Colombia Passport

Peru signed Free Trade Agreements with the United States and Canada and so did Colombia. Peru led the negotiations for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, while Colombia recently ratified the declaration.

The current Peruvian government disregarded article 32 of the declaration, which stated that “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine…the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources”, so did the Colombian government. Although the declaration is not legally binding, the UN High Commission for Refugees believes that its support acknowledges the “State’s commitment to abide to its spirit and respect its principles”.

Recently Peru has been in the headlines due to a bloodshed triggered by security forces who were attempting to break off a peaceful protest by indigenous peoples. The confrontation left 22 police officers and upwards of 40 indigenous dead. About 5,000 indigenous were protesting laws passed enable international oil, mining, logging and agricultural companies to exploit the rainforest. Wide popular support for the indigenous peoples’ pleas led unpopular Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, to suspend for 90 days the land laws that infringed the rights of the natives and Congress recently revoked them.

These recent developments in Peru would have been unthinkable in Colombia. Although it can be argued that the situation in Colombia is more complex, the indigenous pleas seldom receive much sympathy from the general population, nor from the media.

The violence that 1.4 million Colombian indigenous peoples are facing takes two forms. On the one hand, the guerrilla, the paramilitaries and the army directly kill indians because they defend the right to stay in their land. According to the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia (ONIC), from 2002 to 2008 there have been 1,007 political killings; 115 directly perpetrated by the government, 402 by paramilitaries, and 223 by the guerrilla. On the other hand, they are also victims of the intensification of the war, which have resulted in 70,000 internally displaced indigenous peoples in the last six years.

The indigenous people are not only at the mercy of Multinational Corportations’ voracity for natural resources and the most profitable business ventures that seldom benefited the native population, but also subjugated to the will of Colombian business enterprises. Recently,  the UN and NGOs denounced the government initiative to turn Colombia into a world leading producer of African palm oil.

The government’s original idea was to incentive farmers to desist from growing illicit crops. The problem, however, is that harvesting African palm oil needs heavy initial investment since it takes three years before a yield can be obtained. Therefore, the effects have been more catastrophic because agribusiness allied with the paramilitaries have been forcing indigenous peoples, among others, off their lands.

The indigenous people have been actively expressing their grievances through different peaceful ways but to no avail. Instead, the leaders were prosecuted. This utter neglect and disregard for their neutrality have led the indigenous peoples to plan the formation of a 100,000 strong police force. These types of auto-defense forces have always been detrimental for the country, regardless of their benevolent intentions. It is important to remember that the guerrilla forces in 1960’s were also set up as auto-defense groups. And the paramilitary forces evolved from a presidential decree in the early 1990’s allowing the formation of private armed groups by landowners to counter-act the negative effects of insurgents.

Moreover, the government, not content with assassinating (or attempting to) indigenous leaders, has also tried to divide the indigenous community by creating a parallel organization that conveniently supports government’s policies. This is despite the ONIC’s policy of being completely neutral in the Colombian conflict. This neutrality is what the government is trying to eradicate in order to gain popular support for their war policies. Recently Marco Romero, President of CODHES - a Colombian NGO focused on human rights and displacement – recently questioned the government initiative of creating a net of “civilian informants” to help combating the insurgency. This is effectively directly involving the civilian population in the conflict.

Colombia is not Peru. The land of the Incas does not have guerrilla and paramilitary movements that thrive on the cocaine trade and also maintain the president’s approval rating at over 60 per cent. Meanwhile the indigenous people suffer the consequences of FTAs signed by Colombia that no one is questioning.