En Camino

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.

Here is a radio interview with Manuel - en espanol - by Radio Nizkor.

The Price of Our Struggle: Individuals and Groups, using threats and dirty war, seek to silence us

Action Alert

Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN)

October 29, 2005

The Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) –CXAB WALA KIWE, announces the following to national and international public opinion.

1. In the past several days, a wave of threats has fallen over various of our community members, leaders, and authorities. To us this translates to a clear message that there are those who seek to destabilize the process of the indigenous communities in the northern zone of the department of Cauca.

Greetings from En Camino.

Author: Indigenous Authorities of Cauca

DECISION OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE FACE OF LAWS THAT GO AGAINST MOTHER EARTH

June 24, 2005

The Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC), the Association of Indigenous Authorities of Northern Cauca (ACIN CWAB WALA KIWE), and the Environmental Economic Authority, in the face of the legislative bills on Waters, Forestry and Mountains that is being processed by the Fifth Commission of the Senate of the Republic,

URGENT COMMUNIQUÉ: “SILENCE THE GUNS SO WORDS CAN BE HEARD”

In face of the escalation of the war in our territory, and taking into account the difficult situation in which we are living, we the Nasa Paez communities reiterate before national an international opinion – as has already been expressed in the official communiqués of the ACIN beginning on April 15, 2005 (see www.nasaacin.net) – our call to a:

CEASE FIRE, COMPLETE DEMILITARIZATION OF THE AREA, AND THE BEGINNING OF CONVERSATIONS TO SEARCH FOR A NEGOTIATED SOLUTION TO THE ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA.

An Open Letter to the Combatants in the Colombian Conflict, FARC and the Government of Colombia.

Since April 14, 2005, the territories and communities of Northern Cauca have been transformed into battlefields. Only the representatives of armed factions have been heard. Civilians have been displaced, wounded, and killed; their houses, churches, schools, and hospitals have been destroyed. Their voice, the most important voice in the conflict, has been drowned out.