Race and Gender
Colombia’s Double Realities: Threats Against Indigenous Communities Ignored as Calls for a Second Re-election of President Uribe Get Louder
The second re-election of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is one step closer to becoming a reality now that the National Registry has received the petitions containing over five million signatures in support of a constitutional amendment that would allow for yet another term for the hard-line president. The re-election measure must be approved by the legislature, and its future is still uncertain. Meanwhile, President Uribe is remaining silent on the issue, resisting the temptation to campaign openly for what would amount to 12 years of uninterrupted rule in the Palacio Nariño. The truth is, he doesn’t have to speak out on the issue. There are plenty of other high profile figures in the Colombian political establishment that are doing the work for him, both within Colombia and abroad. Meanwhile, these backers of President Uribe, while touting the Colombian leader’s successes, ignore the human rights reality on the ground, particularly with regard to indigenous communities. Read more»
Threats Mount Against the Indigenous Social Movement in Colombia
An interview with Rafael Coicué, Nasa leader, and member of the cabildo of Carinto-López Adentro, Cauca, Colombia. (August 30, 2008 – Santander de Qulichao, Cauca.)
Rafael Coicué may be soft spoken, but when it is his turn to talk in meetings and indigenous assemblies, the people listen carefully for his deliberate insight and precise analysis. Today, he is one of the most respected young leaders of the contemporary indigenous movement in northern Cauca. Read more»
Women and the Struggle for Social Change in Colombia
Many Colombian women on the political left see their daily participation in community and peasant organizations, social movements, and armed revolutionary groups as intimately bound up with the society they seek to build in Colombia. A lot of these women feel the need to confront inequality and implement a more redistributive political and economic agenda, suggesting that political economy is as important to gender politics as identity. In fact, a significant number of these women did not come to their politics from a gender or feminist perspective, but rather they began their engagement from a sense of injustice at the broader socio-economic conditions in which a majority of Colombians live. As a result, women struggle to organize in the context of a dirty war in which they are threatened, harassed and killed for being “subversives.” Read more»
Life in a FARC Camp
We met two female members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) at the pre-established rendezvous point deep in the Colombian jungle. There we waited in a simple two-room wooden shack, which served as the home of a local peasant family. We sat there talking and drinking coffee while one of the guerrillas stood on the riverbank communicating through a hand-held radio. Finally, having received the all clear, which meant that there were no army patrols on the river, the four of us climbed into a canoe for the next stage of our journey. It had taken Terry Gibbs and myself more than two days to reach that point and we still had a short river trip and a hike through the jungle before we would finally arrive at the FARC camp that was our destination. Read more»
Reflections on Mining in Colombia: When “Development” Creates Deprivation
When the Make Poverty History campaign swept the globe two years ago, its message of debt relief, charity and development for the global South came with an impressive lineup of celebrity endorsements, but the credibility for this package of messages came from renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs. His publication The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time trendily re-packaged the issues in a way that made the international community take notice. But while many in the activist community seized the opportunity to breathe new life into campaigns for development and aid, Indian physicist and philosopher Vandana Shiva warned against the dangers of buying into Sachs’ analysis. Read more»
The Massacre in Altaquer
In early July, 64-year-old Segundo Ortiz was displaced from his land along with 1,700 other indigenous Awá in a remote jungle region in southwestern Colombia. He and many others had to walk for as long as two days to escape Colombian army operations in the region, finally seeking refuge in the small towns of Altaquer and Ricaurte. But one month later, tragedy struck the displaced Awá again when five of their leaders were dragged from their beds and shot to death on World Indigenous Day. It appears to many observers that the very forces that were charged with protecting the displaced Awá were the likely perpetrators of the massacre. Read more»
Democratic Security Has Not Arrived for Colombia’s Indigenous Communities
At a military roadblock on the outskirts of the town of El Palo, heading south on the road towards Toribio, the crowded chiva in which I was riding was pulled over, its passengers asked to get off to allow for a “little search” of bags and documents. It’s a routine occurrence for the mostly indigenous and peasant residents of the area, except that this time I was on board, a New York-born journalist and researcher who for various reasons, has yet to obtain the proper Colombian documentation of citizenship to which I am entitled. So I discreetly handed over my U.S. passport to the officer in charge, only to be told by Third Captain Espitia Zapata Jamir that I should not go on any further, that there were no guarantees for my security beyond this point, and that as a foreigner I had to accept that I was going to Toribio “of my own volition.” Read more»