OAS support for a peaceful resistance.

AuthorDiaz, Hector Pena
PositionINTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM - Organization of American States

In Colombia, as violence continues in a self-justifying cycle, two indigenous groups who have experienced the aggression and cruelty of armed groups have decided to respond with peaceful resistance. One group, the Nasa, live in the mountains in northern Cauca, and the other, the Arhuaco, are one of four indigenous communities that have lived in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the northeastern part of the country since time immemorial.

I was able to get to know the experiences of these indigenous peoples through two on-the-ground programs of the OAS Mission in Support of the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP-OAS), an initiative headed by Argentine lawyer Marcelo/Alvarez. My first encounter with the communities was in Santander de Quilichao, a place in southwestern Colombia that had become a refuge for victims of violence. I went to speak with indigenous advisers from the cabildos (indigenous town councils) and to interview some of the victims who are being supported by MAPP-OAS in the "Project for the Support and Legal Accompaniment of Indigenous Victims of Violence in the Northern Zone of Cauca." In just six months, the program has documented some 530 cases of human rights violations committed by armed groups, including groups linked to the Colombian state--an indication of just how much there is to do in the area of justice and reparations.

Some of what I learned from the project leaders and advisers can be described in numbers. Northern Cauca contains 19 indigenous reservations and 745 square miles of land at an altitude of 4,000 to 13,000 feet above sea level. About 120,000 people live there--most of them members of the Nasa ethnic group, but also Afro-descendent and mestizo peasant farmers. It is a war zone where all of the armed groups have been present; it is also a drug trafficking corridor. 25,000 families live there in 304 veredas (small rural villages), and they govern themselves through 19 cabildos, traditional indigenous forms of government that have been recognized by the 1991 Colombian Constitution. A counselor by the name of Arias told us: "We have always been under attack." But he emphasized, "What we are experiencing now is a systematic strategy of aggression." Everyone agrees that the conflict has forced the indigenous communities into its web of violence. The Nasa people have been victims of numerous massacres, each with its own name--Nilo, Naya, Gualanday, San Francisco--and targeted assassinations have been...

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