Category: Colombia War

So, as I was saying yesterday, 2004 was bad, all signs point to 2005 being bad, but it’s too soon to give up.

As promised, here’s the history of Colombia in 2004 that I’ve been working on. It’s rather long (three parts), but really, take as much time as you need.

‘President Alvaro Uribe badly wanted to show Colombians his only recent success: Bush’s re-election. But the US President had only three hours to visit the only supporter of his strategic project in South America.’ – Colombian economist Hector Mondragon, on Bush’s quick visit to Colombia in November 2004.

Continue reading “Colombia in 2004”

For readers who follow my work because they seek good Colombia information in English, I apologize for not reporting on the situation as much as I should have been. I will try to catch up. There were major and very successful events and mobilizations in Colombia on the part of the indigenous of Northern Cauca. I have translated the final declaration of their massive mobilization that happened last month. Some 60,000 marched for peace, against neoliberalism, and for autonomy. They succeeded in beginning to break the isolation that the government is trying to impose on them. They succeeded against extraordinary challenges and odds. I will write a full article about the mobilization soon. Meanwhile, here are their own words.

The First Popular Indigenous Congress

The Indigenous and Popular Mandate of the Minga for Life, Justice, Joy, Freedom, and Autonomy

Cali, September 18, 2004

The Challenge Before Us

We bring with us the memories and experiences of a long history of struggle and resistance. We rely on our identities and cultures to confront the many threats that face us time and time again. This path has not been easy. Since the Conquest and without cease, arrogance, egoism, ignorance and disrespect have fallen on us with lies, false promises, the power of ever more lethal weapons, and with institutions, laws, and norms that bring us misery, exploitation, pain, and dependence. Each time they attack us, they assure us it is for our own good. Each time we have had to learn the deception, unite and organize to defend ourselves. It has always served us to return to our roots, take advantage of the wisdom of our own collective memory, listen to our elders and pay attention to nature to make ourselves a part of life and defend ourselves by defending it. Time and again we have had to learn to resist and do so differently in accordance with the challenge before us. We have come from far, over a long period. The latest steps have brought us to this Congress of Peoples, the latest stage in this long history. More than the latest stage, it is the beginning of a new path we have decided to take. With the 60,000 that marched to Cali and in other parts of the country, our memories have marched; our elders have marched; those who opened the way by struggling before us, many men and women in many places within and outside of Colombia who have recognized the danger, suffered the pain and got up to march for the other world we know is possible and necessary.

The challenge of this new age is immense. It may be the most serious of our entire history. We suffer a damaging, evil ‘order’. We know this and say it loud. It is not only our cultures, communities, peoples and families who are at risk. It is life itself that can be destroyed by the blindness of those who are using the greatest power in history to make everything that exists part of a market with their project of death.

We know that what must occur does not yet exist except in our own commitment, the memory of everything we live and what we must invent, grow, and protect to open the way.

The project that threatens life does not respect borders – that’s why it is called ‘globalization’. It comes to our communities and into our homes throughout Colombia and the world. It brings war, lies of propaganda, the power of law, and the power of money. It comes for the wealth of nature and the work of people to exploit and sell. Those who control and make decisions to serve their interests are far away. They are in the directorships of large multinational corporations and in the financial centres of the world that end up with everything. They use governments and armies and institutions to do their bidding. They convince us that all this is inevitable.

This is hard to see, understand, resist and change. It requires unity, creativity, solidarity, commitment, sacrifice and work, but also a desire to live. Because we face a large and difficult challenge, this mobilization is also different. We have not come out only to demand something of the government or to denounce, though we are doing that also. This time we come to bring people together, to bring organizations and processes together. We march to express our commitment to unite to work and weave reciprocal solidarity that is necessary to defend life. This time we know that we cannot do it alone and we need one another to understand, resist, and create the possible and necessary world. We have surprised the government, power, the country, and the world because we have not come out to demand what is ours by right. Instead we call this Minga with a proposal so that all peoples can define an indigenous and popular mandate to orient the process and advance from this reality of confusion and death towards a project of life for and from the people.

Our actions show the value of our words. That is why our power to convoke and the force of our arguments grows. For us, our acts of dignity and resistance speak. The first indigenous and popular congress has won its objectives. The country and the world have heard us. The government could not ignore us and knows it will have to respect our legitimacy. The word we bring in peace has become fact that speaks for itself. Even some of the commercial media were forced to listen and transmit our proposals, though many others continued to distort the truth. The solidarity of the world was present and accompanied us. We recognize the responsibility that all this implies. It is a collective responsibility to continue our work and take up the challenge. This mandate collects what has happened in the past and signals our plans for the present.

We register the irresponsible and disrespectful posture of the President of the Republic towards the first indigenous and popular congress, and reject his lies about the motives and content of this congress to public opinion when he describes this peaceful, civil, democratic gathering as a political act of terrorists. On September 2, days before the congress, the prosecutor general’s office detained elder Alcibiades Escue on false charges in an act this congress calls a political kidnapping. The President declared today, during the final public audience, that he has taken over the case of Alcibiades Escue and that the Congress is headed by parliamentarians and political opposition who have had no influence whatsoever on our process. This shows the weakness of a government that relies on lies and force to silence the truth of the people when they assume their dignity.

Agenda and Position of the First Congress

The commissions ratified the following position for this Minga.

-What is happening in this country and in our territories is serious, urgent, and we must mobilize immediately.
-The situation of emergency is due to a deep problem related to neoliberal globalization and for that reason the first action is a part of a struggle in the medium and long term. The results that follow FTAA and other free trade agreements are some of the most dangerous and destructive forms of aggression that will impel constitutional changes which will in turn impel more war and terror.
-Urgent mobilizations are neither the beginning nor the end of the struggle, but a stage of the process that we propose to create in minga, a process of indigenous and popular alternatives to make possible a country that is just, democratic, respectful of all its people, and peaceful.

Based on the above analysis, the themes debated in commissions and plenary sessions at the indigenous and popular congress were the following:

1. Defense of life and human rights facing the armed conflict and the politics of “democratic security”
2. The Constitutional “Reforms”
3. FTAA and other free trade agreements
4. Mechanisms for the construction of popular resistance and sovereignty

The indigenous and popular mandate for life, justice, joy, freedom and autonomy:

The authorities, organizations, processes and people participating in the First Indigenous and Popular Congress decide:

1. To declare ourselves under INDEFINITE PERMANENT ASSEMBLY until we have definitively overcome the threats against our life and integrity.
2. To establish the Indigenous Popular Congress to assume and deepen the themes of this Minga, to constitute and consolidate the process and Plan of Resistance and Life of Peoples. The congress will initiate sessions in the Peace and Coexistence Territory of La Maria, Piendamo, but it will have an itinerant character and will have sessions throughout the national territory, facilitated and led by all popular processes.
3. To create a PERMANENT TRIBUNAL OF THE PEOPLES with participation by people of the highest capacity at the national and international level, to examine, pronounce, recommend and act against the attacks and violations of human rights and the right to life of popular and indigenous organizations and processes.
4. To implement an AUTONOMOUS SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATION AND EXCHANGE OF THE PEOPLE FOR TRUTH AND LIFE
5. To establish a PERMANENT AND AUTONOMOUS DIPLOMATIC MISSION OF THE PEOPLES that will represent organizations and processes in diplomatic questions internationally, with representation from the international commissions of the movements and processes within the country.
6. Develop a SOLIDARITY ECONOMY and establish markets and mechanisms of production and exchange that will be reciprocal and oriented to defending and promoting life and the good of the communities.
7. Collect, analyze, deepen and adopt the recommendations and conclusions of the thematic commissions of the congress, as well as the declarations, agreements, pronouncements and resolutions of the organizations, movements, and events where positions and proposals were brought.

The Congress declares the following:

With regard to the armed conflict, the violation of human rights and the politics of “democratic security”

-To design and put in place popular mechanisms for a negotiated solution to the armed conflict.
-To demand truth, justice, and reparations for the victims of armed conflict.
-Promote popular and autonomous mechanisms of civil resistance, peace and security that include the recognition of the Guardia Indigena as a popular force for peace.
-Demand and design mechanisms of civil resistance with national and international pressure, support, and observation to win the exit of armed groups from our territories and respect for the civil population, respect for indigenous autonomy and indigenous organizations.
-Design mechanisms of resistance and civil disobedience against the politics of “democratic security” of the Colombian government.

With regard to FTAA and free trade

-Convoke organizations and the people of Colombia to develop the actions needed to stop negotiations of these agreements and promote a Popular Referendum against the Free Trade Agreement and FTAA.

With regard to the Constitutional Reforms:

-Demand the suspension of any attempt at constitutional reform and demand that in future, any proposed reform must be submitted to popular consultation and approval.

Follow-Up

Indigenous authorities and leaders present at this first congress will design an Indigenous and Popular Commission responsible for the design of mechanisms and agenda to fulfill this mandate as rapidly as possible. The criteria for selecting members of the commission must include: participation from diverse sectors; legitimacy of representation in the name of organizations and processes; and recognized capacity to do the assigned work. We will continue to act to confront the political kidnapping of elder Alcibiades Escue (*TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: ALCIBIADES WAS RELEASED AFTER MUCH POPULAR MOBILIZATION AND IS BACK IN INDIGENOUS TERRITORY – OCTOBER 6, 2004).

Words without action are empty.
Action without words is blind.
Words and action without the spirit of community are death.

For life, justice, freedom and autonomy, we continue to move forward.

I wrote a piece on the disappearance of my friend Arquimedes Vitonas. It is here, please read it. I will continue to update this story as I hear more. I apologize for not blogging as frequently as I had before the blog system changed. I will try to get back to it more frequently in future.

On August 22, 2004, a commission of leaders left the indigenous community of Toribio, part of the municipality of Toribio in the Department of Cauca, Colombia, to go to a community called Alta Mira in the municipality of San Vicente del Caguan, in the Department of Caqueta. The commission was led by the mayor of the municipality of Toribio, Arquimedes Vitonas. The indigenous of the northern part of Cauca have their own system of government, and so another member of the commission, Plinio Trochez, was known as the ‘governor’ of the community of Toribio – governors are chosen by the community each year and perform various community and executive functions. The indigenous of northern Cauca, called the Nasa, also have built an indigenous university in the mountains of Toribio, called CECEDIC – indeed, Arquimedes Vitonas, the mayor of Toribio, is a graduate of the school. The coordinator of CECEDIC, Gilberto Munoz, was a member of the commission. Former mayor of Toribio, Ruben Dario, was also present. He is currently the governor of a neighbouring indigenous community called San Francisco. They were all in one car. The driver of the car was Erminson Velasco. The car belongs to the mayor’s office.

I know the car. Six months ago Arquimedes himself drove it to take me and some others up from Toribio into the reserve of Tacueyo, which in February 2004 was under siege as the military tried to dislodge the FARC from their positions in the mountains. The community of Tacueyo was struggling, living on food aid and help from other Nasa communities below. As the mayor, Arquimedes was our protection, an official presence to whom the army could not deny entry and retain plausible deniability. The conversation at the military roadblock was tense. The commander acted as if he cared about the welfare of the community. “The important thing is that the people remain calm,” he said, seemingly unaware that the presence of the military besieging the community might be less than soothing. Arquimedes, who is a small physical presence but an immense and impossible-to-intimidate psychological presence, acted as if he believed the commander: “That’s why we are going, to reassure the people.”

Back to August 22. The commission was traveling to San Vicente del Caguan so that leaders from northern Cauca could share their experience and advice with the indigenous of Caqueta. The Nasa of Cauca, after all, had very long and successful experience in participatory municipal development and development planning. They had won national and international awards: just in February, the United Nations Development Program had awarded Toribio’s ‘Proyecto Nasa’ a prestigious Sustainable Development Award (1). Arquimedes Vitonas and Gilberto Munoz had been recognized as ‘Masters of Wisdom’ by UNESCO. Munoz was the first activist from the indigenous movement to become the mayor of a municipality, one of the leaders who began the unfinished project of taking back the machinery of local government from the corrupt elite and returning it to the community. The majority of people in the community of Altamira, where the commission was heading, were originally from Toribio and had had to leave years before.

Three days later, on August 25, the Secretary of Government for the Department of Cauca (while various municipalities in Cauca, like Toribio, are in the hands of the indigenous movement, the governorship of the Department of Cauca passed from the indigenous movement into the hands of a hardline supporter of Colombia’s hardline president in recent elections) called the municipality of Toribio to let the mayor’s office know that the mayor and the entire commission had been kidnapped. According to the Secretary, this kidnapping had been done by “an unestablished armed group.” The Secretary’s source? Batallion Codazzi, based in the city of Palmjra in the Department of Valle del Cauca. The Secretary told the municipality that the information had been received on the morning of the 24th. The Secretary did not explain the full day’s delay in telling the mayor’s office that the mayor had been kidnapped.

After the indigenous councils of northern Cauca (Asociacion de Cabildos Indigenas del Norte de Cauca, ACIN) sent their first communique about the kidnapping on August 25, they received a note of clarification from the government of Cauca. It turns out that their information had been incorrect: the information had come from a different battalion. From the note from the Secretary of Government of Cauca:

“On Tuesday August 24 the Secretary of Departmental Government of Cauca was informed in the hours of the night about the possible disappearance of the commission by Colonel Trujillo, commander of Batallion Pichincha. Immediately the security organisms of the Secretary of Government established a channel of communication.”

Battalion Pichincha has a long acquaintance with the Nasa of northern Cauca. On December 31, 2003, a soldier from that battalion assassinated a youth from the community, Olmedo Ul, who was riding his motorcycle past a military checkpoint. When no one from the battalion owned up to the crime, when no one was investigated or punished for the murder, the Nasa decided not to allow the impunity and enacted their own judicial proceeding against the battalion itself. The community has a constitutional right to enact indigenous justice in indigenous territory, and it attempted to exercise that right in February 2004. Colonel Trujillo was summoned to the meeting – and made a promise to Arquimedes Vitonas’s office that he would attend. I was there on February 19, when the Nasa judged the battalion in an assembly of thousands of people (1). The colonel didn’t attend, and on television that night various figures from the army announced that they rejected the jurisdiction of the indigenous over the case.

The kidnapping, and the department of Cauca’s handling of it, leaves some unanswered questions. The 24-hour delay in transmitting the news of the kidnapping from the government of Cauca to the mayor’s office in Toribio is one question. The change of source of information from one day to the next, from a battalion with no specific history in northern Cauca to a battalion accused of abuse, murder, and impunity, is another.

Just weeks before, the indigenous of Cauca had publicly announced their decision to launch a mobilization in mid-September against the continuing assault on their communities by government, paramilitaries, and guerrillas as well. Their mobilization will be a rejection of the constitutional ‘reforms’ planned by President Uribe to facilitate the further restructuring of the Colombian economy. Their argument is that these constitutional reforms will destroy indigenous autonomy, security, and the rights and freedoms the indigenous have won in long, terrible struggle.

Arquimedes Vitonas has a good grasp of that long struggle. About two years ago, he visited Canada to talk about the Nasa and their process. I asked him about the land reform they had enacted in the 1970s and 1980s, using strategies similar to those of the Landless Peasants in Brazil (2). He gave an image of that historic struggle:

“First of all remember that the land was ours. It was lost only in the 1950s and 1960s during La Violencia. At that time, we were displaced by force by large landowners, and these seizures of land were then legalized by the government. When the indigenous returned from flight, they found themselves workers of these large landowners. So they began in the 1970s to recover the land.

“It is a long process. First, there are community meetings. These happen between 1 and 4 a.m. as they are prohibited during the day. They are as secret as possible. There is no writing, since to the authorities and landowners in those days having a typewriter was far worse than having a gun. During the meetings, 200 to 500 workers would get involved through coming to agreements about decisions.

“The next step is the occupation itself, which we do at dawn, taking over the territory with the people by simply starting to work the land. There are already set escape routes and people watching, however. So when the police and army come, as they always do, we would run and hide. The police would stay for three or four days, and leave – at which point the people would return.

“After months of this, maybe years of this, during which there are assassinations, attempts to single out leaders, etc., the owner sees that he has to negotiate.

“There were also people on the inside, fighting with legal instruments and legalizing the conquests that the people had won on the ground. It is a long fight, and many were killed, but we recovered the land.”

Arquimedes would have been quite young during this process. He is one of the current generation of leaders, those who grew up living the violence of the civil war but also living the power of the Nasa indigenous movement. Padre Antonio Bonanomi (3) is an Italian priest who has been part of the movement for decades, and watched the new generation of leaders take over. He noted the difference between today’s leaders, leaders like Arquimedes, and decades before, when the process was being reborn: ‘The most beautiful part of a living process is that it goes on.’, he said. ‘I know personally. I used to be so important in this process: people used to ask me: ‘Padre, what do we do?’ Today they don’t ask. They say: ‘Padre, here’s what we’re doing.’

Padre Antonio also captured something of the spirit of the movement in Northern Cauca, one of constructing dreams and democracy in the middle of terror war zone:

‘The Nasa are living two processes. One is internal, built on dreams. The Nasa are always dreaming. They have workshops, projects. They believe all this will pass. Their historical experience tells them the rest will pass. We won’t pass. They say, it’s tough, but La Violencia was worse, the war of 1000 days was worse, the spanish conquest was worse. Their resistance, their patience, is in this context. I hear a bomb going off and I get stressed – they are not. Instead, they are planning: they are occupied, but they are having their development planning assemblies. For them, the conflict will pass. For me, I say – how can we have autonomy when we are occupied? They say – we act as if we are free. We are occupied. But the occupiers will eventually leave, and we will continue to plan and dream.”

In a public talk in Cali in February 2004, Arquimedes described their spirit in a similar way: “With this war, they can kill many of us, but they cannot kill all of us. Those of us who live will continue with our work. Those of us who die, will have died defending our process.”

He knew that the process was something well worth defending. The Nasa have become the ethical guide of Colombia’s social movements. Their resilience has helped them survive, and build, despite years of paramilitarism, neoliberalism, and murder. They can trace their resistance back to La Gaitana’s rebellion against the Spanish hundreds of years ago, to Manuel Quintin Lame’s struggle for the land in the 19th century, through to the current strengthening of their movements in the past few decades. They have lost thousands of people in these struggles. Battalion Pichincha killed Olmedo Ul last year. Cristobal Secue fell to assassination by FARC in 2001. Mario Betancur was killed by the ELN in 1996. Alvaro Ulcue, one of the founder of today’s Nasa organization in Toribio, was killed by landlords and security forces in 1984. Two years ago, the FARC pronounced a death sentence on every mayor in Colombia, if those mayors did not resign. Shockingly, they included the indigenous mayors of Toribio, and launched an attack on the town. The FARC has not made any further statements against the movement’s mayors, but nor have they officially revised the policy: so mayors, including Arquimedes, remain ‘military targets’ according to FARC. Arquimedes’ brother was disappeared from the indigenous territory years ago.

The weapon of detention is used ruthlessly against them as well. In January of this year, 8 people from Toribio were arrested and shipped off abysmal conditions in prison to the department’s capital, Popayan, without a shred of evidence or due process, on the charge of ‘insurgency’. According to Colombia’s anti-terrorist laws, these people, now in jail in Popayan, the capital of Cauca, have no rights to face their accuser; no rights to see the evidence against them; no rights to a jury trial. Instead, their fate will be decided by the state prosecutor’s office, in private. The families of the detained collected 3,000 signatures in the community of people who swore that these eight individuals had nothing to do with the insurgency. Against this, the prosecutor general had the testimony of someone in a ski mask Arquimedes was, of course, among the first and the strongest in their defense.

The march the Nasa are planning for September is a mobilization against war, against neoliberalism, and against the constitutional counterreforms planned by the government. They have been joined not only by the other indigenous of Cauca, but also the indigenous organizations of Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Risaralda, Huila, Tolima, and the organizations of the Embera, Awa, and Quindio.

More than once when I was in Cauca, people would ask me what things were like in Canada and elsewhere in the world. Arquimedes in particular was interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Colombian media are no better than the North American media on that or many other issues, and so he was surprised to hear about the settlements, the assassinations, the checkpoints, the starvation, the prisons, the total control of daily life of the Palestinians by Israel. He had only heard of it as some kind of interminable religious conflict. The night of February 24, there was a celebration in Toribio – the UNDP had awarded the community a prize for having the best sustainable development project. Two representatives of the community had come back from the awards ceremony in Malaysia, and told the community about Malaysia and the different projects that had won. Arquimedes, as he had done more than once, put me on the spot in front of the whole gathered community, saying: “we have a special guest, from Canada, let’s give him a moment to hear what he thinks.” I said that I had been to many different places, seen the Palestinians struggle against the most brutal and powerful military machine; seen an MST community in Brazil and community assemblies and recovered factories in Argentina, Zapatista communities in Chiapas, and even very brave and principled people in Canada, but I had never seen the kind of strength, unity, and solidarity at the grassroots level that I had seen there, and that I had to thank them for that, because if I hadn’t seen it I would not have believed it possible.

When Arquimedes spoke that night, he said simply that now is the time to take what we can from this award, from the visibility we have at the international level, and take advantage of this time to try to move forward. Because, he said, times change, and sometimes they don’t return.

If he were to read this, he would probably reject what he would view as an excessive focus on him, his personality, and his work. He would probably remind me that the process is a collective one, that the power is not in the leaders, but in the people, and that no one can claim ownership from the movement’s collective effort of resistance and autonomy. Maybe he would remind me, too, of the saying the Nasa live by: “Words without action are empty, actions without words are blind, and words and actions outside of the spirit of community are death.”

Kidnapping him won’t stop the Nasa from resisting, building, or dreaming. But him and the others should be returned immediately.

Direct your emails and calls to the following:

– Programa Presidencial de Derechos Humanos y de DIH.
Dr. Carlos Franco
Calle 7 N° 5-54
Bogotá
TEL: (+571) 336.03.11
FAX: (+57 1) 337.46.67
E- mail: cefranco@presidencia.gov.co
E-mail: fibarra@presidencia.gov.

– Ministerio de Defensa Nacional
Dr. Jorge Alberto Uribe
El Dorado con Carrera. 52 CAN,
Bogotá.
Tel. (57 1) 315 01 11
Fax: (+57 1)222.18.74
E-mail: siden@mindefensa.gov.co, infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co,
mdn@cable.net.co

– Procuraduría General de la Nación
Dr. Edgardo José Maya Villazón
Carrera 5 No. 15-80
Santa Fé de Bogotá.
Tel: (57 1) 352 00 76
Fax: (+57 1)342.97.23
E-mail: anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co

– Fiscalía General de la Nación
Dr. Luis Camilo Osorio
Diagonal 22 B No.52-01
Bogotá.
Fax: (+571) 570 20 00
E-mail: contacto@fiscalia.gov.co; denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co

-Defensoría del Pueblo
Dr. Vólmar Pérez Ortiz.
Calle 55 No. 10-32
Bogotá.
Tel: (57 1) 314 73 00
Fax: (+571) 640 04 91
E-mail:secretaria_privada@hotmail.com

РPresidencia de la Rep̼blica
Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez,
Cra. 8 No.7-26, Palacio de Nariño,
Bogotá.
Tel: (57 1) 562 93 00
Fax: (+57 1) 566.20.71
E-mail: auribe@presidencia.gov.co

Notes

1) I have written about this in detail. I was in Toribio when the UNDP prize was awarded and when Battalion Pichincha was judged. See this photo essay. http://www.en-camino.org/caucaphotoessay/caucaphotoindex.htm
2) I interviewed Arquimedes in September 2002. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=36&ItemID=2363
3) I interviewed Padre Antonio on February 24, 2004, in Toribio http://www.en-camino.org/caucaphotoessay/padreantonio.htm