Why Afro-Colombians Oppose the Colombia FTA

Marino Cordoba, founder of the Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), submitted this post as a guest blogger for The Hill.

Feb 7, 2008

The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is considered a non-starter in the U.S. Congress because the country is the world’s deadliest for union activists. Less known, but equally disturbing is the systematic violence now confronting Afro-Colombians.

African descendants comprise 26% of Colombia’s population. As with other African descendants, we face racial discrimination which results in economic hardships far worse than those experienced by the average Colombian. However in Colombia, a vibrant 1980s civil rights movement won full recognition of our cultural rights and collective ownership and community control of our territories and natural resources. The 1991 Colombian Constitution and the landmark Law 70 explicitly enshrine these rights and recognize official democratic Afro-Colombian governance structures, similar to those of your Indian tribes.

The administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has worked consistently to undermine our hard-won civil rights and our control of our territories. Systematic violence against our people and assassinations of our leaders continue unabated to this day.

At the end of 2007, angered by the strong opposition of the majority of Afro-Colombian communities to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA,) Uribe created a new Commission in Colombia that directly challenges our legal governance structure.

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New Aid Package Imperfect but Offers Significant Changes

The new aid package is far from perfect. But there are some positive and significant changes thanks to your hard work.

The military aid was cut by $141.5 million (31%), and funding for inhumane and environmentally harmful aerial spraying program has also been cut. Meanwhile there is an increase in economic and sustainable development aid of $97.4 million (71%) with $15 million of the development aid slated for Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities which make up some of the most impoverished and negatively affected by the ongoing conflict.

The new legislation ties 30% of the aid (versus 25% in previous years) to human rights conditions which include: that Colombian army officials be investigated and prosecuted for violating human rights, and that the Colombian government guarantee that the army is respecting the private property of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. In the past two years $110 million dollars have been held by the State Department due to Colombian government and army’s inability to meet these conditions. A new conditions places restrictions on the use of US aid for investment in oil palm—used in the making of lotions, cookies and ethanol. Oil palm is and export crop that has led to the displacement of thousands of Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples as corporations in tandem with right wing paramilitary groups usurp the land belonging to these communities for this environmentally unfriendly crop.

These are results that should be celebrated. There is much more to be done this year given that the Department of Defense bill, which authorizes more military aid to Colombia, is highly nontransparent and difficult to monitor. Congratulations on all of your hard work and let’s work to make the rest of the military aid in the Department of Defense bill more transparent and accountable.