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| Colombian Indians Resist an Encroaching War |
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Posted by FoM on June 18, 2001 at 08:05:49 PT By Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service Source: Washington Post 
For the past several days, they have been arriving on airplanes and in caravans of cramped buses and wooden rafts, filling the central square of this frontier town with garish hammocks, tarps and the acrid smell of campfire smoke.More than 1,000 of Colombia's indigenous people have traveled to Tierralta, where the country's northern plains give way to lush mountains, to protest a war that is consuming their land, language and people. Their stand has taken the form of a largely symbolic search for Kimy Pernia Domico, a leader of the Embera Katio tribe that controls strategic stretches of northwestern Colombia. Domico was seized here June 2 by three gunmen presumed to be members of the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). He has not been seen since. The Indians gathered in the cluttered square -- their faces and legs marked with ritual tattoos, walking on bare, broad feet, speaking in languages that predate the Spanish colonization -- hold out little hope that Domico will be found alive. But in the coming days, without government sanction and with little security, they will venture onto the cattle ranches of Cordoba province, whose owners help fund the AUC, and seek the return of a man who tried to keep war and economic interests from overwhelming tribal land. "We want him given back to us -- dead or alive," said Luis Ondino Duave, 23, a student and Embera Katio member who traveled three days by bus from Choco province along the Pacific Coast. "We may be here for weeks, it all depends. If God permits, we will find him." As Colombia's decades-old civil war has expanded in recent years, so has the threat to the country's 700,000 Indians, who belong to 84 tribes and speak 64 languages. They live on more than 50 million acres of land granted to them by the government, much of it located in strategic, resource-rich regions coveted by the armed groups. In recent years, the government has signed accords with the Indians ensuring their autonomy and human rights, but tribal members say those agreements have been largely ignored as the war has sprawled into virtually every corner of the country. "The objective of this search is a call to the state to respect our autonomy and territory," said an Embera Katio leader who said he feared being identified by name. "The government must comply with these accords." The Latin American Association for Human Rights says that half of Colombia's indigenous tribes face extinction because of the encroaching violence. Displacement is fracturing families and diluting tribal languages, and forced recruitment into guerrilla ranks and selective assassinations by paramilitary forces are scattering tribes like the Embera Katio that have lived along Colombia's swift rivers and thick jungles for centuries. In southern Amazonas province, the leftist guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) requires each indigenous family to provide two people to its ranks, according to the human rights group. FARC seeks recruits as young as 14 who are prized for their knowledge of jungle terrain. In past three years, more than 1,500 Indians have been forced into guerrilla ranks, the human rights group said. Domico's disappearance followed a rash of violence against indigenous leaders by paramilitary forces and the FARC. The AUC, especially here in northern Colombia, has chosen to eliminate powerful tribal leaders who resist the right-wing group's territorial ambitions. At least 10 leaders of the Embera Katio and Zenu tribes in Cordoba, and neighboring Antioquia and Choco provinces, have been killed by the AUC in the past three years, according to the human rights association. Embera Katio leaders say 16 tribal members have been killed over that period, half by the paramilitary forces and half by the FARC. "For these groups, it is dangerous to have a leader who is much listened to by his people, someone who says, 'This is our territory, not yours,' " said an adviser to the two Embera Katio leaders who oversee tribal land between the Sinu and Verde rivers southwest of here. "We have come here to look for [Domico] in [the paramilitary forces'] house." Domico's plight is in some ways similar to that of the thousands of Colombians trying to remain neutral during the intensifying civil conflict, which is fueled by the vast profits the armed groups receive from the drug trade. Tribal members say that in recent months, Domico was resisting pressure from the AUC to begin growing coca -- the raw material used to make cocaine -- on tribal land. Tierralta sits on a volatile border between the two military forces, and in the past 18 months drug crops have sprung up on land once used to grow bananas, rice and timber. Last month, FARC forces operating along the Sinu River slaughtered more than two dozen farmers, sometimes using machetes, who were allegedly working AUC-controlled coca fields. At the same time, Domico was continuing a long battle against the government and international corporations over a dam erected against the tribe's will in Embera territory. After decades of study, a corporation comprising Canadian and Swedish interests began building the Urra Dam on the Sinu River six years ago. The tribe won a brief injunction suspending construction, but subsequent legal rulings resulted in the 1998 flooding of a fertile valley filled with the tribe's banana plantations. For the first time in their history, many of the 142 Embera Katio families living between the Sinu and Verde rivers were going hungry after the flooding devastated the fishing stock. Domico had been leading the crusade for government compensation, angering many powerful business interests. Colombian officials have shown little interest in the Domico case. Col. Henry Caicedo, Cordoba's police chief, said without offering any evidence that Domico's disappearance was related to involvement in the drug trade. He retracted his comments, but only after Abadio Green of the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia said: "If they kill Kimy or any other of our colleagues, the colonel will be responsible." Then, Cordoba Gov. Jesus Maria Lopez prohibited the indigenous caravan from entering his state on the grounds that it could interfere with a national ranching festival. He said he would do nothing to stop the procession, but offered no security. So those who arrived here did so under less than safe circumstances, and remain vulnerable during what could be a weeks-long demonstration. The main square, strung with hammocks and draped with scraps of plastic that serve as tents, offers the Indians little protection from paramilitary or guerrilla forces. A few army patrols stand guard as dozens of children, barefoot and dirty, play ball and tag in the streets. Around each person's neck hangs a laminated picture of Domico on a string, a crude credential meant to identify participants. Three hundred people arrived by raft from Alto Sinu, the Embera Katio region that is Domico's home, including Rigoberto Domico, a member of the tribe, his wife and 6-month-old son. "He was our leader, and we will stay until we find him," he said. "How long it takes is not important." Hundreds more arrived in a caravan of buses from Medellin to the south, braving perhaps the most contested stretch of highway in Colombia with little protection. "The government should be looking for Kimy's killers and arresting these paramilitaries," said Jennifer Harbury, an American lawyer who has accused the CIA of complicity in the 1992 death of her husband, a Guatemalan guerrilla. She made the trip from her home in Texas to search for Kimy, whom she showed around Washington two years ago. "These people should not have to risk their lives for this." Tierralta, Colombia Note: Indigenous People Join To Search for Leader. Source: Washington Post (DC) Related Articles & Web Site: Colombia Drug War News How Global Battle Against Drugs Risks Backfiring Coca Workers Riot Against U.S. Spray Effort CannabisNews Articles - AUC Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #6 posted by Lehder on June 19, 2001 at 10:19:47 PT |
| I agree with Sudaca that the extraditables seek no war with the U.S. and certainly they have no desire to murder their own paying customers. But firedog is right that the U.S. has a long history of interference in Latin and South America, and programs like Plan Gran Colombia may well serve to inflame old resentments. Personally, I think the U.S. will fall first from within, victim of its own relentless and insane persistence with a system of false and stupid beliefs which it enforces with prisons and propaganda. And i would put money on some of firedog's interesting predictions, like: Those who resisted the war for political reasons were viewed as major security threats, The war finally ended when the United Nations, under pressure from the European the comment on trade sanctions is especially interesting i think, and an example occurred just a couple days ago. presumably we have set trade sanctions against saddam hussein, allowing only limited sales of oil, the profits to be used for medicine and other necessities. yet two days ago the price of oil jumped about 70 cents per barrel when iraq threatened a halt in production over some disagreement with the terms of the sanction. the u.s. presently has trade sanctions against very close to one half of the world's population, and it is really hardly more than a definition, under this condition, as to who is embargoing whom, and who, really, are the losers. i'm hopin to see some more light thrown on this question when george bush will be very shortly forced to make a statement on his CUba policy: the u.s. is the only country that refuses to trade with cuba. ridiculous. finally, except that i think twenty more years of the present madness should do it. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Sudaca on June 19, 2001 at 09:35:07 PT |
| but there are no Colombian enemies organized and spoiling for a fight with the US. There's a bunch of risk taking people who are willing to face the odds of the "pigs" in order to get to that sweet deal and strike rich. Multiheaded , dynamic and so forth is a description of the whole trafficking phenomenon, but each time a cartel is destroyed the business survives independent of the people who play at it. No, the US won't find massive opposition in Colombia, the colombians don't want to fight the US. The FARC will melt into the jungle and out of the ring of fire, and so will the ELN and other leftist marxist groups. They're in for the long haul on a war against Colombians not Americans. I don't think they'll "win" only that in the name of the WOD this shit will continue until internally people ask Congress to get out of the whole scam. The only [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by freedom fighter on June 18, 2001 at 17:21:16 PT |
| freedom fighter because I believe in freedom in each of us human beings It is not that hard to understand. In name of liberty, \/ [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by firedog on June 18, 2001 at 13:10:23 PT |
| A thousand years from now, students will learn (but not in schools) about the Decline and Fall of the American Empire... ( from the Decline and Fall of the American Empire, Chapter III. Published 3026 A.D.) ... THE COLUMBIAN WAR The United States had a long history of entanglement in the internal affairs of Central and South American countries. Many of the factions that received United States support were run by brutal and oppressive men, and these factions were often incredibly corrupt and involved in organized crime. Most of the time, American involvement in these civil wars was given very light coverage in mainstream American newspapers. Part of the reason for this was that articles about civil wars in impoverished Spanish-speaking nations didn't resonate with white, English-speaking American citizens. They were not directly involved; and what's more, they usually didn't care too much about what happened south of the Mexican border. But this all changed during the early 21st Century, with the onset of the Columbian War. In some ways, the Columbian War was very much like the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 70s. Both started in jungle environments on foreign soil; both were fought against Marxist enemies; both were fought despite the opposition of large numbers of American citizens; and both were wars that the United States ultimately lost. There was one major difference, though; the Vietnam War never came home. Vietnamese agents did not bomb government and civilian targets inside the United States, and they never hired gangs of poor American youth to invade the homes of well-off suburban residents. The Vietnam War never led to martial law on American soil, or attacks on the suburbs of cities in the Midwest. The American military at the end of the 20th Century was hopelessly outmoded. It was based on a static organizational structure that was extremely typical of Second Millennium militaries, corporations, and organizations in general. This structure was effective in wars against militaries that played by the same rules, but the Columbian insurgency did not play by these rules at all. They used a dynamic organizational structure with strategies that are very familiar to all of us today; using small, autonomous teams for all operations, maximizing individual resourcefulness and efficiency, changing the command chain on the fly, etc. According to Tsung's Theory of Organizational Efficiency ("Organizational Structures", Z. H. Tsung, 2185), a dynamically-organized group of one thousand is more effective than a statically-organized group of one million in a dynamic environment. The Columbian War was one of the most dynamic in American history up to that point. The leaders of the Columbian insurgency were intelligent and extremely well-financed. What's more, they knew the United States better than most Americans. Most of them had spent some time in the United States, and the tentacles of their criminal networks were deeply embedded in every city, every socioeconomic group, many police departments, and most government agencies. They read American newspapers, watched American television, were linked to the American Internet, and they were quite familiar with standard (and nonstandard) American military tactics. They were well aware that America was a deeply divided nation during the early 21st Century. Consequently, they knew that the easiest way to win the war against the Americans was to take the war to American soil. As the ancient chess proverb states, "the best defense is a good offense". The Columbian insurgents exploited racial, geographic, and economic tensions among the American populace in order to turn one socioeconomic group against another, and it worked extremely well. These tensions had been building for decades; it didn't take much to make them explode. The Columbian insurgents also used their extensive criminal networks to inflict random violence against civilians. No one was immune. This was devastating to the morale of a nation that had not seen a major war on its own soil in 140 years. What's more, the American military was powerless against it; there was no predefined strategy for defending a large nation from this kind of warfare. There was no well-defined "front" as there had been in previous wars -- the next attack could, and did, strike anywhere, from rural Midwestern towns to large Southern cities. Fear was in the air, and ruthless politicians seized the day. The masses eagerly gave up their freedoms in order to ensure their safety. The last remaining vestiges of the American Constitution were suspended as martial law was declared. Concentration camps were established for those of Columbian descent, but many other Americans of Latin descent were mistakenly imprisoned inside these camps. Those who resisted the war for political reasons were viewed as major security threats, and many were brutally killed in their own homes. A whole slew of actions were considered equivalent to treason or "aiding the enemy", including writing or publishing articles opposing the war, participating in public protests against the war, and purchasing illegal contraband substances of any kind. These actions were punishable by death, and anonymous informants could report anyone as a traitor. During these dark years, hundreds of thousands of Americans were assassinated by members of their own military. The killings continued unabated for six years; no one would speak out against the war, and so the carnage continued. The war finally ended when the United Nations, under pressure from the European Union, imposed trade sanctions on the United States. Trade sanctions had been notoriously unsuccessful up to that point, but for some reason, it worked quite well against America... ... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by New Mexican on June 18, 2001 at 11:46:11 PT |
| Can we turn up the volumn? Listen folks, this is murder at the behest of American/ Canadian corporate interests, how about writing letters, e-mails, protesting, and getting this issue on the front burner now. American citizens don't want their tax dollars used to murder women, children, their husbands and defoliate their land. So what are we waiting for? Let's get on it! Two years ago, the end of the war on drugs came into sight with the help of Gov. Johnson and Internet sites like CannabisNews.com. Issues like the one above are what it take to get the on the average Americans radar screen. Now let's run with the ball and let everyone know what kind of government we have that will do any and everything in its power to steal land from underneath International peoples, in order to give it to the mining and oil industries, (all in the name of the war on drugs). U.S. credibility is at an all time low in the world, and Americans are the last ones to get the news about our governments actions. Due to media censorship and a right wing coup that the media was complicite in. Look around you people, it's now or never. What are you waiting for, next stop is Viet Nam, this is a flashback of the worst kind, becuse it's really happening. Ane we are paying for it with our hard earned slave wages! Act Now! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by fivepounder on June 18, 2001 at 09:07:39 PT |
| Our government, at work. What they are best at: killing people. [ Post Comment ] |
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