Background
Since 2000, a large portion of U.S. military aid to Colombia has supported a "push into southern Colombia" for anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency efforts, primarily in the southern border province of Putumayo. This has had a ripple effect on Putumayo's surrounding areas such as Colombia 's southwest and Pacific regions, where armed factions have dramatically increased their activities. Both areas have large populations of indigenous peoples. Thus, a consequence of the U.S. military aid package is the worsening of the already precarious economic, social, and political status of indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups, as well as the entire nation.
AFSC's Work
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has worked in Latin America and the Caribbean for more than four decades. In response to the situation in Colombia and together with the people of this region, AFSC builds and supports a broad based, well-informed U.S. constituency that helps shape a just U.S. policy.
The AFSC has offices across the United States that work on fostering solidarity with indigenous in Colombia. We also organize delegations to Colombia, invite members of indigenous communities to the United States to speak about their peacemaking efforts and we encourage the U.S. government to support a peaceful negotiated solution to the conflict.
In Colombia, AFSC has a main office in Bogotá, and field staff located in the southwestern provinces of Cauca, Valle, and Putumayo. AFSC's work with Colombian indigenous peoples is concentrated in these provinces. With the Nasa people in Cauca and Valle, AFSC has helped train leaders and the indigenous guard on peaceful strategies of resistance to incursion by armed groups into their territories, use of national and international legal instruments to protect and advance their human and collective rights, and the use of psychosocial and mental health methods to deal with the stress and trauma of the conflict and violence of the war.
In the Putumayo province, AFSC is working with indigenous women in an inter-ethnic process of training on peaceful conflict resolution, psychosocial and mental health approaches to dealing with conflict, and small productive projects, geared towards creating a network of women community leaders to serve as agents of peace in the midst of war. In both of these areas of Colombia, AFSC also provides some material aid in response to damages from war and from the destruction to food crops brought about by the aerial fumigation against coca production.
Finally, in conjunction with its offices in Ecuador and Peru, AFSC is also working with indigenous Colombian refugees in the border areas of those two countries and Venezuela to help them link up with national human rights groups to raise their visibility and enhance the protection of their rights.
Indigenous Colombians
The indigenous population of Colombia makes up only 2% of the 40 million living in Colombia but they are, along with Afro-Colombian and peasant communities, almost half of the displaced. According to the Colombian National Organization of Indigenous Peoples (ONIC), 20,000 indigenous people were displaced between 2000-2003 and 353 were assassinated, 80 of them since the beginning of 2004.
The Indigenous communities have categorized the situation they face as ethnocide.
One of the most critical situations is that of the Kankuamos Peoples of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. Fifty-five Kankuamos were assassinated by the paramilitaries last year alone. In late July of 2004 another one of their leaders, Fredy Arias, was assassinated.
Peacemaking Efforts
Yet, through it all, indigenous and Afro-Colombians communities continue to believe in peace instead of vengeance.
These groups define themselves as "communities in resistance," a term that differentiates them from other peace communities in Colombia, such as San Jose de Apartadó and Cacaricá, since it refers not only to the current situation but also to their historic efforts against social and racial marginalization.
The communities of resistance call for peaceful negotiations and solutions to the civil war in Colombia in face of the ongoing violence and social hardships. They struggle to protect their territory and livelihoods and develop themselves through peaceful means, rejecting attempts by the paramilitaries, guerrillas, and army to draw them into their ranks as sympathizers or militants. For these communities, their belief in nonviolence and the power of negotiation to bring about peace is not just a tactic but comes from who they are.
What You Can Do?
Decisions and policies of the U.S. government toward Colombia are critical and can continue to fuel the fires of war-or they can be a positive force for peace. Here are a few ideas of what you can do to help restore peace in Colombia:
- Continue to educate yourself about the peace efforts of Indigenous peoples. Bookmark our site visit it regularly at: www.afsc.org/colombia
- Join AFSC's Colombia list-serve.
- Ask your representative to read the Blue Print on Colombia. This valuable document was created by LAWG and contains ten recommendations for a responsible U.S. policy towards Colombia.
- Start a solidarity group that can work with the people of Colombia to strengthen their efforts for peace.
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