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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Showing posts with label Minga Popular. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minga Popular. Show all posts
November 5, 2009
October 27, 2009
ORGANISATIONS OF THE SOCIAL AND COMMUNITARIAN MINGA THREATENED AGAIN
Santiago de Cali, 22 October 2009
The below-signed organisations reject the threats and persecution which is being levelled against diverse organisations all over Colombia, in particular organisations which are part of the Minga of Social and Communitarian Resistence.
Today, October 22nd 2009, a threat arrived by fax to the offices of the trade union central CUT Valle. Signed by the ‘Black Eagles New Generation’ paramilitary group, the threat declares the following organisations as military objectives:
NOMADESC,
CUT VALLE,
PROCESO DE COMUNIDADES NEGRAS PCN (Black Communities Process),
LA TOMA COMMUNITY COUNCIL,
INDIGENOUS CABILDO AUTHORITY CERRO TIJERAS.
The following leaders were also named as military objective:
LICIFREY ARARA- mining leader from Suarez municipality, Cauca department;
EDWAR VILLEGAS- member of the CUT Valle Human Rights Team;
JOSE GOYES- member of the Political Commission of the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC);
DIEGO ESCOBAR- Member of CUT Valle Executive Committee;
PLUTARCO- Member of human rights association Siglo XXI in Buenos Aires municipality, Cauca; and
MERALDINO CABICHE- member of Suarez municipal council who has been the victim of multiple threats in the past week.
The threat seems to have been sent from a fax machine in Santander de Quilichao municipality, Cauca department, in an internet café called ‘Terra Punto com’.
Details: The fax arrived to the CUT Valle fax machine (number 3901498) at 12.33pm today, titled ‘THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUES COMPLYING WITH THE AGREEMENTS AND COMMITMENTS’.
The text reads as follows:
It is important to highlight that the organisations and individuals mentioned in the threat have been working together in defence of the rights of the communities of Suarez, Morales and Buenos Aires municipalities in Cauca department for several years.
In particular, they have denounced the Colombian state’s non-compliance with agreements signed with the indigenous, afro-Colombian and campesino communities in the area in 1986 (and ratified in 2006).
They have also denounced the harmful presence of the multinational companies Union Fenosa (Spain), AngloGold Ashanti (South Africa) and Smurfitt Carton de Colombia (Ireland). Harrassment of Aida Quilcue continues At approximately 7.45am on October 21st, four men who in a 5 door vehicle were seen to be monitoring the house of AIDA QUILCUE, ex-Chief Counciller of the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC).
The car’s registration plate was recorded, but when the details were taken to the police to ask them to run a check on the vehicle, the reply was that this registration doesn’t exist. At approximately 12pm on October 16th, when AIDA QUILCUE was in the mobilisation of the Minga of Social and Communitarian Resistance in the outside the Cali Municipal Administation Centre, she was followed by two men.
When the men were apprehended by indigenous guards and members of the CUT Valle Human Rights Team, they stated that they didn’t have identification (in Colombia it is obligatory to carry identification at all times). The men were handed over to the police, but the authorities have yet to clarify the men’s identity, where they come from, and why they were following AIDA QUILCUE.
Threat to Jose Goyes The same day, at approximately 1pm, member of the CRIC Political Commission and Ex-Governor of Honduras indigenous reserve JOSE GOYES received a call from a man who said, ‘Am I speaking with Jose Goyes?’, Goyes replied, ‘Yes, with him’, ‘Son of a bitch, we’ve been looking for you for days, but before we shoot you we’re going to give it to you in the face you you faggot, then we’re going to finish you off with lead’.
We are deeply concerned by the serious incidents involving threats, harassment, persecution, eviction and murder which have been occurring all over the country. Such events have increased drastically over the past few months.
We want to highlight that the country’s human rights crisis is intensifying as we enter the pre-electoral period, and when the social sectors all across the country have staged mass demonstrations in the Minga of Communitarian and Social Resistance, manifesting their inconformity with the current government’s policies.
The Minga has been able to show the serious human rights violations which are being committed all over the country.
We call on all of you to speak out as soon as possible, and demand a clear response from the Colombian state, in order to prevent an attack against any member of the threatened organisations.
If you are in Britain, you can direct your correspondence to the Colombian embassy at elondres@cancilleria.gov.co. [also mail@colombianembassy.co.uk ]
ASOCIACION PARA LA INVESTIGACION Y ACCION SOCIAL NOMADESC
CAMPAÑA PROHIBIDO OLVIDAR
PROCESO DE COMUNIDADES NEGRAS PCN
CENTRAL UNITARIA DE TRABAJADORES CUT – VALLE
CORPORACION JURIDICA UTOPIA
SINTRAUNICOL VALLE DEL CAUCA
ASOCIACIÓN PARA EL DESARROLLO SOCIAL INTEGRAL ECATE
RED DE HERMANDAD Y SOLIDARIDAD – COLOMBIA
CORPORACION SEMBRAR
Translation courtesy of Colombia Solidarity Campaign, UK
The below-signed organisations reject the threats and persecution which is being levelled against diverse organisations all over Colombia, in particular organisations which are part of the Minga of Social and Communitarian Resistence.
Today, October 22nd 2009, a threat arrived by fax to the offices of the trade union central CUT Valle. Signed by the ‘Black Eagles New Generation’ paramilitary group, the threat declares the following organisations as military objectives:
NOMADESC,
CUT VALLE,
PROCESO DE COMUNIDADES NEGRAS PCN (Black Communities Process),
LA TOMA COMMUNITY COUNCIL,
INDIGENOUS CABILDO AUTHORITY CERRO TIJERAS.
The following leaders were also named as military objective:
LICIFREY ARARA- mining leader from Suarez municipality, Cauca department;
EDWAR VILLEGAS- member of the CUT Valle Human Rights Team;
JOSE GOYES- member of the Political Commission of the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC);
DIEGO ESCOBAR- Member of CUT Valle Executive Committee;
PLUTARCO- Member of human rights association Siglo XXI in Buenos Aires municipality, Cauca; and
MERALDINO CABICHE- member of Suarez municipal council who has been the victim of multiple threats in the past week.
The threat seems to have been sent from a fax machine in Santander de Quilichao municipality, Cauca department, in an internet café called ‘Terra Punto com’.
Details: The fax arrived to the CUT Valle fax machine (number 3901498) at 12.33pm today, titled ‘THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUES COMPLYING WITH THE AGREEMENTS AND COMMITMENTS’.
The text reads as follows:
“You are defenders of the guerrilla, requesting land to plant coca to strengthen the indians and the guerrilla. You don’t understand the efforts of the President of the Republic Alvaro Uribe, who with the help of Familias en Accion (Families in Action), Forest Keepers (Guardabosques) and Democratic Security (all 3 are policies of the Uribe government)- a group of men and women concerned with improving the country. We have decided that it is necessary to begin again the fight against thos who camouflage themselves in social organisations such as CUT Valle, Nomadesc, Human Rights defenders, NGOs, enemies of our democracy.
Those bureaucrats don’t let Cauca progress, they don’t allow the entry of multinationals which bring benefits to the communities of SUAREZ, MORALES and BUENOS AIRES. Some of these organisations have made agreements with owners of mining deeds requesting the eviction of communities in mining zones in return for money, such as in La Toma community. We have documents to prove this.
Today we have decided to declare these son of a bitch bureaucrats as military objectives: human rights defenders, Nomadesc, CUT Valle, PCN, La Toma Community Council, Cerro Tijeras, Licifredy, Eduar Villegas, Jose Goyes, Diego Escobar, Recheche, Plutarco, Counciller Meraldino. Signed Aguilas Negras Nueva Generacion (Black Eagles New Generation).”
It is important to highlight that the organisations and individuals mentioned in the threat have been working together in defence of the rights of the communities of Suarez, Morales and Buenos Aires municipalities in Cauca department for several years.
In particular, they have denounced the Colombian state’s non-compliance with agreements signed with the indigenous, afro-Colombian and campesino communities in the area in 1986 (and ratified in 2006).
They have also denounced the harmful presence of the multinational companies Union Fenosa (Spain), AngloGold Ashanti (South Africa) and Smurfitt Carton de Colombia (Ireland). Harrassment of Aida Quilcue continues At approximately 7.45am on October 21st, four men who in a 5 door vehicle were seen to be monitoring the house of AIDA QUILCUE, ex-Chief Counciller of the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC).
The car’s registration plate was recorded, but when the details were taken to the police to ask them to run a check on the vehicle, the reply was that this registration doesn’t exist. At approximately 12pm on October 16th, when AIDA QUILCUE was in the mobilisation of the Minga of Social and Communitarian Resistance in the outside the Cali Municipal Administation Centre, she was followed by two men.
When the men were apprehended by indigenous guards and members of the CUT Valle Human Rights Team, they stated that they didn’t have identification (in Colombia it is obligatory to carry identification at all times). The men were handed over to the police, but the authorities have yet to clarify the men’s identity, where they come from, and why they were following AIDA QUILCUE.
Threat to Jose Goyes The same day, at approximately 1pm, member of the CRIC Political Commission and Ex-Governor of Honduras indigenous reserve JOSE GOYES received a call from a man who said, ‘Am I speaking with Jose Goyes?’, Goyes replied, ‘Yes, with him’, ‘Son of a bitch, we’ve been looking for you for days, but before we shoot you we’re going to give it to you in the face you you faggot, then we’re going to finish you off with lead’.
We are deeply concerned by the serious incidents involving threats, harassment, persecution, eviction and murder which have been occurring all over the country. Such events have increased drastically over the past few months.
We want to highlight that the country’s human rights crisis is intensifying as we enter the pre-electoral period, and when the social sectors all across the country have staged mass demonstrations in the Minga of Communitarian and Social Resistance, manifesting their inconformity with the current government’s policies.
The Minga has been able to show the serious human rights violations which are being committed all over the country.
We call on all of you to speak out as soon as possible, and demand a clear response from the Colombian state, in order to prevent an attack against any member of the threatened organisations.
If you are in Britain, you can direct your correspondence to the Colombian embassy at elondres@cancilleria.gov.co. [also mail@colombianembassy.co.uk ]
ASOCIACION PARA LA INVESTIGACION Y ACCION SOCIAL NOMADESC
CAMPAÑA PROHIBIDO OLVIDAR
PROCESO DE COMUNIDADES NEGRAS PCN
CENTRAL UNITARIA DE TRABAJADORES CUT – VALLE
CORPORACION JURIDICA UTOPIA
SINTRAUNICOL VALLE DEL CAUCA
ASOCIACIÓN PARA EL DESARROLLO SOCIAL INTEGRAL ECATE
RED DE HERMANDAD Y SOLIDARIDAD – COLOMBIA
CORPORACION SEMBRAR
Translation courtesy of Colombia Solidarity Campaign, UK
October 18, 2009
The Social and Community Minga and its Word
Hello friends,
The Pre-Congress of the Social and Community Minga was held in the Coliseo del Pueblo in Cali from October 13 - 16. The event brought together indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other social sectors from southwest Colombia to elaborate on how to carry forward the word and action of the Minga's five-point agenda, first articulated in the Indigenous and Popular Mandate of 2004 and brought to the national and international spheres with massive mobilizations last Fall. The Minga has put the national and international spotlight on Colombia's popular movements, demonstrating the dignity of peoples with an agenda of their own. The five points of the agenda illuminate a path for peoples in resistance in Colombia and beyond:
1. No to the Free Trade Agreements and the 'free trade' model.
2. No to all armed actors, each whose presence reinforces the actions of the others and threatens the lives of people in their communities. No more war and terror.
3. No to laws and legislation that evict people from their lands and deny them the right to the use of the earth's resources for sustaining life, laws that instead put people and nature at the service of transnational capital and accumulation.
4. Yes to the Colombian government honouring its agreements with indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other communities.
5. Yes to weaving an agenda of the peoples. All causes are our own.
This agenda has mobilized tens of thousands of people across Colombia, Latin America, and the world. At the march in Cali this past October 16, some 30,000 people walked together from the Coliseo del Pueblo to the centre of Cali. There were two other Pre-Congresses in Cartagena and Bogotá. People also marched in solidarity in other countries, such as Peru and Ecuador.
The mobilizing capacity of the Social and Community Minga has also garnered much attention from outside, which has arguably threatened its autonomy as a process of political and social change and community-based resistance. With the massive influx of interest from international funding agencies, some of the participating organizations have sought to change the Minga's agenda. These changes are not expressed explicitly but through subtle manoeuvres and strategic re-articulation of the five points, such as placing opposition to the FTAs alongside laws of eviction (calling not for their rejection but a public 'discussion') and replacing the first point with one that focuses on human rights, reflecting the interests of hundreds of NGOs and funding agencies operating in Colombia. That is not to say that human rights is not an important issue. The problem is that the changes to the agenda have occurred without discussion and debate, outside the spirit of the communities that have given the Minga its force; decisions are now being made through the leadership of organizations in private discussions with funding agencies, and the tens of thousands who continue to participate in the Minga are thus largely unclear on how the five-point agenda currently stands. In sum, there is much confusion.
The following notes, courtesy of some of the primary defenders of the original spirit of the Minga, the Tejido de Comunicación in Northern Cauca, not only provide journalistic reports of the events of the Pre-Congress in Cali earlier this week but also provide an analysis that focuses on the voices of the participants, those who have walked the word in every sense and right from the beginning. We share them in English below:
From the Minga in the Peoples’ Pre-summit
“Whether indigenous, Afro-Colombians, mestizos or peasants, we’re all here with the same objective: a Colombia where we all belong, where we all have justice, a Colombia where we all decide and not just the oligarchy-government that we have now. The people rule, the people choose, the people decide,” said an Afro-Colombian leader.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10650
The Minga and its word move on
“I don’t care about the traffic [caused by the march],” said a taxi driver stopped outside the Coliseo del Pueblo. “Someone has to do something different. This country is full of blind and ignorant people, people who refuse to see their own reality.”
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10652
Colombia has to wake up
In improvised tents, the communities will rest in the city of Cali until Friday, ignoring discomforts. They will continue walking the word woven from thought and feeling, from the teachings of the elders to defend the agenda of the Social and Community Minga that began with the Indigenous and Popular Mandate in 2004.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10649
The Popular and Campesino Minga attacked by the Public Forces
On the 12th of October, the Campesino and Popular Assembly, which includes about 2,000 campesinos, students, and popular sectors in the departments of Cauca, Nariño and Huila, began a session of reflection in five working groups to establish the central points and proposals to present at the Pre-Congress [of the Social and Community Minga] to be carried out in the city of Cali on the 14th and 15th of October.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10651
The Pre-Congress of the Social and Community Minga was held in the Coliseo del Pueblo in Cali from October 13 - 16. The event brought together indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other social sectors from southwest Colombia to elaborate on how to carry forward the word and action of the Minga's five-point agenda, first articulated in the Indigenous and Popular Mandate of 2004 and brought to the national and international spheres with massive mobilizations last Fall. The Minga has put the national and international spotlight on Colombia's popular movements, demonstrating the dignity of peoples with an agenda of their own. The five points of the agenda illuminate a path for peoples in resistance in Colombia and beyond:
1. No to the Free Trade Agreements and the 'free trade' model.
2. No to all armed actors, each whose presence reinforces the actions of the others and threatens the lives of people in their communities. No more war and terror.
3. No to laws and legislation that evict people from their lands and deny them the right to the use of the earth's resources for sustaining life, laws that instead put people and nature at the service of transnational capital and accumulation.
4. Yes to the Colombian government honouring its agreements with indigenous, Afro-Colombian and other communities.
5. Yes to weaving an agenda of the peoples. All causes are our own.
This agenda has mobilized tens of thousands of people across Colombia, Latin America, and the world. At the march in Cali this past October 16, some 30,000 people walked together from the Coliseo del Pueblo to the centre of Cali. There were two other Pre-Congresses in Cartagena and Bogotá. People also marched in solidarity in other countries, such as Peru and Ecuador.
The mobilizing capacity of the Social and Community Minga has also garnered much attention from outside, which has arguably threatened its autonomy as a process of political and social change and community-based resistance. With the massive influx of interest from international funding agencies, some of the participating organizations have sought to change the Minga's agenda. These changes are not expressed explicitly but through subtle manoeuvres and strategic re-articulation of the five points, such as placing opposition to the FTAs alongside laws of eviction (calling not for their rejection but a public 'discussion') and replacing the first point with one that focuses on human rights, reflecting the interests of hundreds of NGOs and funding agencies operating in Colombia. That is not to say that human rights is not an important issue. The problem is that the changes to the agenda have occurred without discussion and debate, outside the spirit of the communities that have given the Minga its force; decisions are now being made through the leadership of organizations in private discussions with funding agencies, and the tens of thousands who continue to participate in the Minga are thus largely unclear on how the five-point agenda currently stands. In sum, there is much confusion.
The following notes, courtesy of some of the primary defenders of the original spirit of the Minga, the Tejido de Comunicación in Northern Cauca, not only provide journalistic reports of the events of the Pre-Congress in Cali earlier this week but also provide an analysis that focuses on the voices of the participants, those who have walked the word in every sense and right from the beginning. We share them in English below:
From the Minga in the Peoples’ Pre-summit
“Whether indigenous, Afro-Colombians, mestizos or peasants, we’re all here with the same objective: a Colombia where we all belong, where we all have justice, a Colombia where we all decide and not just the oligarchy-government that we have now. The people rule, the people choose, the people decide,” said an Afro-Colombian leader.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10650
The Minga and its word move on
“I don’t care about the traffic [caused by the march],” said a taxi driver stopped outside the Coliseo del Pueblo. “Someone has to do something different. This country is full of blind and ignorant people, people who refuse to see their own reality.”
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10652
Colombia has to wake up
In improvised tents, the communities will rest in the city of Cali until Friday, ignoring discomforts. They will continue walking the word woven from thought and feeling, from the teachings of the elders to defend the agenda of the Social and Community Minga that began with the Indigenous and Popular Mandate in 2004.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10649
The Popular and Campesino Minga attacked by the Public Forces
On the 12th of October, the Campesino and Popular Assembly, which includes about 2,000 campesinos, students, and popular sectors in the departments of Cauca, Nariño and Huila, began a session of reflection in five working groups to establish the central points and proposals to present at the Pre-Congress [of the Social and Community Minga] to be carried out in the city of Cali on the 14th and 15th of October.
http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=10651
July 8, 2009
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/
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.
June 27, 2009
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:
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.
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.
April 17, 2009
Colombia Events in Vancouver!
Greetings,
For those of you in the Vancouver area, we are posting two FREE events planned for this weekend in Vancouver, BC on Colombia. Given the advancing (but stoppable!) ratification of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the Canadian Parliament -- an agreement with the sole purpose of absolving a regime of its crimes against its own people through the use of Canada's (highly disputable) reputation for human rights in the world -- we encourage your participation in these events.
Interpretation will be available in English and Spanish for both events!
Many thanks,
La Chiva
Saturday, April 18
Film Presentation and Discussion:
"Country of the Peoples without Owners"
A documentary produced by the Communications Network of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) about the recent popular mobilizations in Colombia. 45 Minutes; Spanish with English subtitles.
Speakers include: Doña Vicky (CIPO, Oaxaca), Manuel Rozental (Hemispheric Social Alliance, Polo Democratico Alternativo, Colombia) and Gustavo Ulcué (ACIN).
Location: UBC Robson Square (Downtown Vancouver), Room C215,
Time: 3-5pm
Presented by: CIPO, Grupo Atarraya, La Chiva Collective, and UBC Latin American Studies
Sunday, April 19
Public Workshop -
"Colombia, the Conflicts and Beyond: Perspectives on a Canadian Ally"
For detailed information on speakers and panels, see: http://www.sfu.ca/las/news/ColombiaTheConflictsandBeyond.html
Location: SFU Segal School of Business (Downtown Vancouver), 500 Granville Street
Time: 10am-5pm
Presented by: SFU and UBC Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies Students' Union, Simon Fraser Students' Society, Graduate Students' Society (SFU), La Chiva.
For those of you in the Vancouver area, we are posting two FREE events planned for this weekend in Vancouver, BC on Colombia. Given the advancing (but stoppable!) ratification of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the Canadian Parliament -- an agreement with the sole purpose of absolving a regime of its crimes against its own people through the use of Canada's (highly disputable) reputation for human rights in the world -- we encourage your participation in these events.
Interpretation will be available in English and Spanish for both events!
Many thanks,
La Chiva
Saturday, April 18
Film Presentation and Discussion:
"Country of the Peoples without Owners"
A documentary produced by the Communications Network of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) about the recent popular mobilizations in Colombia. 45 Minutes; Spanish with English subtitles.
Speakers include: Doña Vicky (CIPO, Oaxaca), Manuel Rozental (Hemispheric Social Alliance, Polo Democratico Alternativo, Colombia) and Gustavo Ulcué (ACIN).
Location: UBC Robson Square (Downtown Vancouver), Room C215,
Time: 3-5pm
Presented by: CIPO, Grupo Atarraya, La Chiva Collective, and UBC Latin American Studies
Sunday, April 19
Public Workshop -
"Colombia, the Conflicts and Beyond: Perspectives on a Canadian Ally"
For detailed information on speakers and panels, see: http://www.sfu.ca/las/news/
Time: 10am-5pm
Presented by: SFU and UBC Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies Students' Union, Simon Fraser Students' Society, Graduate Students' Society (SFU), La Chiva.
February 22, 2009
WHY THEY KILL THE AWÁ
Written by Network of Communication and External Relations for Truth and Life
Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN),
12 February 2009.
Translated by some people in Canada from the original Spanish text, available here: http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=9550
Notes
[1] These victims include civilians massacred by the Armed Forces, then dressed up as guerrillas and shown as proof of the progress in the War on Terror, a tactic known in Colombia as creating ‘false positives’.
[2]Awá deciden y se arriesgan a contar sus amenazas http://www.onic.org.co/a_derechos_not.shtml?AA_SL_Session=1f88a61fdde2a7c96da6110ca4de211a&nocache=invalidate&sh_itm=048f034ba5335c382645b6e281c02f94&add_disc=1
[3] Declaración Final Preaudencia Nariño y Putumayo http://www.redcolombia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=186
[4] Resolución Defensorial No. 53. Pueblo Awá http://www.nasaacin.org/uploads/646f63756d656e746f732e2e2e2e2e2e/Resoluci_n_Defensorial_53__Pueblo_Aw__2007.pdf
[5] Boletín Situacional sobre los Derechos Humanos y el DIH en Nariño http://ordh.org/Boletines/Boletin_3.pdf
[6] See Eje Multimodal Amazonas de la IIRSA, página 36 http://www.semillas.org.co/descargas/cartilla-IIRSA-2.pdf
[7] Boletín Situacional sobre los Derechos Humanos y el DIH en Nariño http://ordh.org/Boletines/Boletin_3.pdf
[8] Eje Vial Multimodal Amazonas ¿oportunidad o amenaza para la región? http://www.etniasdecolombia.org/actualidadetnica/detalle.asp?cid=5691
[9] See Eje Multimodal Amazonas de la IIRSA, página 36 http://www.semillas.org.co/descargas/cartilla-IIRSA-2.pdf
[10] Estatuto Rural, Ley 1152 de 2007. http://www.elabedul.net/Documentos/Leyes/2007/Ley_1152.pdf
[11] Sentencia C-030 de Abril de 2008 http://www.agronet.gov.co/www/docs_agronet/20089311148_SENTENCIA_C_030_DE_2008_Ley_Forestal_2.pdf. En esa medida, de acuerdo con el ordenamiento constitucional y en particular con el Convenio 169 de la OIT, que en esta materia hace parte del bloque de constitucionalidad, la adopción de la ley debió haberse consultado con esas comunidades, para buscar aproximaciones sobre la manera de evitar que la misma las afectara negativamente, así como sobre el contenido mismo de las pautas y criterios que, aún cuando de aplicación general, pudiesen tener una repercusión directa sobre los territorios indígenas y tribales, o sobre sus formas de vida.
[12] HOUGHTON, JC, Editor. La Tierra contra la Muerte http://www.prensarural.org/spip/IMG/pdf/10383_1_La_Tierra_contra_la_muerte.pdf
Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN),
12 February 2009.
Translated by some people in Canada from the original Spanish text, available here: http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=9550
It is overcome by pain and sadness that we write these lines. We write from the shared rage we feel towards this criminal act, apparently committed by the FARC, whom we condemn for these irreversible horrors and the shedding of innocent blood.
As we write, the Colombian Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, is arriving in the Department of Nariño to conduct the military operations that constitute the government’s response to the massacres and terror these indigenous communities are now facing. Referring to the difficulty in obtaining the cooperation of the indigenous peoples, Minister Santos stated to the media: “We hope we can convince [the Awá] that the best position, the best attitude they can have is to collaborate with the authorities, with the Armed Forces.”
“Kick them while they’re down” is the phrase that best describes the government’s reaction to these terrible circumstances, basing its response on the supposition that, according to the information available, the FARC committed the massacre. The result is that the atrocity—this massacre, the massive displacement, and disappearances, all faced by communities caught in the middle of this terror—is blamed on the victims. It is their fault, implies the Minister, because they refused to collaborate with the Armed Forces. He tries to convince us that, if the Armed Forces had been in the territory, the violence would not have happened. As a consequence, the complete militarization of the territory is underway with the pretext of protecting the Awá, who in turn run to the forests while some of their leaders, seeing no other option, call for the help of the Armed Forces. The media, the government coalition and their spokespeople all echo these calls, and Colombians terrified by the horror of this ongoing genocide, in turn call for the same.
United in calling for the protection of these people and for justice to be served, we denounce the assassins, whoever they may be; in this case, we denounce the FARC, who in carrying out these actions have confirmed a terrible truth: they have evolved into one more agent of terror against the people. These perverse acts are the same as those carried out by the paramilitaries, the Armed Forces, and all others who use violent force to subjugate Colombia’s peoples and communities. We have denounced them before, and we denounce them now: at its core, terror is used as a means for achieving certain ends that ought to be acknowledged. If these ends are ignored, the only expected result is atrocity; without objectives, massacre and terror have no motive. They would be ends in themselves – terror for terror’s sake. But terrorism, from wherever it comes, is a mechanism to achieve objectives other than those stated; that is why the truth demands a different reaction, one that comes from the entire Colombian population, from indigenous peoples and organizations, and one that is backed by the governments and peoples of the world.
The truth can be found in the answer to a necessary question: Why do they massacre the Awá? It is absolutely critical to ask this and to react coherently and firmly in consequence. To do otherwise is to allow the terror of this massacre to serve as an excuse to commit further massacres, as a mechanism to displace the people from their territory, culture, and way of life, and to make them disappear in a premeditated genocide. If this happens, those who have sacrificed to defend their lives, cultures and territories will have fought for nothing. Once again, we will have allowed ourselves to be convinced that these massacres against the Awá in Nariño have nothing to do with the massacres in San José de Apartadó, Urabá, Catatumbo, Amazonía, Cauca and across the country. That these massacres have nothing to do with the murders of women, trade unionists, peasants, human rights activists, and the entire package that accompanies acts of terror, no matter who the perpetrators are [1]. Because we understand terrorism to be a perverse means to achieve perverse ends, we refuse to forget, we point out the crimes, and we denounce and condemn the FARC with pain and rage, not only for this latest crime in which they have sown pain, death and misery, but also for contributing to the pillage that forces indigenous peoples from their communities and lands.
The Facts:
1. Terror as a Tool
“We are People of the Mountain, children of the wild forest, and for these they are going to have to take our lives” was the premonitory statement of Eder Burgos, coordinator of Camawari, of August 10, 2008. It was made during the hearing to review the critical situation of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Rights Law (IHL) faced by the Awá people. The hearing took place in the presence of officials from various levels of the Colombian government, watchdog officers, UN representatives, and NGOs from the Human Rights sector, under the watchful eye of over seventy people from indigenous groups, most of them members of this people who had mobilized in southern Colombia. According to the communiqué from the National Organization of Indigenous People of Colombia (ONIC, by its Spanish acronym), “during the hearing, authorities and representatives of the Awa people submitted a report obtained through grassroots consultation, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Ombudsman’s Office and SAT”. Both the hearing [2] and the report evidence the dramatic developments of the pillage for land by all the armed participants against the indigenous population. The communiqué points out that communities in the townships of Tumaco, Barbacoas, Roberto Payan, Samaniego and Ricaurte have brought forward specific abuses, such as “‘three days of bombardments, including places where the displaced population [was] coming together in the town of Ricaurte, specifically in the indigenous reserves of Magui and Imbima,’ as had already been made clear by the regional Ombudsman for the Department of Nariño to his superior in a letter dated today”. These are the territories where the community is currently being massacred.
Both the Resolution and the Report denounce and give clear evidence of the presence of terror in that territory, the dirty war against the civilian population that implicates the Armed Forces as well as illegal armed actors, supporting the claims that terror is being used against the indigenous communities as a strategy for submission and to deprive them of their land [3].
The evidence contained in the Report, the Hearing and the Resolution, put together, demonstrate the groundlessness of the allegations made by the Minister of Defense. The Armed Forces have been and currently are spreading terror against the Awá; therefore, far from being a warrantor against abuse and the violation of Human Rights, they are a direct threat against its application. All the armed actors are exercising violence against the Awá.
2. Greed and Megaprojects
a. Agribusiness y plantations: The Colombian Pacific Coast and the lowlands, all of which include the ancestral territories of the Awá now suffering massacres and forced displacement, are zones of strategic interest for projects of capital accumulation, both legal and illegal, including monocrop operations of rubber, and palm oil, as well as the cultivation of coca and laboratories for the processing of coca leaves. As is the case for the rest of the country, these agribusiness projects demand the use of, and rely upon terror inflicted against the ancestral inhabitants of these lands [4]. Their displacement coincides with the theft of their land [5] [6].
b. Mining and Vital Resources: As the Situation Bulletin on Human Rights and IHL in Nariño concludes, “The geographical resources in Nariño have brought about investment analyses by multinational corporations to explore the viability of projects for strategic resources such as uranium and gold” [7]. As reported by the national agency for the mining industry, INGEOMINAS, Sociedad Kedahda S.A., a division of Anglo Gold Ashanti, submitted 110 applications for mining contracts in Nariño in July of 2007. These applications are disturbing based on this corporation’s history of intervention: there is a strong correlation between the activity of this corporation and the violation of Human Rights. Resources among the 37 municipalities in Nariño for which Kedahda S.A. has submitted applications are as follows: for the municipalities of Taminango, Leiva, Rosario, Policarpa, Cumbitara, Samaniego, and Barbacoas there is a wealth of gold, zinc, copper, silver, platinum, molibdenum and other minerals, and it is in these townships that there has been a notorious presence of Armed Forces and illegal armed groups that has produced grave Human Rights situations and violations of IHL against the civilian population, which has been subjected to cruelty, degradation and inhumane treatment. The abundance of water and wood resources, biodiversity, biotechnology, hydrocarbons and oxygen in this region is outstanding. The ancestral lands of the Awá are under threat from the interest expressed by the great transnational extractive industry.
c. Infrastructure: The Multimodal Axis of the Amazon [8] of the Project for Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure (IIRSA by its Spanish acronym) runs across the lands of the Awá, starting from the Colombian Pacific Coast. The 284 kilometers of highway running between the Colombian cities of Pasto and Tumaco cut through targeted Awá lands and are a part of the multimodal corridor stretching along Tumaco – Puerto Asis – Belem do Para (the latter in Brazil) that will communicate the Pacific and Atlantic coasts across South America and through the Amazon region. Beyond the benefits that these modern and expensive highways may generate, not to mention the enormously destructive environmental impact they will bring, these roads are being laid with the clear intention of opening new territories for the extraction of vast resources to be privately exploited by transnational corporations. The roads are to be managed under a private operator scheme. Their existence, construction and use impose the submission, forced displacement and destruction of the peoples who live in its path and the areas it will affect. The Awá live in the midst of this planned infrastructural mega-project and have thus become dispensable. The disappearance or subjugation of the Awá serves the interests of those who seek to obtain benefits from this mega-project, one that threatens and diminishes all peoples who claim rights over the territories that stand in its way [9].
d. Tourism and other interests: The natural beauty and wealth of resources in the lands of the Awá, both in the Colombian Pacific coast and lowlands of Nariño, are ideal places for the tourism industry, which is frequently used to articulate projects for the exploration, exploitation and private patenting of the life and knowledge of the territory and its peoples. The tourism industry expels or exploits the dispossessed indigenous peoples, raking in enormous profits and seizing autonomous territories and peoples as though they were commodities existing for the sole purpose of accumulation.
Carrot and Stick: Law and Terror
Those who promote and ultimately benefit from death and pillage combine “all forms of struggle” to access the riches and resources they seek. Meanwhile, diverse armed actors, both legal and illegal, carry out the dirty work of terror through criminal war tactics directed against these communities. The strategic, awaited and inevitable result is the privatization and plunder of their territory, a process through which the Colombian government implements policies that provide the legal and institutional framework needed for the exploitation of the land.
The Rural Statute [10] (or Law 1152 of 2007) provides a direct example. The sole paragraph of the law’s Article 123 reads: “procedures involving the establishment, expansion, or reorganization of indigenous reserves shall not be allowed to take effect within the geographical limits determined in Article 2 of Law 70 of 1993, nor in areas of the country that present similar conditions.” Article 2 of Law 70 (1993) delimits the Pacific Basin as a territory located between the Chiles volcano, on the Ecuadorian border, and the Gulf of Urabá, on the Atlantic Coast, to the Pacific Coast. This immense territory spanning mountains, foothills and coasts, includes the Colombian territory of the Awá people of Nariño.
According to the article cited in the Rural Statute, indigenous reserves cannot be established, expanded or reorganized in the Pacific Basin. Thus the Awá people lose, through law, the right to a large part of their current and ancestral territory. As a result, their territory is ‘liberated’ for economic interests that ultimately benefit – whether directly or indirectly – the actors of terror. A total of 27 legal petitions by the Awá community have been suppressed: 4 for the establishment of reserves, 8 for their expansion, and 15 for their reorganization.
Currently, the Constitutional Court is set to issue a ruling regarding the Rural Statute. If this law is declared unconstitutional, as was the Forest Law (Ley Forestal) in April 2008 (for violating the obligation of prior consultation with affected communities) [11], the Awá and the other indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples of the Pacific region might be able to bring forth legal actions to resolve their claims to territorial rights. These necessary legal permits have been impossible to obtain thanks to the actions of those who massacre, displace, confine, and threaten. Meanwhile, new owners of the territories appear with false titles that are legalized all too easily.
Eventually, the inefficiency of the state, laws and terror will have combined to consolidate the pillage and expropriation as an accomplished historical fact. By then, the mega-projects and usurpers of riches will have been established, the territory will have been exploited, and the struggle, sacrifice and suffering of the victims will be buried by the infamy of a history written by thoughtlessness and greed.
The Awá people struggle for their dignity, lives and the life of their territory. They are exterminated for the sake of insatiable greed. Although it is important and urgent to know who committed this terrible and unpardonable massacre, so that justice may be served, to make known the truth and respect those affected and their families, even more important is to understand that they were massacred to strip from them their territories. That is why we must denounce and mobilize to resist the project served by terror against our sisters and brothers. Today, the project kills in order to steal.
An Appeal
First, we join with the ONIC, all indigenous peoples, and all those who feel the commitment and necessity to accompany the victims in solidarity. We call on the Humanitarian Minga to affirm its presence and convert pain into companionship and concrete action.
Secondly, we call together those who have been demanding the mobilization of the Social and Community Minga of Resistance. The message is clear: the attempted assassination of Aida Quilcué that left Edwin Legarda, her companion, dead – yet another ‘false positive’ carried out against popular resistance by the National Army under orders from the designers and promoters of the policy of ‘Democratic Security’ – is currently followed by further massacres, this time committed by the FARC, which serve as a means for escalating the pillage before the insensitivity of the society and the world.
This issue is not exclusive to the Awá, nor is it a problem faced only by indigenous peoples or by just one community in Nariño. This act of terror is part of the acceleration of policies of pillage implemented through death. This is Plan Colombia in action, an economic mega-project that hands over our territories and our lives to the greed of global capital.
Facing so much horror, we can no longer watch from afar, waiting for our turn to come. We have to understand why they killed us then, why they kill us now, and why we must rise to stop them, to resist. Now is the time to reject, for once and for all, the horrors committed by the FARC in the name of the people, just as we reject the horrors of the regime.
It is also painfully evident what little use it is to have land, denounce human rights violations and negotiate agreements with an illegitimate government when its development model – which includes agreements and laws that are served by terror, from wherever it comes – means only massacres, displacement and pillage. The obligation to resist the model in its entirety, and as a priority, is paramount. In these conditions, faced with all the terrible facts, what must be recognized above all other concerns (even the political-electoral) is the urgency of an agenda of mobilization and action in a Minga that resists and stops the accelerated course of the pillage, of which this most recent massacre is a part.
We call upon the Social and Community Minga. We are putting forward the agenda to resist the death model that is on the way through the FTA, laws of pillage, broken agreements, terror and in the absence of a people weaving together common struggles for freedom. Let us decide together, in Minga, how to stop the horror of the FARC, the government and the rest of the armed groups in Nariño and Colombia. Let us figure out how we can support the Awá people and, with them, defend their territory. Let us determine how to defend life and our own territories from this assured and approaching death, one that exists so that a few may continue to accumulate.
So that the dead may rest and their families rebuild their lives, so that the dignity of the Awá is restored, so that no one may steal from them their territories, so that those with guns and hate leave us in peace, so that the murderers no longer declare that they fight for the people or that they have come to protect us, so that we have a country of peoples without owners, so that they haven’t been massacred for nothing: the Social and Community Minga. Let us meet in a collective territory and build the Minga from our pain, consciousness and path. The Awá are not alone [12].
As we write, the Colombian Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, is arriving in the Department of Nariño to conduct the military operations that constitute the government’s response to the massacres and terror these indigenous communities are now facing. Referring to the difficulty in obtaining the cooperation of the indigenous peoples, Minister Santos stated to the media: “We hope we can convince [the Awá] that the best position, the best attitude they can have is to collaborate with the authorities, with the Armed Forces.”
“Kick them while they’re down” is the phrase that best describes the government’s reaction to these terrible circumstances, basing its response on the supposition that, according to the information available, the FARC committed the massacre. The result is that the atrocity—this massacre, the massive displacement, and disappearances, all faced by communities caught in the middle of this terror—is blamed on the victims. It is their fault, implies the Minister, because they refused to collaborate with the Armed Forces. He tries to convince us that, if the Armed Forces had been in the territory, the violence would not have happened. As a consequence, the complete militarization of the territory is underway with the pretext of protecting the Awá, who in turn run to the forests while some of their leaders, seeing no other option, call for the help of the Armed Forces. The media, the government coalition and their spokespeople all echo these calls, and Colombians terrified by the horror of this ongoing genocide, in turn call for the same.
United in calling for the protection of these people and for justice to be served, we denounce the assassins, whoever they may be; in this case, we denounce the FARC, who in carrying out these actions have confirmed a terrible truth: they have evolved into one more agent of terror against the people. These perverse acts are the same as those carried out by the paramilitaries, the Armed Forces, and all others who use violent force to subjugate Colombia’s peoples and communities. We have denounced them before, and we denounce them now: at its core, terror is used as a means for achieving certain ends that ought to be acknowledged. If these ends are ignored, the only expected result is atrocity; without objectives, massacre and terror have no motive. They would be ends in themselves – terror for terror’s sake. But terrorism, from wherever it comes, is a mechanism to achieve objectives other than those stated; that is why the truth demands a different reaction, one that comes from the entire Colombian population, from indigenous peoples and organizations, and one that is backed by the governments and peoples of the world.
The truth can be found in the answer to a necessary question: Why do they massacre the Awá? It is absolutely critical to ask this and to react coherently and firmly in consequence. To do otherwise is to allow the terror of this massacre to serve as an excuse to commit further massacres, as a mechanism to displace the people from their territory, culture, and way of life, and to make them disappear in a premeditated genocide. If this happens, those who have sacrificed to defend their lives, cultures and territories will have fought for nothing. Once again, we will have allowed ourselves to be convinced that these massacres against the Awá in Nariño have nothing to do with the massacres in San José de Apartadó, Urabá, Catatumbo, Amazonía, Cauca and across the country. That these massacres have nothing to do with the murders of women, trade unionists, peasants, human rights activists, and the entire package that accompanies acts of terror, no matter who the perpetrators are [1]. Because we understand terrorism to be a perverse means to achieve perverse ends, we refuse to forget, we point out the crimes, and we denounce and condemn the FARC with pain and rage, not only for this latest crime in which they have sown pain, death and misery, but also for contributing to the pillage that forces indigenous peoples from their communities and lands.
The Facts:
1. Terror as a Tool
“We are People of the Mountain, children of the wild forest, and for these they are going to have to take our lives” was the premonitory statement of Eder Burgos, coordinator of Camawari, of August 10, 2008. It was made during the hearing to review the critical situation of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Rights Law (IHL) faced by the Awá people. The hearing took place in the presence of officials from various levels of the Colombian government, watchdog officers, UN representatives, and NGOs from the Human Rights sector, under the watchful eye of over seventy people from indigenous groups, most of them members of this people who had mobilized in southern Colombia. According to the communiqué from the National Organization of Indigenous People of Colombia (ONIC, by its Spanish acronym), “during the hearing, authorities and representatives of the Awa people submitted a report obtained through grassroots consultation, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Ombudsman’s Office and SAT”. Both the hearing [2] and the report evidence the dramatic developments of the pillage for land by all the armed participants against the indigenous population. The communiqué points out that communities in the townships of Tumaco, Barbacoas, Roberto Payan, Samaniego and Ricaurte have brought forward specific abuses, such as “‘three days of bombardments, including places where the displaced population [was] coming together in the town of Ricaurte, specifically in the indigenous reserves of Magui and Imbima,’ as had already been made clear by the regional Ombudsman for the Department of Nariño to his superior in a letter dated today”. These are the territories where the community is currently being massacred.
Both the Resolution and the Report denounce and give clear evidence of the presence of terror in that territory, the dirty war against the civilian population that implicates the Armed Forces as well as illegal armed actors, supporting the claims that terror is being used against the indigenous communities as a strategy for submission and to deprive them of their land [3].
The evidence contained in the Report, the Hearing and the Resolution, put together, demonstrate the groundlessness of the allegations made by the Minister of Defense. The Armed Forces have been and currently are spreading terror against the Awá; therefore, far from being a warrantor against abuse and the violation of Human Rights, they are a direct threat against its application. All the armed actors are exercising violence against the Awá.
2. Greed and Megaprojects
a. Agribusiness y plantations: The Colombian Pacific Coast and the lowlands, all of which include the ancestral territories of the Awá now suffering massacres and forced displacement, are zones of strategic interest for projects of capital accumulation, both legal and illegal, including monocrop operations of rubber, and palm oil, as well as the cultivation of coca and laboratories for the processing of coca leaves. As is the case for the rest of the country, these agribusiness projects demand the use of, and rely upon terror inflicted against the ancestral inhabitants of these lands [4]. Their displacement coincides with the theft of their land [5] [6].
b. Mining and Vital Resources: As the Situation Bulletin on Human Rights and IHL in Nariño concludes, “The geographical resources in Nariño have brought about investment analyses by multinational corporations to explore the viability of projects for strategic resources such as uranium and gold” [7]. As reported by the national agency for the mining industry, INGEOMINAS, Sociedad Kedahda S.A., a division of Anglo Gold Ashanti, submitted 110 applications for mining contracts in Nariño in July of 2007. These applications are disturbing based on this corporation’s history of intervention: there is a strong correlation between the activity of this corporation and the violation of Human Rights. Resources among the 37 municipalities in Nariño for which Kedahda S.A. has submitted applications are as follows: for the municipalities of Taminango, Leiva, Rosario, Policarpa, Cumbitara, Samaniego, and Barbacoas there is a wealth of gold, zinc, copper, silver, platinum, molibdenum and other minerals, and it is in these townships that there has been a notorious presence of Armed Forces and illegal armed groups that has produced grave Human Rights situations and violations of IHL against the civilian population, which has been subjected to cruelty, degradation and inhumane treatment. The abundance of water and wood resources, biodiversity, biotechnology, hydrocarbons and oxygen in this region is outstanding. The ancestral lands of the Awá are under threat from the interest expressed by the great transnational extractive industry.
c. Infrastructure: The Multimodal Axis of the Amazon [8] of the Project for Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure (IIRSA by its Spanish acronym) runs across the lands of the Awá, starting from the Colombian Pacific Coast. The 284 kilometers of highway running between the Colombian cities of Pasto and Tumaco cut through targeted Awá lands and are a part of the multimodal corridor stretching along Tumaco – Puerto Asis – Belem do Para (the latter in Brazil) that will communicate the Pacific and Atlantic coasts across South America and through the Amazon region. Beyond the benefits that these modern and expensive highways may generate, not to mention the enormously destructive environmental impact they will bring, these roads are being laid with the clear intention of opening new territories for the extraction of vast resources to be privately exploited by transnational corporations. The roads are to be managed under a private operator scheme. Their existence, construction and use impose the submission, forced displacement and destruction of the peoples who live in its path and the areas it will affect. The Awá live in the midst of this planned infrastructural mega-project and have thus become dispensable. The disappearance or subjugation of the Awá serves the interests of those who seek to obtain benefits from this mega-project, one that threatens and diminishes all peoples who claim rights over the territories that stand in its way [9].
d. Tourism and other interests: The natural beauty and wealth of resources in the lands of the Awá, both in the Colombian Pacific coast and lowlands of Nariño, are ideal places for the tourism industry, which is frequently used to articulate projects for the exploration, exploitation and private patenting of the life and knowledge of the territory and its peoples. The tourism industry expels or exploits the dispossessed indigenous peoples, raking in enormous profits and seizing autonomous territories and peoples as though they were commodities existing for the sole purpose of accumulation.
Carrot and Stick: Law and Terror
Those who promote and ultimately benefit from death and pillage combine “all forms of struggle” to access the riches and resources they seek. Meanwhile, diverse armed actors, both legal and illegal, carry out the dirty work of terror through criminal war tactics directed against these communities. The strategic, awaited and inevitable result is the privatization and plunder of their territory, a process through which the Colombian government implements policies that provide the legal and institutional framework needed for the exploitation of the land.
The Rural Statute [10] (or Law 1152 of 2007) provides a direct example. The sole paragraph of the law’s Article 123 reads: “procedures involving the establishment, expansion, or reorganization of indigenous reserves shall not be allowed to take effect within the geographical limits determined in Article 2 of Law 70 of 1993, nor in areas of the country that present similar conditions.” Article 2 of Law 70 (1993) delimits the Pacific Basin as a territory located between the Chiles volcano, on the Ecuadorian border, and the Gulf of Urabá, on the Atlantic Coast, to the Pacific Coast. This immense territory spanning mountains, foothills and coasts, includes the Colombian territory of the Awá people of Nariño.
According to the article cited in the Rural Statute, indigenous reserves cannot be established, expanded or reorganized in the Pacific Basin. Thus the Awá people lose, through law, the right to a large part of their current and ancestral territory. As a result, their territory is ‘liberated’ for economic interests that ultimately benefit – whether directly or indirectly – the actors of terror. A total of 27 legal petitions by the Awá community have been suppressed: 4 for the establishment of reserves, 8 for their expansion, and 15 for their reorganization.
Currently, the Constitutional Court is set to issue a ruling regarding the Rural Statute. If this law is declared unconstitutional, as was the Forest Law (Ley Forestal) in April 2008 (for violating the obligation of prior consultation with affected communities) [11], the Awá and the other indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples of the Pacific region might be able to bring forth legal actions to resolve their claims to territorial rights. These necessary legal permits have been impossible to obtain thanks to the actions of those who massacre, displace, confine, and threaten. Meanwhile, new owners of the territories appear with false titles that are legalized all too easily.
Eventually, the inefficiency of the state, laws and terror will have combined to consolidate the pillage and expropriation as an accomplished historical fact. By then, the mega-projects and usurpers of riches will have been established, the territory will have been exploited, and the struggle, sacrifice and suffering of the victims will be buried by the infamy of a history written by thoughtlessness and greed.
The Awá people struggle for their dignity, lives and the life of their territory. They are exterminated for the sake of insatiable greed. Although it is important and urgent to know who committed this terrible and unpardonable massacre, so that justice may be served, to make known the truth and respect those affected and their families, even more important is to understand that they were massacred to strip from them their territories. That is why we must denounce and mobilize to resist the project served by terror against our sisters and brothers. Today, the project kills in order to steal.
An Appeal
First, we join with the ONIC, all indigenous peoples, and all those who feel the commitment and necessity to accompany the victims in solidarity. We call on the Humanitarian Minga to affirm its presence and convert pain into companionship and concrete action.
Secondly, we call together those who have been demanding the mobilization of the Social and Community Minga of Resistance. The message is clear: the attempted assassination of Aida Quilcué that left Edwin Legarda, her companion, dead – yet another ‘false positive’ carried out against popular resistance by the National Army under orders from the designers and promoters of the policy of ‘Democratic Security’ – is currently followed by further massacres, this time committed by the FARC, which serve as a means for escalating the pillage before the insensitivity of the society and the world.
This issue is not exclusive to the Awá, nor is it a problem faced only by indigenous peoples or by just one community in Nariño. This act of terror is part of the acceleration of policies of pillage implemented through death. This is Plan Colombia in action, an economic mega-project that hands over our territories and our lives to the greed of global capital.
Facing so much horror, we can no longer watch from afar, waiting for our turn to come. We have to understand why they killed us then, why they kill us now, and why we must rise to stop them, to resist. Now is the time to reject, for once and for all, the horrors committed by the FARC in the name of the people, just as we reject the horrors of the regime.
It is also painfully evident what little use it is to have land, denounce human rights violations and negotiate agreements with an illegitimate government when its development model – which includes agreements and laws that are served by terror, from wherever it comes – means only massacres, displacement and pillage. The obligation to resist the model in its entirety, and as a priority, is paramount. In these conditions, faced with all the terrible facts, what must be recognized above all other concerns (even the political-electoral) is the urgency of an agenda of mobilization and action in a Minga that resists and stops the accelerated course of the pillage, of which this most recent massacre is a part.
We call upon the Social and Community Minga. We are putting forward the agenda to resist the death model that is on the way through the FTA, laws of pillage, broken agreements, terror and in the absence of a people weaving together common struggles for freedom. Let us decide together, in Minga, how to stop the horror of the FARC, the government and the rest of the armed groups in Nariño and Colombia. Let us figure out how we can support the Awá people and, with them, defend their territory. Let us determine how to defend life and our own territories from this assured and approaching death, one that exists so that a few may continue to accumulate.
So that the dead may rest and their families rebuild their lives, so that the dignity of the Awá is restored, so that no one may steal from them their territories, so that those with guns and hate leave us in peace, so that the murderers no longer declare that they fight for the people or that they have come to protect us, so that we have a country of peoples without owners, so that they haven’t been massacred for nothing: the Social and Community Minga. Let us meet in a collective territory and build the Minga from our pain, consciousness and path. The Awá are not alone [12].
Notes
[1] These victims include civilians massacred by the Armed Forces, then dressed up as guerrillas and shown as proof of the progress in the War on Terror, a tactic known in Colombia as creating ‘false positives’.
[2]Awá deciden y se arriesgan a contar sus amenazas http://www.onic.org.co/a_derechos_not.shtml?AA_SL_Session=1f88a61fdde2a7c96da6110ca4de211a&nocache=invalidate&sh_itm=048f034ba5335c382645b6e281c02f94&add_disc=1
[3] Declaración Final Preaudencia Nariño y Putumayo http://www.redcolombia.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=186
[4] Resolución Defensorial No. 53. Pueblo Awá http://www.nasaacin.org/uploads/646f63756d656e746f732e2e2e2e2e2e/Resoluci_n_Defensorial_53__Pueblo_Aw__2007.pdf
[5] Boletín Situacional sobre los Derechos Humanos y el DIH en Nariño http://ordh.org/Boletines/Boletin_3.pdf
[6] See Eje Multimodal Amazonas de la IIRSA, página 36 http://www.semillas.org.co/descargas/cartilla-IIRSA-2.pdf
[7] Boletín Situacional sobre los Derechos Humanos y el DIH en Nariño http://ordh.org/Boletines/Boletin_3.pdf
[8] Eje Vial Multimodal Amazonas ¿oportunidad o amenaza para la región? http://www.etniasdecolombia.org/actualidadetnica/detalle.asp?cid=5691
[9] See Eje Multimodal Amazonas de la IIRSA, página 36 http://www.semillas.org.co/descargas/cartilla-IIRSA-2.pdf
[10] Estatuto Rural, Ley 1152 de 2007. http://www.elabedul.net/Documentos/Leyes/2007/Ley_1152.pdf
[11] Sentencia C-030 de Abril de 2008 http://www.agronet.gov.co/www/docs_agronet/20089311148_SENTENCIA_C_030_DE_2008_Ley_Forestal_2.pdf. En esa medida, de acuerdo con el ordenamiento constitucional y en particular con el Convenio 169 de la OIT, que en esta materia hace parte del bloque de constitucionalidad, la adopción de la ley debió haberse consultado con esas comunidades, para buscar aproximaciones sobre la manera de evitar que la misma las afectara negativamente, así como sobre el contenido mismo de las pautas y criterios que, aún cuando de aplicación general, pudiesen tener una repercusión directa sobre los territorios indígenas y tribales, o sobre sus formas de vida.
[12] HOUGHTON, JC, Editor. La Tierra contra la Muerte http://www.prensarural.org/spip/IMG/pdf/10383_1_La_Tierra_contra_la_muerte.pdf
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