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The indigenous people are now marching 186 miles from Cali to Bogotá. The movement is now a They left on 10th November and their expected arrival is 20th November.
Two days into this second mass march, on 12th November at Ibague the ESMAD
anti-mutiny police attacked 300 women at the head of the procession. But the
women broke through and led the entire procession to a rally in the town
centre.
As Verito Covaría, representative of the natives from ONIC, frankly claims
“if Uribe wants to make history by killing us, we are going to commit
collective suicide by government hands, we will take to the streets”.
Previous March
The Uribe administration has experienced the biggest protest since coming
into office: more than forty thousand indigenous people have mobilised from
different corners of Colombia, walking for eight days, for over eighty
miles, from Cauca to Cali. What motivated their manifestation and why did
they continue their venture even though their efforts were marred by
killings and injuries?
The protest is a call for recognition of the systematic discrimination of
the 102 indigenous groups of Colombia. They march for lack of viable
alternative and what they perceive as necessity: the Colombian National
Indigenous Organisation (ONIC) warns that 18 of the native groups are being
pushed slowly towards extinction .
Self-sufficiency
The indigenous population are no longer self-sufficient because they do not
have enough land to sustain their communities. They have been used as pawns
and moved across the board of Colombia in the drugs trade game. They are
forcibly removed from geographically strategic territory for the growth,
production and trafficking of drugs by groups competing for control. Caught
in the crossfire between the various governmental and rebel actors, they are
the victims of discriminate violence and violations of human rights. The
extent of internal displacement is demonstrated by statistics of the United
Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): they record the incident of
displacement in Colombia as the second highest after the Sudan .
Many of the local Colombian Laws are greatly detrimental to these
populations, including the Mining Code (Ley 685/2001), Water Resourcing (Ley
46/1999), the Forest Law (Ley 1021/2006) and the Rural Statute (Ley
1152/2007). To expand on one example, under Colombian law, water resources
can be privatized. In forethought, the growing threat of water scarcity and
geopolitics of water resourcing have triggered companies such as the
American owned Monsanto to take advantage of the lucrative opportunity to
monopolize local Colombian water resources. For this end, indigenous
people have been forced off their land and curiously have been deprived of
the most basic element needed for survival.
The danger of some of these laws, in conjunction with policies pursued under
Plan Colombia such as glyphosate fumigation, is that they grossly overlook
the domestic economic realities of the indigenous communities. Fumigation is
not only damaging for the health, but also cripples local production and
cultivation by destroying workable land and killing animals. The marches are
additionally being held to protest against the possible passing of the
Multi-lateral Free Contract Deal. It is believed that this contract, which
is to be signed by countries such as Colombia, the United States, Canada and
some European countries, would further exacerbate these economic troubles.
Support
Paradoxically, the indigenous populations have been forced, directly and
indirectly, to be dependent on the state, and at the same time the
government refuses to act as a provider for such people. According to
Mauricio Hernandez, a doctor that recently finished working in the hospital
of Leticia, “most of the medical services indigenous people have access to
are being provided by non-governmental organizations, and this is due to the
lack of State commitment towards the social security of natives”.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has acknowledged the
mistreatment of the native people in the El Nilo case, where twenty-one
indigenous people were massacred by paramilitaries with the complicity of
the state. The government was ordered to grant fifteen thousand acres to
the indigenous Nasa population. However, this land was never fully awarded.
Moreover, the state has forgone legal obligations pertaining to the
redistribution of land from which many of the indigenous populations have
been displaced. According to ONIC, the government has only granted 5% of
the land promised to the indigenous population in accordance with Decree
982/1999 . Not only has the legal obligation failed to be fulfilled, but
the frequency by which the indigenous population has been displaced has
amplified incrementally, rendering dramatic numbers in need of this land.
On the 13th September 2007, the United Nations General assembly approved the
Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People. If Colombia truly was
supportive of the indigenous populations, then why would the representatives
in Geneva abstain from voting? It is a shame that the declaration was
signed by all the Latin American states save Colombia.
Uribe’s Stigmatisation Fails
According to Uribe: “they [the indigenous people] are infiltrated by
terrorists, they massacre the police, they exercise all levels of violence
and meanwhile they denounce us in front of the international community
because we simply avoid the blockades and violent confrontations.”
The indigenous people have come under a torrent of accusations concerning
guerrilla infiltration. These allegations have strategically choked any
efforts to contest their systematic discriminatory treatment. Accusations of
FARC affiliation serves to stigmatise the groups and delegitimise their
appeals. As reported by many media sources, such as El Tiempo and Caracol,
a government soldier, Jairo Danilo Chaparral Santiago, was ordered to
penetrate into the indigenous march to plant evidence of guerrilla
infiltration. The soldier was caught in the process of planting radios and
manuals directing use of explosives.
The Colombian Democratic Security policy legitimises the use of violence for
the control of illegal armed groups and for the end of peace. However, the
concept of “the enemy of the state” is malleable and can be manipulated.
Therefore, if evidence against the indigenous people is fabricated to prove
guerrilla involvement, then the government can use this proof to permit the
use of violence against them.
A pertinent question to ask would be why the government wants to gag the
indigenous people?
The reason that the indigenous people are marching is because they are no
longer self-sufficient, they are not sufficiently supported by the state and
they have no mechanism for complaint. Therefore, pushed into a corner,
their last option is to call the attention and lobby the support of the
public, in a final attempt to assert pressure on the government. They
began their march on the 12th October, a symbolic act to demonstrate the
hypocrisy of celebrating race in the face of the indigenous extinction.
Reaction from the government to the indigenous marches
To view various video clips: CNN police violence, Noticias Caracol police
violence, Uribe´s speech
Or visit our Media roundup page
Apart from delegitimising the indigenous people through accusations of FARC
infiltration, the government forces have used an excessive and
disproportionate use of violence against the protesters. According to ONIC
and other mass media sources, there have been more than one hundred indigenous injuries, compared to nineteen from the government forces , and
four deaths of native persons caused by fire arms and machetes. A seven
month old baby died of over-exposure to tear gas, a weapon that has
prohibited use under international law in the presence of children .
According to the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), at times
ambulances were prevented from passing through to assist .
In response to the murders and injuries President Uribe first claimed that
government forces never fired into the crowd of protestors. He later
retracted this statement when videos showing contrary evidence were released
into the public domain .
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