Comunicación

As friends of the Tejido, we are mobilizing our support to show that they are not alone and that we share their vision for another possible and necessary world.

On July 1 2009, Latino Soy (FM96.1 in Vancouver) began a summer-long radio campaign to raise funds for the Tejido de Comunicación. They have been in direct contact with Radio Pa'Yumat, collecting donations, broadcasting interviews and informing Vancouver's Spanish-speaking community about the situation in Cauca and the importance of communication in popular resistance struggles in the Americas.

Please join us in Vancouver for the following events, where you can learn more about the situation in Colombia (and its relation to Canada), support the work of the Tejido, and have a good time while you're at it!

Mark your calendars!



Salsa en Minga
A salsa party in support of the indigenous Communications Network in Northern Cauca, Colombia
With genuine hard-hitting salsa music by DJ La Salsómana
FREE Salsa lesson with Ramses (8:30-9:30pm)

Saturday July 25 2009
Doors: 8pm
Venue: Cambrian Hall
Address: 215 E 17th Avenue (Main Street & 17th Ave)
Cost: $10
Snacks and locally-produced alcoholic beverages will be available.
We will also be selling copies of 'Country of the Peoples without Owners'

Tickets available at the door, or at the following locations:
Panaderia Latina Bakery: 4906 Joyce Street, Vancouver
Los Guerreros Latin Food Products: 3317 Kingsway, Vancouver
Info: 604.607.4814 or 604.338.0806
Presented by La Chiva and Grupo Atarraya. Sponsored by Latino Soy 96.1FM


Film Screening and Celebration:
Country of the Peoples without Owners
A screening of the documentary (Spanish w/ English subtitles) created by the Tejido de Comunicación about the process of the Minga de Resistencia Social y Comunitaria
This documentary has been warmly received by audiences across Colombia, up and down the West Coast of North America, in Eastern Canada and, more recently, by hundreds in New York.
With music by DJ La Salsómana

Saturday August 1 2009
7:30pm
Venue: Rhizome Cafe
Address: 317 Broadway East, Vancouver, (near Broadway and Kingsway)
Cost: $5 - $10 Sliding Scale (No one will be turned away).
Come early for dinner and drinks!
Copies of the documentary will also be for sale.

Presented by La Chiva and Grupo Atarraya with the generous support of Rhizome Cafe and Latino Soy 96.1FM.

For more information about the above events, please check out the Canada-Colombia Project blog: http://www.canadacolombiaproject.blogspot.com

Country of the Peoples without Owners

La Chiva (and friends) are winding up for a major fundraising campaign in support of the Tejido de Comunicación of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN).

We'll be holding two salsa events in Vancouver and film screenings in cities across western Canada to raise awareness, support and funds for the courageous indigenous communicators.

The film we'll be showing at those events is 'Country of the Peoples Without Owners' (described below) and available (to you!) upon a donation of $20.00 or more using the button to the right.

Here's a synopsis:

Colombia will never be the same after those 61 historic days of the “Social and Community Minga,” which was initiated on October 11th 2008, and culminated in a massive rally in the Simon Bolivar Plaza in downtown Bogotá on a rainswept afternoon in late November. The protagonists and witnesses of these dramatic events were too busy making history to comprehend or anticipate the impact of their actions. From the department of Cauca, thinking people, people of the word, people of dignity rose up, united together with the “other Colombia,” to reject State policies that, through terror, subjugate the people to misery and hunger.

As was expected, the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe responded to this peaceful mobilization with terror, resulting in at least two deaths and 120 wounded, some severely. The people resisted the relentless attacks of the major corporate media, the tricks and the lies of Administration officials, and the machinations of the government that were activated against their dignity.

What happens when the poorest and most marginal people confront, without weapons, the most powerful regime of Latin America, sustained and backed by the economic, political, military and media powers of the United States and their transnational corporate allies? The response is apparent in the wisdom of the five-point agenda that provided the fuel for the Popular Minga. This is what the film “A Country of Peoples: Without Owners” depicts through moving and exemplary actions that provide the seeds for liberty.

This documentary is conceptualized, written, edited and produced by the Communication Team of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN.

A Country of People Without Owners

Following the resistance of the indigenous population of Colombia to the repression by the U.S.-backed regime of President Alvaro Uribe.

Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca / Colombia / 2009 / 60 min / Spanish with English Subtitles

A follow-up to "We Are Raised with our Staffs of Authority in Hand," an award winning documentary about the resistance of the indigenous population of Colombia to the repression by the U.S.-backed regime of President Alvaro Uribe.

From October 12 to November 24, 2008, Colombia's popular movement, led by the country's indigenous organizations, carried out an unprecedented six-week mobilization and march to protest against the government's economic development and military/security policies, as well as the ongoing violations of the rights of indigenous people.

The Minga Popular was the beginning of a nation-wide, popular uprising designed to transform Colombian society through coordinated, non-violent mobilization.

One of the keys to the success of the 1-1/2 month mobilization was the indigenous community's strategic use of communication technology, which, combined with their traditional communication practices of grassroots assemblies and public consultations, was able to construct an alternative (people's) narrative about their broader struggle to the Colombian people.

The heart of this work was carried out on the community station Radio Payumat, the voice of the indigenous people of Northern Cauca. However, since December 13th, the station has been off the air after an act of ruthless sabotage severely damaged its transmitter, a deliberate attempt to silence the indigenous movement.

To receive a copy of this documentary, donate $20.00 or more (via the button on the right) to our campaign in support of the Communications Weaving (Tejido de Communicación) of the ACIN.

All donations/proceeds collected will be used to help get ACIN’s community radio station Radio Payumat, back on the air after it was sabotaged in late December 2008.

Mensaje de La Chiva al Tejido de Comunicación de la ACIN

Written by La Chiva, 11 February 2009

CAMINEMOS LA PALABRA CON EL TEJIDO DE COMUNICACION!
NO ESTAN SOL@S!

La indignante y reprochable represión a los medios de comunicación y reporteros alternativos o no afiliados a los monopolios informativos en Colombia, es el pan de cada día. El régimen autoritario acalla cualquier crítica y oposición y pretende silenciar las voces que difunden nuevas propuestas e ideas. El avance de los intereses privados apoyados por el régimen autoritario necesita del silencio y sumisión de los pueblos. El monopolio de los medios de comunicación es la táctica que utilizan para promover la usura, el individualismo y el racismo como los valores aceptados por la sociedad. La resistencia del pueblo es ignorada, cuando no macartizada y señalada como terrorista, perturbadora y anti-social. Esa es, exactamente, la manera en que los monopolizados medios de comunicación en Colombia han presentado la resistencia de las poblaciones indígenas del Norte del Cauca y sus organizaciones.

Sabiamente, este pueblo indígena ha construido su propio Tejido de Comunicación. Ha contrapuesto la verdad de los hechos a lo presentado por los medios de comunicación manejados por los monopolios y ha difundido su palabra y sus valores dentro y fuera de la comunidad, alcanzando incluso el ambiente internacional. Han utilizado los medios que tienen a su alcance para revelar las brutales actuaciones de las fuerzas armadas y policiales; la represión abierta y rastrera a la que son sometidos; y para desmentir y desenmascarar a los medios de comunicación y a las pociones políticas y económicas que promueven esta represión. Gracias al Tejido de Comunicación conocimos el pliego de 5 puntos que movilizo la Minga por Colombia y que el gobierno colombiano y los otros medios nunca nos quisieron mostrar. Gracias al Tejido tuvimos cubrimiento y contacto con la Minga por Colombia en su recorrido. Gracias a ellos pudimos expresar nuestra solidaridad con la lucha de los pueblos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca.

Los miembros del Tejido de Comunicación se sienten hoy bajo presión, su pagina de Internet y los medios materiales necesarios para la transmisión han sido saboteados, y sus miembros han recibido amenazas directas contra su vida. Su único "crimen" ha sido transmitir la palabra y no ceder a los intereses privados. Su labor es admirable y definitiva para el bienestar de su pueblo. En este momento en que la avaricia y la perversión quieren mantener el pueblo sumiso, la existencia del Tejido se convierte en un obstáculo para estos intereses privados. Quieren aislarlos y romper los lazos que han construido caminando la palabra por Colombia y en otros países.

La Chiva, Colombia Solidarity Group, hoy quiere solidarizarse, una vez mas, con la lucha del pueblo indígena y rechazar las amenazas contra el Tejido de comunicación en general y en especial la amenaza que Gustavo Ulcué, tejedor y amigo, recibió en los últimos días. La legitima y necesaria labor de comunicación, promoción y compromiso con la Minga por Colombia ha convertido al Tejido de Comunicación, y a Gustavo como miembro del Tejido, en blanco de la agresión de aquellos que temen que la verdad sea revelada a los Colombianos y lo medios internacionales.

Hoy, llamamos a las autoridades colombianas a que investiguen seriamente esta y otras agresiones contra el Tejido, pero sobre todo, llamamos a todos lo Colombian@s y aquellos que se solidarizan con su lucha a nivel internacional, a que nos movilicemos en defensa de las comunidades en el Cauca y del Tejido de Comunicación, quienes no descansan en su tarea de difundir su mensaje.

Queridos compañeros de la ACIN y del Tejido de Comunicación, recuerden que ustedes no están solos y que nosotros haremos hasta lo imposible por transmitir su palabra y apoyar su lucha, que es en ultima instancia, parte de la lucha de todos por construir una sociedad justa.

"It's one world. Hear us." An Open Letter from ACIN to Obama

http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=9126

It's one world. Hear us.

[ 11/09/2008] [ ] [ Autor: Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca ACIN]

An Open Letter from the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, Cauca, Colombia

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

First, please accept our sincerest congratulations. We congratulate you for having won because of the noblest aspirations of your people. We believe your election expresses the deep desire for change felt by the majority of the American people: change in the economy and society, change in international relations, and from there, we hope, a change in the relation between the United States of America and the indigenous peoples of the world.

During your historic campaign, you publicly noted some of what Colombians currently face: you acknowledged the murders of trade unionists by the regime and stated your reservations about a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which our people have decided against through a democratic referendum, about which we have written before. We thank you for this, and now want you to know about the specific situation facing Colombia's indigenous peoples.

In the past six years we have lost 1,200 people to assassinations by armed groups, both legal and illegal: right-wing paramilitaries, guerrillas, police, and members of the Armed Forces. These murders have created insecurity, and this insecurity has been used to strip us of our rights with what we call the 'Laws of Disposession', legislation and other institutional norms that legalize the loss of our lands, our fundamental freedoms, and our rights. These 'Laws of Disposession' dispose of Colombia's mines, hydrocarbons, water resources, intellectual property, and national parks – all of these are brought under the ultimate rule of the Free Trade Agreement with the US. The FTA will mean that if Colombia tries to change the laws to allow its people to share in its resources, or take any independent action, then we will be obliged to compensate investors. We will have to submit our laws to international arbitration outside our own legal jurisdiction.

But in our view, the ultimate law is respect for life. In our view, the FTA puts commercial logic above the respect for life itself, not to mention international humanitarian law, and agreements such as the ILO's Covenant 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Worldwide. These covenants, as well as the respect for life, have to date been ignored by the government of our country, as well as by your government.

Unfortunately both of our governments, yours with Plan Colombia, and ours with the so-called 'Democratic Security' policy, have done great harm to indigenous peoples and to Mother Earth, while multinational corporations have profited from the petroleum and gas contracts, mining concessions, privatizations, and low wages.

We hope that you will contribute to change all this. We hope that you will listen to our words. We have lost many lives defending these words. Words that we have walked and words we have backed up with our civil resistance. These are the words that we have shared throughout Colombia since October 10th, through the Minga of Resistance, a national mobilization we convened as indigenous peoples, in association with other peoples and processes.

We believe that the spirit of change in your people cannot be contained. We believe it is a powerful force and we hope it will join with the force of our words and with the need for change that has been crying out throughout Latin America. We invite you to come to listen to these words here in Colombia, and we are ready to articulate them there, if you invite us. Here or there, it is the same planet and our mission is the same: to protect it, to save us all.

Finally, we call on you to join with us in fulfilling our responsibilities to Mother Earth and to history. The first one, our collective Mother, has given all of us life. The second one, History, has reflected our growing pains and our errors. History has not matured into systems that reconcile it with the rhythms, pulses and mandates of Nature. We believe the very reason human beings and our societies exist is to create the harmony between History and Mother Earth.
As children of Mother Earth, we speak to you as to a brother or sister. As indigenous, we speak to you as peoples, obliged from creation to seek harmony between History and Mother Earth. To reconcile ourselves with nature is not an option, but an imperative. By transforming life into merchandise, by making sacred the accumulation of wealth, by enshrining greed, we believe our societies have entered a crisis, including the economic crisis currently faced by your country. The destruction of our peoples in Colombia is a consequence of that Historic error that has placed greed before life.

Brother President-elect Barack Obama, we do not write to ask or demand anything for ourselves, because we know that the death of our peoples and the destruction of our cultures for greed, signifies the beginning of the end for Mother Earth itself.

Before we disappear with our collective Mother, we have decided to speak and to walk our words. In the name of life, of change, let us listen to one another and make the effort to find a way to create harmony between our peoples and life. Let us create the conditions for new History. One where the sacred ends of promotion and protection of Life and Beauty can never again be transformed into means for private accumulation of power at the service of greed.

We await you.

With great respect,

Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca ACIN -Cxab Wala Kiwe-Territory of the Great People- Cauca, Mother Earth,
November 10th, 2008

Colombia Review: The Minga Continues

Colombia Review: The Minga Continues

Colombia Review is a project of Pueblos en Camino and La Chiva

Friends,

Continuing our previous coverage of the popular and indigenous Minga underway in Colombia, we have compiled a number of articles, communiques and audio and video material for you. This is by no means exhaustive, as new developments are flooding our inboxes every day. Still, we hope this synthesis will help you to translate consciousness into action. We would like to acknowledge the writing and translations of Mario Murillo, who has been a formidable force in these past months, producing excellent analyses and up to the minute coverage of what has been going on in Cauca. Check out his blog for regular updates on the situation: http://www.mamaradio.blogspot.com.

We cannot emphasize enough the need for continued international pressure in support of the Minga, especially as the horrible news of bombings in Bogota and the habitual ignorance of the Colombian press in covering the Minga serve to distract and distort what is truly a monumental step towards increasing people power in Colombia.

At the bottom of this edition, please read our call to action, where we propose that the Minga be transnational. Now is the time to think of ways in which we can break the divisions imposed by distance, false borders and supposedly different realities. The pain of the Minga is being put into action: the word is being walked. Can we share that pain and take it on as our own? Can we make all causes our own and articulate transnational responses to transnational problems? We must!

La Chiva

To recieve future editions of Colombia Review, please send an email to La Chiva: lachivacollective at sign gmail dot com


The Declaration of the Minga

No More Terror and Avarice: We propose a new path for the people for a new country
This important text is the Declaration of the Minga of the People, La Maria-Piendamo, Territory of Dialogue, Coexistence and Peace, a proposal for a new country. It speaks for itself.
12 October 2008

The Minga's Agenda Advancing
Uribe responds to the five point agenda of the popular and indigenous Minga. The Minga responds.
ACIN, translated by Mario A. Murillo, 20 October 2008

Communiques

Pueblos en Camino: A Letter to Canadian Authorities on Cauca
We strongly urge the Canadian government to call on President Uribe to cease violence immediately and support an International Commission to the region to monitor the situation. We also strongly urge the Canadian government to rethink its position on free trade with the Colombian government, which has demonstrated a complete disdain for the rights of Indigenous people and other groups, and has a long history of brutal human rights violations.
Pueblos en Camino Collective

La Chiva, Canada: Your Pain and Demands We Make Our Own
We not only empathize with your demands for justice and the desperate situation you have faced in these last days, decades and centuries, imposed by so-called governments. We feel the sadness of your injured and dead. Your pain is ours, too. Your struggle is not only an indigenous struggle confined to Colombia. We have made this struggle ours, for it is one for life, peace and human dignity, values that transcend all false borders. […] Our victory will be the laughter of our children, in dignified peace and freedom.
La Chiva Collective, Canada, Canada-Colombia Project, 24 October 2008

International Federation of Human Rights: No More Murders of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
The FIDH repudiates this disproportionate use of force and expresses its profound concern for the reports of armed civilians protected by the police shooting at the protestors from the mountainside, as well as for the acts of barbarity committed by members of ESMAD, which resulted gravely wounding an indigenous person with a machete. They had also left this person on the ground for several hours and impeded the arrival of ambulances to assist him.
FIDH, 18 October 2008

European Union Parlaimentarians' Declaration
A model for Canadian and US representatives?
Various MEPs, European Union

Communiques (ACIN)

The Minga Continues: We are Neither, Nor Do We Condone, Terrorists
We will defend ourselves with no arms other than our staffs of authority. We call on all social movements and peoples to mobilize, but to do it without arms, peacefully and towards the fulfilment of the objectives of the agenda. Those who use arms act expressly against the orientation and position of the process and the Minga, serving the regime the excuse it needs to attack.
ACIN, translated by La Chiva, 16 October 2008

Uribe, ¿por qué no te callas?
Impresionante. El Presidente rodeado de la cúpula militar en el Palacio de Nariño. El General Naranjo vuelve a hablar con su característica convicción y fuerza. Estaban rectificando con supuesta valentía una mentira: la Policía sí disparó. Pero habría sido mejor que se callara a que rectificara una mentira con otras.
ACIN, Nasa-ACIN http://www.nasaacin.org , 23 de octubre 2008

Articles

La Otra Colombia
La Minga es el modo en que los de abajo han decidido "concertar la palabra y convertirla en camino". Es apenas el primer paso. Pero el que marca el rumbo y deja huella.
Raul Zibechi, La Jornada, 24 de octubre 2008

Who is Behind Today's Six Bomb Blasts in Bogotá?
The editorial writer for El Tiempo, (which just so happens to be owned by the Vice President's family) tells us we should not come to any preconceived conclusions that ultimately play into the hands of terrorists by "planting uncertainty in the people," thereby destroying "the confidence the country has recuperated in its institutions." It is ironic that this so-called "confidence" in the country's institutions comes amidst the troubling revelations at the DAS, the mass indigenous mobilizations in the south, and the ongoing Para-política scandal surrounding close allies of the president, a scandal that, for various reasons, seems to have been put on hold for the time being as the media focus on other unfolding crises.
Mario A. Murillo, MAMARadio, 23 October 2008.

To Cut Down a Rebellion
On the convergence of the sugarcane workers' struggle and that of the indigenous of Northern Cauca… "Colombia's movements continue to shoulder more than their fair burden against one of the most brutal regimes in the hemisphere. The regime can't be allowed to drown out their story."
Justin Podur, Killing Train, 21 October 2008

Por que decidimos marchar a Cali y NO a Popayan
La Minga de Resistencia Social y Comunitaria decidió marchar de La María (Piendamó-Cauca) hacia la ciudad de Cali. En ningún momento se pensó ir a Popayán, capital del departamento. Esa decisión tiene razones de gran peso político. La Minga tiene conciencia de que hoy ya no enfrentamos a la vieja clase terrateniente de Popayán. A ella la derrotamos en los años 80 del siglo pasado (s. XX) cuando empezamos a recuperar, de hecho, nuestro territorio.
Anonymous, La Maria-Piendamo, 21 de octubre 2008

Media Representations of Popular Mobilizations Ignore Movement's Message
This is an excellent article on the propaganda war waged by the Colombian mainstream media against the participants of the Minga. It would take a video broadcast by CNN to force Uribe to admit that the army had indeed fired on protesters (see the video by CNN's Karl Penhaul below).
Mario A. Murillo, MAMARadio, 18 October 2008

Audio

Indigenous Colombians Begin 10,000-Strong March Against Uribe Government
More than 10,000 indigenous Colombians have begun a protest march against President Alvaro Uribe. Marchers are protesting the militarization of their territories, the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and the failure of Uribe's administration to fulfill various accords with the indigenous communities. We speak to Rafael Coicué, an indigenous leader who lost sight in his left eye when he was assaulted by [ESMAD – the Colombian Riot Police], and Mario Murillo, a US journalist and professor currently in Colombia.
Democracy Now!, 23 October 2008

Update from Cauca, Colombia: Indigenous resistance and state repression
Colombian activist Manuel Rozental discusses the current situation in Cauca and outlines the five point popular and indigenous agenda proposed by the Minga
Interview by Dawn Paley, The Dominion, 16 October 2008

Videos

CNN Exposes what the Colombian Press Could Not
Uribe was forced to respond to this specific report by CNN, showing what the ACIN has been proving all along. Still, with over 130 wounded and one dead, Uribe claimed that one member of the public forces had opened fired on the protesters. One bad apple?
Karl Penhaul reports for CNN, 22 October 2008

Rafael Coicue on CNN en espanol
Long-time indigenous activist, Rafael Coicue, explains the situation in Cauca. Rafael was shot in the eye this past July 2008 by ESMAD, the Colombian riot squad, while passing by confrontations on his motorcycle, costing him vision in one of his eyes. This interview is in Spanish; however, for English content, please check out Rafael and Mario Murillo on Democracy Now! (above).

Uribe miente: pruebas contundentes
A pesar de que el presidente Álvaro Uribe insiste en que los pueblos indígenas somos terroristas y niega la brutal agresión de la fuerza pública contra la movilización de los pueblos, aquí están los hechos que demuestran todo lo contrario.
Video produced by ACIN, 22 de octubre 2008

Call for Action

THE MINGA MUST BE TRANSNATIONAL

You've read the communiqués, watched and listened to the videos and audio. You recognize the need for, and value of, international pressure in support of the popular and indigenous Minga of the Peoples and against the repression of the regime in Colombia. You recognize the complicity of the Canadian government by declaring the regime a close ally, negotiating a free trade agreement with no one's consent but its own, and remaining silent while the regime massacres its own people. You want to do something about it.

As a first emergency step, we encourage you to write letters to your MPs, the Prime Minister's Office, the Canadian Embassy in Bogota, and the Colombian Presidency telling them that you will not stand for it. "Not in our name," as they say. If you don't feel you have the time to write a letter of your own, copy and paste or print off one of the letters above, and tell them you support it (The Pueblos en Camino Letter is an excellent model, which you can also sign on to by sending an email to caucasupport@gmail.com).

This should take less than five minutes. Easy peasy!

Write them…
Prime Minister's Office: pm@pm.gc.ca
Canadian Embassy in Bogota: bgota@international.gc.ca

Phone them…
Department of Foreign Affairs: 1-800-267-8376 (toll-free in Canada)
Canadian Embassy in Bogota: 011 (57 1) 657 9800

Better yet…

LET'S FAX IT TO THEM!

La Chiva is organizing a 'fax action' campaign directed at the targets identified below. This weekend, we will be sending all we can to these offices (and over and over again) to ensure that the Minga's agenda is heard. We encourage you to join us!

Fax Action Targets

Canadian Embassy in Bogota: 011 (57 1) 657 9912
Prime Minister's Office: 1 (613) 941 6900
Department of Foreign Affairs: 1 (613) 996 9709

Aside from this initial campaign, supporting the Minga is a process. The Minga is more than an indigenous proposal but one for all peoples. Everyone has their own particular part to play. Free trade agreements affect us all, as do the privatization of our healthcare system, the superficial nature of our democratic processes, the 'flexibilization' of our livelihoods, the conversion of all life into a commodity, the planet a wasteland. The same transnational 'death project' targeted by the Minga is in our cities, towns, schools, hospitals, and forests.

Given that (and more!), we propose that the Minga be transnational. Let's get moving…

Que todas las causas sean nuestras! Tod@s somos nasas!

A Letter to Canadian Authorities on Cauca

Please forward widely.

If you would like to sign on, please send an email to caucasupport@gmail.com or feel free to sign and send on your own copy to the Prime Minister and other relevant ministers.


Dear Prime Minister Harper:


We are deeply disturbed by reports of violent repression being carried out by the Colombian army against unarmed civilians during the past week’s civilian demonstration against militarization and free trade in Colombia, and we urge the Canadian government to take immediate action.

Over the past week, the Indigenous people of Cauca and throughout Colombia have faced severe violations of international human rights. At least 11 people across Colombia have been killed and more than 60 people have been wounded during the peaceful demonstrations – four of these deaths occurred in Cauca. There are reports of unprovoked assassinations of Indigenous civilians by the Colombian Army and the paramilitary groups. One Indigenous man, brother of two of the leaders of the peaceful mobilization, was allegedly taken from a vehicle and shot in front of his wife and child at point blank range by the paramilitary organization “Black Eagles”. There has also been a report of a death threat by the guerrilla group FARC against one of the most vocal Indigenous leaders, Feliciano Valencia. It seems the Indigenous people are a target of all armed groups operating in the region who are vying for control over lands recognized as Indigenous territories by the Colombian Constitution of 1991. Further, there have been blockages of websites and suspicious power outages affecting internet service during the mobilization, reported by Indymedia and FLIP (Foundation for Free Expression in Bogota, Colombia, member of IFEX, based in Toronto, Canada). The international right to free expression is also under threat.

There is a significant danger of a massacre, and governments around the world are being called upon to act to stop this violence and foster a space for dialogue between Indigenous people and the Colombian government. The InterAmerican Commission and UN bodies have been asked to intervene, and support the implementation of an international commission to travel to the region.

This violence is taking place within the context of the negotiation and implementation of free trade agreements with Canada, the U.S. and other countries. As citizens of Canada, it is deeply disturbing that our government is engaged in trade and ‘business as usual’ with a government with well known and documented violations of human rights, particularly against Indigenous people in that country. Canada, as a signatory of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is obliged to uphold the rights, cultural and territorial integrity of Indigenous peoples around the world.

We strongly urge the Canadian government to call on President Uribe to cease violence immediately and support an International Commission to the region to monitor the situation.

We also strongly urge the Canadian government to rethink its position on free trade with the Colombian government, which has demonstrated a complete disdain for the rights of Indigenous people and other groups, and has a long history of brutal human rights violations.

Signed,
Pueblos En Camino,

Colombia Review: INDIGENOUS UPRISING!

Colombia Review is a compilation of news articles, communiques and audio and video materials (in English and Spanish) that we circulate on our email list. They are a means for synthesizing the huge amount of material we receive on the issues we work on and a way to keep people informed without jamming up their inboxes. We usually mail these out every week or two, but it all depends on the situation... sometimes more, sometimes less.

If you would like to receive future editions of Colombia Review in your email inbox, please send an email to La Chiva:

lachivacollective@gmail.com

Saludos,
La Chiva

Colombia Review is a project of Pueblos en Camino and La Chiva

October 4 - 13

In this special edition of Colombia Review, we turn to Cauca, Colombia, where indigenous peoples have been mobilizing over the past several days (517 years really) in commemoration of the dawn of Spanish colonialism in the Americas, a colonialism that has changed bosses but never really subsided. Their resistance to the neoliberal project (most explicitly represented by Plan Colombia I and II, Plan Puebla Panama, the IIRSA, and a number of other local, national and transnational projects, all of accumulation and death) and in defense of their Life Plans as well as those of the rest of Colombia's popular and social movements. Readers will have paid close attention to the struggle of the sugarcane workers (the corteros), which is still on-going and in serious need of outside support and people pressuring the states responsible for the terror they are courageously facing head-on. As we watch the struggle of the corteros and express our solidarity with them from outside, the indigenous of Cauca have stood beside the corteros at every step, just as the corteros have supported the indigenous 'liberation of Mother Earth'.

Still, the situation is intensifying in Cauca. In the last 10 days, no less than 13 indigenous have been murdered, this following the threat from the 'Angry Peasants of Cauca' received by the indigenous movement in Cauca on the 5th of August, 2008. Much of the violence is attributed to the paramilitary group the 'Aguilas Negras', a reincarnation (or extension) of the supposedly demobilized right-wing death squads that have hunted down trade unionists, social movement leaders, and the Uribe regimes opposition over the past few years: those same death squads that have taken up their posts in the Colombian state and negotiate free trade agreements with their allies in the North and impose mining codes and displacement for transnational capital.

In spite of the violence and dire situation, the indigenous and popular movements of Cauca in particular have not let up. Their resolve against the free trade agreements and violence in their territories is not only an inspiration but also a message to those of us outside Colombia that we, too, must stand on the side of civil resistance not only in Colombia but in our own communities. The Colombia model is being countered amidst the most difficult of situations. That same model of armed robbery exists in decidedly different forms in places like Canada, the US and Europe; that model is the same and must also be exposed, confronted and challenged at every step. THAT is perhaps the best kind of solidarity we can express.

Find below several articles (most on which have been translated by the formidable Mario Murillo) on the mobilizations in Cauca as well as a video produced by the Communications Network of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Colombia (ACIN) (in English and Spanish). For readers of Spanish, there are some communiques coming directly from the ACIN.

In solidarity,
La Chiva

Articles

Dirty War of Terror Being Waged Against Indigenous Movement in Colombia
Come from where they may, these assassins' bullets represent a war against the people. Come from where it may, this plan of death benefits those who would have us silenced and displaced! They should leave now, those who bring war, those who use arms against the people, those who use death to feed their avarice. Leave us in peace!
By Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), Translated by Mario Murillo,13 October 2008

Indigenous Communities Throughout Colombia Begin Mobilization Amidst Government Imposed State of "Internal Commotion"
Today we mark 517 years of resistance against an uninterrupted aggression. The Neo-liberal conquest, more cruel and technologically developed than the one that started with the European invasion, advances with its insatiable appetite of accumulation.
By ACIN, Translated by Mario Murillo, 12 October 2008

Indigenous Communities in Colombia Mobilize to Protest U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Plan Colombia and the Policies of the Bush-Backed Uribe Government
Today, four years after the First Itinerant Congress of the Peoples, we, the indigenous communities of northern Cauca, reiterate its message and validity and continue through the path we walked back then, a march that was weaved through centuries of memory and resistance… Today we mobilize, as millions of others mobilize throughout the Americas, demanding dignity, justice, liberty and a respect for life.
By ACIN, Translated by Mario Murillo, 9 October 2008

Manuel Quintin Lame: 41 Years After his Death, his Legacy Remains Strong
"My position is to defend through legal means the indigenous territories…my labor I conduct with a grand public spirit…and my voice, tomorrow, will have a different tone, for it will be the voice of the silent lightning that scratches the darkened night sky over the western horizon." – Manuel Quintin Lame
By Mario Murillo, MAMARadio, 6 October 2008

A Call For Solidarity with the Social Movements of Colombia on this 516th Anniversary of the European Invasion
Once again approaching the anniversary of the invasion initiated by Christopher Columbus which is continually mistaken in great offense as the discovery of the continent that today we call America, we bees, compañeras ants and other animals and plants of Abya Yala (South America) have concluded with buzzing from a continual Minga of thought.
By The Beehive Collective, 5 October 2008

Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining
…[The recent Bogotá Declaration focuses on] combating impunity of transnational corporations, the need for strong environmental and human right protections toward the aim of good living for all, as well as opposition to the whims of sumptuary consumerism of metals and metal products.
By Jennifer Moore, UpsideDownWorld.org, 8 October 2008

Video

Plan Integral de Agresión en el Cauca / Integral Plan of Agression in Cauca, Colombia
The Nasa people of Northern Cauca in South Western Colombia, have become a symbol of resistance and an example of dignity. This documentary explains the occupation strategy being advanced through "Plan Colombia Phase II" on behalf of corporate and geo-strategic transnatonal interests. The exceptional effort of the Nasa people is at risk of elimination for the sake of profit. The documentary was entirely scripted and produced by our indigenous communications network and by our communities in resistance for life and dignity.
En español http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a7TwMVB8_s
In English http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=XBhpfdQ2Rng

Contenido en español

¡La conmoción de los pueblos!
Información en español sobre la Gran Minga de Resistencia Social y Comunitaria desde en Cauca, Colombia. Cada día, se encuentra aquí más información a través del Tejido de Comunicación y Relaciones Externas para la Verdad y la Vida, de la ACIN.
Por ACIN-Cauca

Nos encadenamos para alcanzar la Libertad
Lo más difícil de la lucha contra la esclavitud y la tiranía es reconocer que existen. Cuando los pueblos nos sabemos esclavos, las cadenas estorban y desde ese momento, la Libertad se hace indispensable, impostergable, tan necesaria como el aire para respirar. No vale la pena la vida sin Libertad…. Hoy, segundo día de la Minga desde el Cauca hacemos un llamado: a partir de mañana, hagamos visibles las cadenas para quitarnoslas de encima.
Por ACIN-Cauca, 13 de octubre 2008

The Minga´s agenda advancing

ACIN, translated by Mario A. Murillo,
20 October 2008

The Minga´s agenda advancing

As the mass popular mobilization in Cauca and the rest of Colombia continues, the government of Alvaro Uribe finally addressed the five point agenda of the Popular and Indigenous Minga, a small step forward after over a week of intense military confrontations with the protesters. Yesterday, just before indigenous and peasant communities were about to begin their long march towards the city of Cali, the Minister of Agriculture, Andrés Felipe Arias, finally recognized the points in the name of the national government.

This initial recognition of the five points has been superceded today, Wednesday, as the Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, continued to point out that the indigenous protesters were the violent ones who were “firing on Colombian special police forces.”

So as the march moves forward, bringing together indigenous and peasants with sugar cane workers and Afro-Colombian communities, it is important to keep in mind the very important message the Popular Minga is putting forward to the entire nation. In a sense, it’s a response to the many distortions that continue to make their way through the corporate media
filters.

1. It’s clear that our struggle…includes the issue of lands, which is transcendental for indigenous people. But we reiterate so that it remains totally clear, that we are not only demanding that the government comply with agreements and resolve the necessities and
rights relating solely to the issue of lands; the issue of land is not a problem exclusive to the indigenous people, nor is it something that relates only to the department of Cauca. We will continue to present our profound ideas and proposals relating to this issue, based on abundant
experience, evidence, and documentation that exists, such that we will expose the superficial pronouncements that the government keeps making about this issue, including from the President himself. In essence what we are demanding is that the government comply with agreements already made, which public opinion should be made aware of. Given that accords
and conventions already exist, we are not looking to negotiate anything new at the current moment, but that the government complies with what has already been agreed upon.


2. Regarding the issue of the Free Trade Agreements: First of all, we reiterate with total clarity that yes, this issue is a fundamental component of our agenda of mobilization, and that it must be addressed. We remind the national government that the FTA with the United States has already gone through its legislative cycles in Colombia and has been approved by the National Congress. Although we have serious concerns about the entire process of negotiation of the accord, of the lack of consultation and the manner in which it was approved, at the moment, the U.S.-Colombia FTA is in the hands of the United States Congress. Recognizing this reality, we propose that mechanisms of interlocution with the U.S. Congress be established. It makes no sense to debate the issue with the Colombian government. Our reasons for rejecting this and other similar treaties have been expressed broadly and repeatedly. We also must remember that we organized and held transparent, internationally verified, and democratic consultations on the FTA in the past, where 98% of the voters in Cauca gave an overwhelming “NO” to the FTA.

3. Regarding the issue of what we call the “Laws of Dispossesion,” we point to Law 1152 or the so-called Rural Statute, as a perfect example. We embrace as a precedent the Constitutional Court (Sentence C-030 of 2008) that declared as unconstitutional the Forestry Law (the court ruled that the measure was approved by Congress without the prior consultation of indigenous
communities, as protected by the Colombian Constitution). With this in mind, we demand that the Rural Statute, the Mining Code of 2007, the Plans for Water Privatization, and all the other laws that should be brought before the people under the provisions of Prior Consultation, be
reconsidered, according to Treaty 169 of the International Labor Organization, represented in Law 21 of 1991, and protected in the Colombian Constitution. Based on this demand, we call on the immediate nullification of all these laws (starting with the Rural Statute) and the presentation before the Congress of new bills that will replace them, which will be based on the consideration of results and contents emerging from an appropriate, democratic process of prior consultation with the communities.


4. With regards to the “Democratic Security” policy of the government, we repudiate the ongoing assassinations of indigenous people, on average more than 100 per year during the six years of the presidency of Dr. Alvaro Uribe Vélez, 17 of which were carried out between the 17th of
September, 2008, and today, October 21. Eight of these assassinations were carried out by the public security forces, one by the guerillas, four by paramilitaries and the other four victims by unknown actors. The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC, has been putting
together a comprehensive report of the serious and systematic violations of human rights carried out against indigenous people, yet there has been no serious or effective commitment on the part of the government to put a stop to this dirty war, to carry out thorough investigations into
these crimes, so that they don’t remain in absolute impunity, and that guarantees can be established to protect the life and the security of individuals and collectives, in coordination with the indigenous authorities and the people. The record of the National Government vis-a-vis indigenous people is shameful.

The diagnosis and recommendations made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples continue to be valid. There is evidence of a deterioration of conditions that point to an ethnocide and genocide, in some cases leading to the extinction of various peoples. To this we add the criminal and war-like treatment of our current mobilization, something that warrants an investigation resulting in documentation that will lead to the truth, justice and integral reparations for indigenous people. At the moment, as a consequence of the false accusations that the government and the public security forces have made against us, calling us terrorists manipulated by FARC, we have been indirectly drawn into the internal armed conflict, and in turn, everybody involved in the Popular Mobilization of the last few days is under imminent risk of attacks against our integrity, and individual security.

We hold the government responsible for having created this situation of risk and imminent threat against our people. The state, which has the duty to protect us, actually threatens us. As a consequence, we find it necessary that there be an immediate presence such as an international
commission allowed into the territories, in order to assume concrete functions that could result in a response to this grave situation.

During the current mobilization, and throughout his mandate, President Uribe and his government have taken on an extremely alarming attitude towards indigenous people, insisting on negating our specific rights, which he should recognize and guarantee us given his constitutional mandate as head of state. He insists on presenting these rights as undeserved or abused privileges, with the objective of generating resentment against us, and promoting conflict with other social sectors.

We are calling attention to these attitudes andpolicies, which continue to generate discrimination and promote prejudice.

The President and his minister of Agriculture manipulate statistics and interpret some of our actions in distorted ways in order to get the rest of the Colombian population to believe that we receive unwarranted privileges, or worse yet, that we are responsible for the problems and
difficulties they as different sectors face. These manipulations are false and are not based on reality. Poverty and social injustice affect us all, and they are the responsibility of deliberate state policies that victimize us all.

We reaffirm our commitment to the well being of all peoples, with equality and social justice, and we do so as ancestral and ancient peoples. Therefore, we demand that the government stop deliberately confusing the guarantee of collective rights, social justice and equality, obligations permanently delayed or negated by the state, with the right to differences and the respect for diversity.

As Indigenous peoples, we demand that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People be ratified by the Colombian State as a law of the Republic. At the same time, we support the specific rights of other peoples and social sectors, always within the frame of social justice and equality. What for us is abhorrent and should disappear immediately is the high concentration of land and wealth, and the laws that guarantee benefits and privileges to political bosses, wealthy landowners, the upper classes and transnational corporations at the expense of poverty and exploitation of the majority.

Once our full agenda is recognized, the much-delayed process of resolving our many differences in a serious and integral way will finally begin. This will mean profound transformations, not only for indigenous people, but for all social sectors and the entire country. This requires understanding this reality in a very serious and mature fashion. To continue to postpone these transformations is irresponsible, and will send the country in a direction that up to now only benefits a few interests, and in the short term is unsustainable, even for those same interests. To transform Colombian institutionality in order to benefit all of society is necessary, possible and inevitable.

The irresponsible management of these important issues by both the government and the commercial mass media, requires a highly conscientious mobilization of a broad cross section of sectors, and the consolidation and development of a practical national agenda to advance
towards the country that is possible and necessary. This popular Minga proposes to establish a solid path of the people, to march together in unity, through diverse voices and mutual respect, sharing the pain of one another as we walk towards life and liberty.


Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca-ACIN
ACIN – Cxab Wala Kiwe
Santander de Quilichao, Octubre 20 de 2008.

EU Parliamentarians' Declaration on Repression of the Minga and Trade Unionist Movements in Colombia

We, the undersigned MEPs, have been informed about the repression perpetrated against the indigenous demonstrations taking place since October 12th in different Colombian regions, and the murder of 27 indigenous people, the disappearance of many more and the injuring of others. We have also learned about the repression against the sugar cane workers movement which begun in September.

We want to express our deep indignation about these serious violations of indigenous and trade unionists' rights that should not go unpunished.

We consider as legitimate the claims of the indigenous people for the respect of their land and autonomy, for the survival of their 102 different peoples, of which 18 are in constant danger of disappearance and for the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources. Likewise we recognize the legitimate claims of the sugar cane workers for decent work.

We urge the Colombian government to order the police and army force to immediately stop the repression against the indigenous peoples' and workers' movement.

We express our rejection of the unfounded expulsion of three European citizens who were observing the current demonstrations.

We condemn the permanent use of the pretext of fighting against terrorism to repress the social movement in Colombia.

- Vittorio Agnoletto, Italy
- André Brie, Germany
- Giusto Catania, Italy
- Gabriele Cretu, Romania
- Bairbre De Brun, Ireland
- Ilda Figueiredo, Portugal
- Claudio Fava, Italy
- Monica Frassoni , Italy
- Vicente Garcés, Spain
- Ana Maria Gomes, Portugal
- Pedro Guerreiro , Portugal
- Umberto Guidoni, Italy
- Jens Holm, Sweden
- Richard Howitt, United Kindom
- Marie Anne Isler-Béguin, France
- Eva Lichtenberger, Austria
- Marie-Noelle Lienemann, France
- Caroline Lucas, United Kindom
- Mary Lou Mac Donald, Ireland
- Helmuth Markov, Germany
- Erik Meijer, Holland
- Willy Meyer-Pleite, Spain
- Luisa Morgantini, Italy
- Tobias Pflüger, Germany
- Miguel Portas, Portugal
- Miloslav Ransdorf, Czech Republic
- Marco Rizzo, Italy
- Raul Romeva Rueda, Spain
- Esko Seppanen, Finland
- Eva-Britt Svensson, Sweden
- Feleknas Uca, Germany
- Gabriele Zimmer, Germany.

Por que decidimos marchar a Cali

Anonymous,
La María, Piendamó, Cauca, octubre 21 de 2008

La Minga de Resistencia Social y Comunitaria decidió marchar de La María (Piendamó-Cauca) hacia la ciudad de Cali. En ningún momento se pensó ir a Popayán, capital del departamento. Esa decisión tiene razones de gran peso político.

La Minga tiene conciencia de que hoy ya no enfrentamos a la vieja clase terrateniente de Popayán. A ella la derrotamos en los años 80 del siglo pasado (s. XX) cuando empezamos a recuperar, de hecho, nuestro territorio.

La Minga sabe que hoy desafiamos a una clase terrateniente de carácter capitalista, oligopólica, globalizada, representada por los dueños de los ingenios azucareros.

"(…) hoy Ardila Lülle, quien se precia de ser "el productor individual de azúcar más grande del mundo", controla más del 33 por ciento de la producción y el mercado (Silva 2004, p.p. 208-218). Es propietario del Ingenio Cauca, tiene el 52% de Providencia y por lo menos el 35% del ingenio Risaralda, fundado en 1979 con inversión de la Federación de Cafeteros, el estado y la Corporación Financiera de Occidente dominada por el Citibank."[1]

Cali representa el poder de esa clase, que además de ser económicamente poderosa es profundamente antidemocrática, reaccionaria, racista y sobre-explotadora. Su poder está manchado de sangre, especialmente la violencia de los años 50. Consolidaron su poderío territorial (240.000 has cultivadas con caña de azúcar) que les permite producir además de azúcar, etanol, energía eléctrica (utilizando el bagazo) y otra gran cantidad de productos derivados.

Hoy, ellos son los que pretenden desalojarnos de nuestro territorio. Nos quieren convertir en jornaleros y esclavos del gran capital. Les estorbamos. Somos "mal ejemplo".

La Minga tiene absolutamente claro que Cali representa ese poderío económico construido con base en el engaño y la mentira. Muchas trampas utilizaron para robarles las tierras a los campesinos negros que fueron los que domesticaron las "vegas" de los ríos Palo, Desbaratado, Paila, Cauca y demás ríos que recorren y alimentan con agua la región.

La Minga sabe que hoy en día los vestigios de la vieja clase terrateniente que hoy vive en Popayán es un apéndice insignificante de la burguesía agro-exportadora del Valle del Cauca. La rancia estirpe payanesa desde los años 80, echó a un lado sus sueños y prejuicios aristocráticos, y vendió su alma al diablo (gran capital).

Todas las decisiones importantes para el Cauca en las últimas tres décadas han sido tomadas en Cali: construcción de la represa de la Salvajina sobre el río Cauca que después en 1995 fue entregada al gran capital internacional (Unión Fenosa) cuando se creó la Empresa de Energía del Pacífico EPSA; la aprobación de la Ley Páez, que se justificó para beneficiar a los pueblos indios afectados por la avalancha del río de ese mismo nombre, y que realmente sólo le ha servido a los empresarios vallecaucanos y empresas transnacionales para construir un gran emporio de riqueza en los municipios de Guachené, Santander de Quilichao, Villarrica y Puerto Tejada.

Ya están construidos grandes anillos viales en el norte del Cauca y el sur del Valle, se tiene proyectado el tren de "cercanías", en alianza con la Anglo Gold Ashanti (Kedahda) y otras empresas mineras están detrás del oro que queda en los municipios de Suárez, Buenos Aires, El Tambo, Tierradentro y el Macizo colombiano. Su mirada avariciosa está sobre los lechos de carbón que van desde Jamundí hasta el Patía en la cordillera occidental. Y, en contubernio con Smurfit-Kapa desde hace 50 años explotan los bosques de pino y eucalipto con altos costos para la biodiversidad y el medio ambiente.

Vamos a Cali porque en sus alrededores se desarrolla una de las luchas más importantes de la clase obrera. Los trabajadores "corteros" de caña llevan 37 días de una histórica y valerosa huelga. Los obreros cañeros enfrentan el eje principal de las políticas laborales que se empezaron a implementar desde 1978 (la reconversión industrial aplicada en casos como los de la empresa Croydon del Pacífico). Las Cooperativas de Trabajo Asociado CTA representan la forma de explotación más descarada y "eficiente", en donde el obrero figura como "empresario", dueño de las CTA, y por tanto, debe responder por su seguridad social (salud, pensiones, riesgos profesionales), y hasta por su dotación de trabajo. Las condiciones de vida de los "corteros" es aterradora: jornadas de trabajo de 12 y 14 horas, ingresos miserables, hacinación en las ciudades como Puerto Tejada, Candelaria, Florida, Pradera, Guacarí, Bugalagrande, Miranda, Corinto, Guachené y Villarrica, entre otras.

Vamos a Cali porque allí viven cientos de miles de caucanos desplazados por la violencia, la pobreza y el hambre. Vamos a Cali porque allí nos encontraremos con los compañeros corteros y sus familias, con desempleados, moto-taxistas, los obreros y habitantes de barrios populares de esa ciudad. Y allí, en Cali, se empezará a construir de verdad la alianza entre indios, mestizos y afros, campesinos y obreros, y desde allí le gritaremos al mundo que nosotros – los verdaderos creadores de riqueza – nos merecemos una vida y un futuro mejor.

Por ello, mirar hacia Popayán no tiene sentido. Sólo volveremos a esa ciudad para "enterrar" esa clase política representada ejemplarmente por Juan José Chaux, exgobernador aliado de la mafia y el paramilitarismo. Hoy, los herederos de los terratenientes caucanos son una pequeña casta en proceso de descomposición y desaparecimiento. Es una clase sin futuro, que no merece interlocutar con la Minga.

Por eso nos vamos hacia Cali e invitamos a todos los sectores sociales y políticos a acompañarnos. Allí vamos a defender nuestras raíces y nuestra gente, para volver a Popayán llenos de orgullo y de entusiasmo, a reconstruir un Cauca indio, mestizo y afro, recuperando nuestros territorios de economía campesina, nuestros recursos naturales, nuestra biodiversidad, y por sobre todo, nuestra dignidad.

En Cali, con los corteros de caña consolidaremos la "alianza maravillosa" entre indios y corteros de caña. Marchemos sobre Cali con fuerza y decisión. Allí se cocinará nuestra inserción en los nuevos vientos latinoamericanos. Desde allí empezaremos a enterrar el "embrujo" uribista. No lo dudemos.

¡Vamos a marchar sobre Cali! ¡Vamos a derrotar a quien verdaderamente hay que enfrentar en este momento: los agroindustriales vallecaucanos productores de agrocombustibles!

Vamos a impedir la judicialización de nuestros dirigentes (indios y corteros). Vamos a decirle al mundo que no somos guerrilleros y que nuestra lucha es justa.

La Minga marcha sobre Cali. Acompañarla es cuestión de dignidad.