An Open Letter from the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, to U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama.

Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, Colombia

Dear Mr. President-Elect,First, please accept our sincerest congratulations. We congratulate you for having won because of the noblest aspirations of your people. We believe your election expresses the deep desire for change felt by the majority of the American people: change in the economy and society, change in international relations, and from there, we hope, a change in the relation between the United States of America and the indigenous peoples of the world.

During your historic campaign, you publicly noted some of what Colombians currently face: you acknowledged the murders of trade unionists by the regime and stated your reservations about a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which our people have decided against through a democratic referendum, about which we have written before. We thank you for this, and now want you to know about the specific situation facing Colombia's indigenous peoples.

In the past six years we have lost 1,200 people to assassinations by armed groups, both legal and illegal: right-wing paramilitaries, guerrillas, police, and members of the Armed Forces. These murders have created insecurity, and this insecurity has been used to strip us of our rights with what we call the 'Laws of Disposession', legislation and other institutional norms that legalize the loss of our lands, our fundamental freedoms, and our rights. These 'Laws of Disposession' dispose of Colombia's mines, hydrocarbons, water resources, intellectual property, and national parks – all of these are brought under the ultimate rule of the Free Trade Agreement with the US. The FTA will mean that if Colombia tries to change the laws to allow its people to share in its resources, or take any independent action, then we will be obliged to compensate investors. We will have to submit our laws to international arbitration outside our own legal jurisdiction.

But in our view, the ultimate law is respect for life. In our view, the FTA puts commercial logic above the respect for life itself, not to mention international humanitarian law, and agreements such as the ILO's Covenant 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Worldwide. These covenants, as well as the respect for life, have to date been ignored by the government of our country, as well as by your government.

Unfortunately both of our governments, yours with Plan Colombia, and ours with the so-called 'Democratic Security' policy, have done great harm to indigenous peoples and to Mother Earth, while multinational corporations have profited from the petroleum and gas contracts, mining concessions, privatizations, and low wages.

We hope that you will contribute to change all this. We hope that you will listen to our words. We have lost many lives defending these words. Words that we have walked and words we have backed up with our civil resistance. These are the words that we have shared throughout Colombia since October 10th, through the Minga of Resistance, a national mobilization we convened as indigenous peoples, in association with other peoples and processes.

We believe that the spirit of change in your people cannot be contained. We believe it is a powerful force and we hope it will join with the force of our words and with the need for change that has been crying out throughout Latin America. We invite you to come to listen to these words here in Colombia, and we are ready to articulate them there, if you invite us. Here or there, it is the same planet and our mission is the same: to protect it, to save us all.

Finally, we call on you to join with us in fulfilling our responsibilities to Mother Earth and to history. The first one, our collective Mother, has given all of us life. The second one, History, has reflected our growing pains and our errors. History has not matured into systems that reconcile it with the rhythms, pulses and mandates of Nature. We believe the very reason human beings and our societies exist is to create the harmony between History and Mother Earth.

As children of Mother Earth, we speak to you as to a brother or sister. As indigenous, we speak to you as peoples, obliged from creation to seek harmony between History and Mother Earth. To reconcile ourselves with nature is not an option, but an imperative. By transforming life into merchandise, by making sacred the accumulation of wealth, by enshrining greed, we believe our societies have entered a crisis, including the economic crisis currently faced by your country. The destruction of our peoples in Colombia is a consequence of that Historic error that has placed greed before life.

Brother President-elect Barack Obama, we do not write to ask or demand anything for ourselves, because we know that the death of our peoples and the destruction of our cultures for greed, signifies the beginning of the end for Mother Earth itself.

Before we disappear with our collective Mother, we have decided to speak and to walk our words. In the name of life, of change, let us listen to one another and make the effort to find a way to create harmony between our peoples and life. Let us create the conditions for new History. One where the sacred ends of promotion and protection of Life and Beauty can never again be transformed into means for private accumulation of power at the service of greed.

We await you.With great respect,

Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca ACIN (Cxab Wala Kiwe-Territory of the Great People) Cauca, Mother Earth, November 10th, 2008 Santander de Quilichao

No More Murders of Indigenous People in Colombia!

International Federation for Human Rights Press Release October 17, 2008 Paris, Bogota, October 17, 2008 – <http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1446> --

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) repudiates the violent repression of the protest carried out by the indigenous communities in several departments of Colombia, which as of October 16 had resulted in one indigenous person dead, more than 100 wounded –many gravely–, and 8 families being evicted. [1] 19 police officers had also been wounded.

Since October 11, approximately 10,000 indigenous persons have been mobilized throughout the country to celebrate the "Minga for Social and Community Resistance" in order to remember the anniversary of the landing of the Spanish on the American continent and to request the respect for their fundamental rights, beginning with their right to life [2] and the reestablishment of their territorial rights, in accordance with the commitments of the Colombian government before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. [3]

The Indigenous Communities concentrated in La María, an indigenous reservation declared a territory of peace and co-existence by the Colombian government in 1999 (municipality of Piendamó, located in the center of the department of Cauca), as well as along the Pan-American Highway. Since October 13, a contingent of at least 1000 armed men (including personnel from the national police, the anti-riot police –ESMAD–, and the national army) have been present in Cauca, supported by armored cars and helicopters.

On October 14, General Páez Varón issued an ultimatum to protestors to disperse from the highway, warning that otherwise they would be forcibly cleared. He also asserted the movement was infiltrated by the FARC, which later was refuted by indigenous leaders. In the early morning of October 15, the protestors were assaulted with rifles, tear gas, and hand grenades, which caused the death of one person and wounded dozens more. On previous days, several persons had also been wounded and four arbitrarily detained. The FIDH repudiates this disproportionate use of force and expresses its profound concern for the reports of armed civilians protected by the police shooting at the protestors from the mountainside, as well as for the acts of barbarity committed by members of ESMAD, which resulted gravely wounding an indigenous person with a machete. They had also left this person on the ground for several hours and impeded the arrival of ambulances to assist him.

The FIDH also denounces the attack perpetrated by the armed forces against the health center and the destruction of first aid kits being used by indigenous persons to assist the wounded, as well as for having impeded the arrival of an ambulance and obstructing the work of medical staff and human rights defenders. The destruction of several houses belonging to indigenous persons is also repudiated.

The FIDH recalls that these grave events occur within a general context of grave, systematic and repeated violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in Colombia. In the last month, 29 indigenous persons were murdered, [4] and over the last six years more than 1,240 indigenous persons have been murdered in Colombia [5] and at least 53,885 displaced. [6] Within this context, we are also deeply concerned by the statements made by senior government authorities, including the President of Colombia, according to whom terrorists have infiltrated the protestors. [7]

In this respect, it has also been reported two members of military intelligence were found with camouflage uniforms, two-way radios, and a weapons and explosive manual. They were retained inside of the La Maria reservation and turned over to the commission made up of the United Nations and State control agencies. These accusations and manipulations open the possibility for even more ferocious repression.

In this respect, the FIDH recalls that on days prior to the march the Embera Chami indigenous persons Luz Marina Morales, Mauricio Largo Bañol and Cesar Largo Alarcon were massacred –and the 70-year-old Maria Angelica Alcarcon was wounded- by the paramilitary structure called « Black Eagles ». The same situation has occurred in the Department of Cauca where in the past days 11 Paez indigenous persons have been murdered, including Nicolás Valencia Lemus, Celestino Rivera, César Hurtado Tróchez, and former senior advisor of CRIC Raul Mendoza, on September 28, 2008.

One month before the mobilization, the Paez had received death threats from the same paramilitary group, as well as the announcement of an extermination during the march, incidents which coincided with the resignation of Juan José Cháux Mosquera, former governor of Cauca and ambassador in the Dominican Republic, due to his alleged ties with paramilitarism in Colombia. [8]

The FIDH urges President Uribe to agree to the request for dialogue formulated since October 9 by the indigenous communities that demand the guarantee of their fundamental rights, beginning with the right to life, respect for their territory, and the immediate cessation of armed operations against the social mobilizations carried out by indigenous communities and peasants.

The FIDH also requests for these incidents to be the object of a prompt and impartial investigation and to punish the authors of these crimes. Likewise, it calls upon the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo) and the Inspector General’s Office (Procuraduria General de la Nación) to be present in the affected area.

The FIDH calls upon the international community to urgently send and international mission to investigate these graves events. This is essential since the mass media has not been able to reach said areas. [1]

In the following distribution: Department of Cauca, one indigenous person murdered, 89 gravely wounded, 7 of them by gunfire, 17 by explosive devices, and 21 by machete, 8 families evicted and attempted violation of a minor. Department of Valle 26 indigenous persons wounded. Department of Risaralda 14 indigenous persons wounded by the Colombian public force (Sources: Autoridad Nacional de Gobierno Indígena – ONIC and Sistema de Información Nacional sobre Derechos Humanos – SINDH; Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas en el Norte del Cauca (ACIN), Saldo de la Barbabarie cometida en la María Piendamó, October 16, 2008, http://www.nasaacin.org/noticias.htm?x=8918). [2]

Likewise, requests have been made for special measures to be implemented urgently and in a coordinated fashion with the indigenous authorities insofar as the present grave humanitarian crisis, especially for those communities and peoples facing extinction, as well as measures to overcome the impunity of grave human rights violations. [3]

Several agreements were signed between indigenous communities and the Colombian government, including the collective reparation of land the Colombian State Colombia promised to turn over to indigenous communities in Cauca, within the framework of the process for a friendly solution signed before the IACHR, for the massacre committed on December 16, 1991, in which 20 Paez indigenous persons were murdered in the municipality of Caloto (Cauca), and the responsibility for which was attributed to members of the national police and paramilitary structures.

[4] ONIC – SINDH. [5] From January 1, 2002, and October 15, 2008 (ONIC, Las cifras del genocidio contra los pueblos Indígenas de Colombia. October 2008). [6] Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas (CAOI). [7] See discourse presented by President Uribe at the press conference this past Wednesday « Diálogo, sí; violencia y bloqueos, de ninguna manera: Presidente Álvaro Uribe », October 15, 2008, http://web.presidencia.gov.co/sp/2008/octubre/15/09152008.html. [8] See: Radio Caracol, Fiscalía investigará a Juan José Chaux, September 16, 2008 http://www.caracol.com.co/nota.aspx?id=671703.

No More Terror and Avarice: We propose a new path for the people for a new country

October 16, 2008Author: Minga of the PeopleWhat we are proposing today was already presented to the public in September 2004, when we organized the historic First Indigenous and Popular Congress. They are five basic points that cover many other issues. We have listened with considerable attention to the voices of many diverse sectors within Colombia and throughout the world. We have clearly put forward what it is that hurts us, and have compiled the accumulated pain of many peoples and processes. We want to be practical and concrete.For full translated text, visit:http://mamaradio.blogspot.com/2008/10/official-proposal-of-indigenous-and.html

Extradition

Colombia's El Tiempo reported yesterday that Víctor Patíño Fómeque, a former top Cali Cartel figure extradited to the United States, will serve only six years in prison. After that, he and his family will be given new identities in the U.S. federal witness protection program. A source in Colombia's Prosecutor-General's Office (Fiscalía) told El Tiempo that at least two of the top paramilitary leaders extradited in May are interested in getting this deal for themselves. "Diego Murillo, 'Don Berna' and Francisco Javier Zuluaga, 'Gordolindo', are aiming for a similar arrangement."

Plan Mexico Legislation Update from CIP

Last night the Senate approved the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill. (Best recorded vote title ever: "Motion To Concur In House Amendments To Senate Amendment To House Amendment To Senate Amendment To H.R. 2642.") The final bill, now on its way to the President, includes $400 million for Mexico, "of which not less than $73,500,000 shall be used for judicial reform, institution building, anti-corruption, and rule of law activities." An additional $65 million will go to Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.Human rights conditions over aid to Mexico were softened significantly, changed to be less stringent than either the House's or Senate's versions of the bill. The final bill does nonetheless require that human rights cases be investigated and tried by civilian prosecutors "in accordance with Mexican and international law." The earlier language had triggered a "violation of sovereignty" outcry from the Mexican government. This morning, though, the Mexican government said that it found the final bill's human-rights conditions acceptable.

What kind of ally will we lose if we don't sign the FTA with Colombia?

About a week and a half ago I was in San Antonio to speak at a forum on trade organized by 32 community organizations who see the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as a "trojan horse" for both Colombians and U.S. citizens. As it turns out Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos was also in San Antonio (at a forum organized by the Colombian government) to bolster his argument that the U.S. would lose an ally in Latin America if the FTA does not get ratified. To learn more about his arguments you can read this article from the San Antonio Express News Paper:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/nation/stories/MYSA092807.15A.ColombianVP.32875b9.html

What the article fails to delve into is the type of ally that the U.S. would be losing. Does the U.S. really want to ratify a trade agreement with a government in which at least 12 Congressional legislators are under investigation for their ties to paramilitary groups which are responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in the western hemisphere? Is it ok to trade with a country that is well known for being the worst place on earth to be a union leader--the country in which most union leaders are killed every year? And is it enough that less union leaders are being killed in Colombia this year? Should the trade agreement be ratified with this country based on the fact that less people are being killed? Isn't one life lost enough to at least make us question ratifying this treaty?

Do we really want to maintain ties to a government that is infiltrated by paramilitary groups which the U.S. government categorizes as terrorists?

Clearly, the one size fits all approach of this trade agreements is not applicable and especially not in such a violent and corrupt context.