COLOMBIA: Native Groups Mobilise Against Escalation of War

•  bogota
• Monday, July 25, 2011
• Inter Press Service

'In the minga (a term that refers to a traditional indigenous meeting or activity for the collective good), we set out, but we don't know when we'll return,' Darío Tote, a Coconuco indigenous leader who is the regional coordinator of the educational programme of the CRIC, which represents the nine native ethnic groups in Cauca province, told IPS.

'The local indigenous children are terrified,' said Tote. 'When they're on their way to school, armed actors appear on the road, and you don't know who they are: army, guerrillas or (far-right) paramilitaries.

'The children are terrified by the uniforms, weapons, shooting, helicopters, planes,' he added. 'We are on the alert, in permanent assembly,' which means 'being together with our families, our children,' he said.

Tote told IPS that the 'minga of resistance for autonomy and peace and an end to the war' will set out within one or two weeks, to march across indigenous territory that has been occupied by armed groups.

The immediate aim of the protest is to force the army, police and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) to dismantle the bases and camps that they operate in the midst of the civilian population.

'We don't want to give either side a military advantage; what we want is to defend the lives and the autonomy of our communities,' the CRIC said in a strongly worded statement issued Thursday Jul. 21 but dated Jul. 20, Colombia's Independence Day.

'We hope both sides understand that our objective is humanitarian in essence. We are calling on our friends to help the government and the FARC understand this,' adds the CRIC communiqué, which was published Thursday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, some 6,000 indigenous people gathered in a hearing with the CRIC regional directors in Toribío, a town of 4,000 that is surrounded by Nasa Indian reserves in the Andes mountains in the north of Cauca province.

The municipality of Toribío is comprised of the town and the reserves, which have been recognised as indigenous territory since the Spanish colonial authorities did so in 1702, and is home to some 28,000 people, 90 percent of whom are Nasa Indians.

It was in Toribío where indigenous leader Quintín Lame led a rebellion in defence of native land rights against landowners encroaching on their territory in Cauca, starting in 1910. And it was in that town that the CRIC was created in 1971, to defend and fight for 'unity, land and culture'.

It was also in Toribío that Álvaro Ulcué, Colombia's first indigenous Catholic priest, was assassinated in 1984. Ulcué, a Nasa activist, was the driving force behind Project Nasa, a local indigenous-based development initiative launched in 1980 that gained international recognition for its local governance and anti-poverty efforts.

A bit to the north and east, on the other side of the Andes, a huge battle is raging because, according to the government, that is where the headquarters of FARC chief Alfonso Cano is located. Because Jul. 9 was market day, some 1,500 people were packed into the central plaza in Toribío. Suddenly, shooting was heard nearby, and there was a loud explosion in a street parallel to the plaza, in back of the church where some 40 people were attending mass.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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