Northern Cauca

by Justin Podur

Two pieces are attached to help understand and mobilize support for the democratic left in Colombia regarding the upcoming Congressional and Presidential elections; the initial one by Manuel Rozental is inspired by the one circulated by Senator Jorge Robledo. These pieces are simultaneously intended to be analytical and an invitation to supporters of democracy within and beyond Colombia to speak up and act to help mobilize a collective conviction from Colombian people towards a much needed popular transformation of that country.

The Struggle for Land in Colombia
by Hector Mondragon

En Espanol: http://www.nasaacin.net/noticias.htm?x=1780

If there had been justice and reparation for the victims of hundreds of massacres committed in the last twenty years in the Colombian countryside, as well as those committed between 1946 and 1958 and in previous waves of violence, the prin­cipal measure would be to return their land to the campesinos, indigenous people and afro-colombians who have time and again been thrown off Mother Earth by blood and fire.

As dawn came on 2 September 2005, two hundred comuneros - commu­nity activists - from the Indigenous Reserve of Nasa de Huellas dared to implement the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Court established that the Colombian state should hand back their land as part of an integral reparation to victims of a massacre committed by paramili­taries on 19 September 1991 in the Nilo hacienda - large farmstead - that the indigenous people had occupied. Twenty of them, children included, were assassinated.

Competing definitions of democracy go head-to-head in Latin America in 2006

By: Jonah Gindin—In the Name of Democracy, a project of Pueblos En Camino

Late on the night of December 18, Evo Morales became South America's first indigenous President. No less frightening for his detractors in the United States,, he is an open admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. Evo is the most recent in a long line of left-leaning Presidents to be elected in Latin America, and with ten Presidential elections scheduled for 2006 there may be more to come. In Latin America the “dominoes” seem to be falling again. By this time next year, the political landscape could look very different.

Pueblos En Camino invites you to the first presentation of the series:

‘Caminando la Palabra: The Popular and Indigenous Struggles of Colombia and the Indigenous of Cauca” on December 15th at Tinto, 89 Rocesvalles in Toronto, 6 pm.

Mother Earth Forces Uribe to Step Back

Today, November 18th 2005, day 37 of the Freedom for Mother Earth struggle from the Japio Hacienda and from the other 15 haciendas in the Cauca Department, we are proud to annnounce our victory on behalf of the Colombian Popular Movement. The Government of President Uribe was forced to recognize the legitimacy and the strength of the indigenous and popular struggle, thanks to the presure of more than 10.000 people who fight for freedom from this corner of the planet called Cauca.

The Government had to take back what it had said about indigenous peoples owning too much land, that we are infiltrated by terrorists, that it would not negotiate under presure (a condition that applies only to unarmed civilians) and aknowledge the justice of our demands not only because of our actions but because of the solidarity expressed in Colombia and the World.

VIOLENCE

Here's a translation from the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado:

The Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado asks urgently for national and international solidarity. The Army has today indiscriminately bombed in Arenas Altas and Bajas. Ground troops have thrown grenades against the civilian population in this humanitarian zone. One of the grenades was thrown and hit Arlen Salas David, the coordinator of the humanitarian zone of Arenas Altas, who was working in the field. He is badly injured. A commission from the community left at 2pm to retrieve him. We are unsure if we will be able to save his life as he is very badly wounded. The indiscriminate bombings continue. We ask for urgent actions to guarantee the lives of the commission, 42 families of the humanitarian zone and the other families of Arenas, to avert a massacre.

Alfredo Molano
El Espectador

Señor Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidencia de la República
Cra. 8 No..7-26, Palacio de Nariño, Santa fe de Bogotá.
Fax: (571) 566-2071
secretaria.privada@presidencia.gov.co

Re: liberar la madre tierra !

Strategic Planning

The kids at National Planning have a view of the country that looks down from the commanding heights of the towers of 26th Street. Their view of the country used to be from the beltway that ringed Bogota. Later, when they opened their business consulting office, they discovered how the country looked from their private helicopters. There are some exceptions: a few come down to Sasaima on Sundays to play golf – of course, they only do so after they’ve called the local Battalion to ensure their security – and the vast majority have laundered their engineering degrees from Colombian universities with PhDs in economics from provincial gringo universities. They don’t understand anything other than figures. Figures, after all, are the only way to measure the value of everything in terms of money, which is in the end what is of interest to them. It is their specialty. They assume the world began on the day they put on their tie and, with their father’s (or their uncle’s) connections, signed their first contract. I say these boys have come to tell us that the land (and the concentration of land ownership) has ceased to make any economic sense.

Below is a note from the Regional Indigenous Organization of Cauca, translated by the UK Colombia Solidarity Campaign. It is on the ongoing land struggle in Cauca, where the government has escalated the violence dramatically in recent days.

TANKS USED AGAINST INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN EL JAPIO, COLOMBIA.
CRIC, 9 November 2005.

MORE THAN 500 TROOPS AND TANKS ATTACK DEFENSELESS COMMUNITIES IN EL JAPIO,
CAUCA.

Using the argument of not initiating talks with the indigenous communities
until they have left the 15 land holdings that they have liberated in El
Japio, Cauca, National Government has given the order that the communities

Naomi Klein wrote an article for the Nation on Manuel's case and Cauca more generally. It is archived at ZNet here.

It was also republished in Toronto's NOW Magazine. That link is here.