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60% of Colombian tribes at ‘risk of extinction’ 22 April 2010

At least 64 out of 102 Colombian tribes are facing ‘extinction’, says leading indigenous organisation ONIC.

This was the conclusion of an ONIC report to mark the launch of its campaign to raise global awareness of the situation in Colombia and to save the threatened tribes from being wiped out.

ONIC’s own research found that 32 Colombian tribes face extinction, while the country’s Constitutional Court has stated that 34 tribes face a similar fate. Only two, the Nukak and the Guayabero, are considered to be at risk by both ONIC and the court, bringing the total number to 64.

According to ONIC, eighteen tribes number less than 200 people and ten less than 100. One, the Makaguaje, numbers fewer than five people.

The reasons given for this desperate situation include:

· Colombia’s internal armed conflict which has been going on for more than 50 years and ‘disproportionately’ affects the indigenous population. Since 2002, more than 1,400 indigenous people have been killed and an estimated 74,000 have been forcibly evicted from their homes.

· A ‘model of economic development’ that ignores indigenous peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent and leaves them ‘more threatened than ever, given the developed world’s appetite for natural resources and raw materials.’ The biggest threats listed are oil, hydroelectric dams and oil palm plantations.

· ‘Poverty, neglect by the state and structural discrimination.’ The report states that Colombia’s indigenous people are the poorest in the country, and that they lack access to adequate health care, education and basic services.

The Nukak are cited as having some of ‘the most serious’ health problems of all Colombian tribes. Since first regular contact just over twenty years ago, an estimated half of the tribe have died from respiratory problems, malaria, measles and other illnesses and infections.

ONIC’s report ends with a series of recommendations to the Colombian and international authorities, and two maps listing the 64 tribes threatened with extinction. These include the Arhuaco, Kogui, Embera Katio, Awá, Kofán, U’wa, Huitoto and Cuiva. http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5852

Thirty-four Colombian tribes face extinction, says UN report 6 September 2010
A report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that at least thirty-four Colombian tribes face extinction due to continuing violence on their lands.

The report found that, ‘In spite of new efforts by the state… the risk of physical or cultural disappearance remains, and in some cases has risen.’

An increase in murders, death-threats, and the forced recruitment of indigenous youth into armed groups are just some of the dangers reportedly facing Colombia’s Indians. Internal displacement is also cited as a major issue that disproportionately affects Colombia’s tribal peoples. Of the country’s four million internal refugees, Indians make up 15% of the total, despite the fact that they represent just 2% of the national population.

Just two weeks before the report was released, leader Luis Socarrás Pimienta of the Wayúu tribe was shot-dead by an alleged paramilitary outside his home in the northern Colombian province of la Guajira. According to the report, murders of indigenous Colombians rose by 63% between 2008 and 2009, and thirty-three members of Colombia’s Awa tribe were killed in 2009 alone.

The Awa are mentioned alongside one of the Amazon’s last nomadic tribes, the Nukak, as requiring ‘special attention.’ More than half of the Nukak have been wiped out since the arrival of coca-growing colonists on their land. The Nukak remain trapped in a cruel limbo between oppressive refugee shelters on the outskirts of a town and the violence-stricken forest.

An earlier UN report cites a suspected programme of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the country to make way for illicit crops or ‘to establish large-scale agro-business ventures, including palm oil plantations and beef cattle production’.

‘We can move around less and less, even to hunt or collect food,’ said a leader of the recently displaced Wounaan tribe, who blames the presence of armed groups and heightened violence on an influx of coca cultivation in Wounaan territory.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘Colombia’s former President lays claim to his successful campaign against violence, yet this report has again illustrated the country’s abysmal record of human rights abuses against its indigenous population. Juan Manuel Santos’ new government must act once and for all to protect its most vulnerable citizens from being wiped out, before it’s too late.’ http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6440

Indigenous leader killed in Antioquia MONDAY, 04 JULY 2011

The governor of an indigenous community was shot to death in a town about 50 miles west of Medellin.

Fernando Tequia, the slain governor, was murdered by two unidentified gunmen who were waiting at the door of his house. Tequia had reportedly not received any recent death threats, however one of the indigenous communities in the area had reported having difficulties removing an illegal gold mine.

This killing is the sixth murder of an indigenous Colombian in the department of Antioquia since the last week of June. Fourteen indigenous people have been killed in the department so far this year. http://colombiareports.com/colombia-...antioquia.html

Second leader of indigenous tribe killed in north Colombia
TUESDAY, 05 JULY 2011

Another indigenous leader was killed Tuesday in Northern Colombia, totaling two murders so far this week against the same Colombian indigenous tribe.

Unidentified gunmen burst into the home of Carmen Fuentes Tuesday morning and shot him twice in his bedroom. The motives behind the assassination remain unclear.

Fuentes, aged 42, was the leader of a community inhabited primarily by Colombians displaced by the country's violence and had expressed a desire to run for the local city council.

Fuentes belonged to the Embera Katio tribe, as did Fernando Tequia, the governor of an indigenous community in Southern Antioquia who was killed in a similar attack Sunday. Tequia's assassins and their motives have also not been identified.

People of the Embera Katio number about 70,000 and are widely spread across Colombia, ranging from the Northern Caribbean coast to the South of the country. No connection between Sunday and Tuesday's murders has been established so far .
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-...-colombia.html

Colombian indigenous leader shot dead by hitman 6 August 2010

A Colombian indigenous leader has been shot dead outside his family home in the Colombian city of Riohacha, in the northern province of la Guajira.

Luis Alfredo Socarrás Pimienta of the Wayúu tribe was allegedly shot by a paramilitary hitman who then fled the scene. Following the murder, leaflets were distributed listing the killers’ next targets, which include the names of up to twelve Wayúu people.

Socarrás Pimienta had led several demonstrations over the past year in protest against abuses of the Wayúu’s rights. His death follows the murders of ten indigenous people in la Guajira this year alone.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has released a statement urging the Colombian state to investigate the killing and bring the perpetrators to justice. It also urges the state to ‘attend to the protection and security’ of indigenous rights defenders ‘to ensure that crimes such as this one do not happen again.’

More than 1,400 indigenous people have been killed in Colombia’s internal armed conflict since 2002 and an estimated 74,000 have been forcibly evicted from their homes. According to Colombia’s national indigenous organization, ONIC, at least 64 out of 102 indigenous Colombian tribes now face extinction.

Survival is supporting ONIC’s recently launched ‘extinction’ campaign to raise awareness of the critical situation faced by Colombia’s indigenous peoples. http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6322

Colombia Indigenous Leader 'Murdered by Urabeños Hitman'
Wednesday, 06 July 2011
Melida del Carmen Fuentes Hernandez, leader of the local Zenu Council, was shot twice in her home in the northwestern department of Cordoba on Monday, reported El Heraldo.

According to the president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), there have already been 20 indigenous people murdered this year, which the group attributed mostly to criminal organizations such as the Urabeños and the Rastrojos, both of which are active in the northwestern regions of Colombia.

In many of these cases authorities have not been able to determine a motive or apprehend a suspect, although indigenous mining conflicts and land reform have been cited as possible motives.

Authorities have not confirmed whether or not Fuentes was involved in land reform campaigning.

Indigenous organizations have warned that indigenous groups in the central province of Antioquia, which borders on Cordoba, are at risk from conflict between guerrillas and drug gangs, known as BACRIM, in the region.

Other recent killings of prominent members of indigenous groups include Fernando Tequia, governor of an Embera Katio reservation in Antioquia, and Jorge Mejia Estrada, vice governor of a Senu community in the same province. http://insightcrime.org/criminal-gro...C3%B1os-hitman

Colombia: indigenous leader killed in "false positive" attack Sun, 07/03/2011

The Colombian army this week admitted that a man killed weeks earlier in the eastern department of Arauca—originally reported to be a "financial leader" of the FARC guerillas, identified by the alias "Humberto Peroza Wampiare"—was actually a leader of a local indigenous community, and a noncombatant. The fallen man is now identified as a member of the cabildo (community council) of the resguardo (indigenous reserve) of La Vorágine, of the Hitnu people, located near La Ilusión pueblo, Arauca municipality. Col. Óscar Cardona originally reported the death, which occurred June 10 at Santa Ana vereda (hamlet), Arauquita municipality, as that of a guerilla killed in combat. The army now calls this a "military error."

Most media reports did not mention the name of the indigenous leader, although Arauca's local Canal CNC identified him as Humberto Guampiare Peroza, a close variation on the supposed alias of the possibly non-existent FARC operative originally said to have been killed. La Vorágine community leader Alexander UncasÃ*a UncarÃ*a said the deceased had been hunting and visiting local fincas (farms) in search of work with four other indigenous men when they became aware of the military presence and began to run away. The soldiers responded by opening fire, he said.

Marcela Cruz, lawyer for the family of the deceased, is calling for Colombia's Prosecutor General to investigate the case. "It should be aggravated homicide," she said. "It was an act on a protected person, a civilian, of the indigenous communities of Arauca." The army's Military Penal Justice system is said to be conducting its own investigation of the soldiers involved in the incident, as part of the pattern of "false positives"—the killing of noncombatants to artificially inflate the number of guerillas said to be killed in action. (Colombia Reports, Noticias Uno, June 28; El Espectador, Radio Caracol, Bogotá, June 18; Canal CNC, Arauca, June 13 ) http://ww4report.com/node/10076

Colombia: Indigenous Peoples Struggle to Survive in Colombia Tuesday, February 23, 2010
(Washington, DC) Amnesty International today denounced an increase in attacks against indigenous peoples across Colombia during 2009, violence that is leaving many communities struggling for survival.
The organization blamed guerrilla groups, the security forces and paramilitaries for the abuses, which include killings, enforced disappearances and kidnappings, threats, sexual abuse of women, recruitment of child soldiers, forced displacement and persecution of indigenous leaders.
“Indigenous peoples are increasingly under attack in Colombia,� said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia Researcher at Amnesty International. “They are being killed and threatened, forced to participate in the armed conflict, and being kicked out of their lands.�
“It is time for the Colombian government to take its obligations seriously and take immediate action to protect indigenous peoples.�
According to figures from the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, at least 114 indigenous women, men and children were killed and thousands forcibly displaced in 2009 alone. Amnesty International also said crimes committed against indigenous peoples are rarely investigated by the authorities.
Thousands of indigenous peoples have been forced off their land because they often live in areas of intense military conflict and rich in biodiversity, minerals and oil. Many other indigenous communities have been unable to leave their territories because armed groups have laid landmines in surrounding areas.
Access to food and essential medicines has also been blocked by the warring parties, who often argue such goods are destined for the enemy. All parties to the conflict have occupied schools and used them as military bases, while teachers continue to be vulnerable to physical attack, denying indigenous communities access to education.
“Unless the authorities take speedy action to protect indigenous peoples in Colombia there is a real risk that many will disappear,� said Pollack.
The Awá indigenous people accounted for more than half of all killings of indigenous peoples during 2009.
They collectively own the land and rivers of the resguardo (indigenous reservation) of El Gran Rosario in Tumaco Municipality, in the south-western region of Nariño.
The area is of strategic importance for the parties to the conflict. FARC and ELN guerrillas, paramilitary groups, the security forces and drug-trafficking gangs are all active in the area.
On August 26, 2009, 12 Awá, including six children and an eight-month old baby, were killed and several more injured by gunmen wearing military uniforms and hoods who attacked the community at 5 am. Among those killed were Tulia GarcÃ*a and her sons. Tulia GarcÃ*a had been a witness to the killing of her husband, Gonzalo RodrÃ*guez, by army soldiers on May 23, 2009, and had subsequently received threats.
Following the August massacre, 300 Awá, including 100 children, fled to the town of Tumaco, leaving their homes, belongings and livelihoods behind. Weeks after arriving in the town, people were still living in shelters they had built themselves or sleeping out in the open. Food and water were scarce and there were no sanitation facilities.
Often times, displaced peoples are at a higher risk for sexual exploitation, intimidation and violence by the warring groups because there is a limited or no response from the state for the indigenous communities. Though indigenous peoples make up 3.4 percent of Colombia’s population, they do make up seven percent of the displaced population.
Amnesty International called on those participating in the conflict, including guerrilla groups and the Colombian security forces, to respect the rights of indigenous peoples not to be dragged into hostilities and to respect the territories in which they live and depend upon for their livelihoods.
Colombia’s 40-year long armed conflict has affected millions across the country and left tens of thousands dead, tortured and forcibly disappeared. The vast majority of victims are civilians. http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press...ve-in-colombia

Indigenous leader and journalist killed 27 October 2010

A respected indigenous leader and journalist was shot to death on 14 October in the department of Cauca, Colombia, report the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Two men opened fire on Rodolfo Maya Aricape, the secretary of the López Adentro Indigenous Council and a correspondent for Radio Pa´yumat, while he was home with his wife and two daughters.

As a member of the Communications School of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), Maya covered daily events in the local indigenous community and often commented on poor conditions. He was also known to protest against the armed groups operating in indigenous territories.

"A crime against an indigenous journalist has especially serious effects on his community, given the often vulnerable status of indigenous peoples in the context of armed conflict," said IACHR in calling for policies to protect journalists and punish the perpetrators. http://www.ifex.org/colombia/2010/10/27/maya_killed/

I have many many more stories like this, as it happens so often. Why can't my peoples be left in peace !?