With the framework of a work meeting convened yesterday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to follow up on the IACHR ruling concerning the ‘El Nilo’ Massacre, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN by its initials in the Spanish language) and the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective elaborated several requests for the Colombian State, including an action to review the decisions adopted in military criminal jurisdiction, progress in implicating the intellectual authors of the ‘El Nilo’ massacre, support for the life plans of the communities to resolve part of the unsatisfied basic needs of the communities, and compliance with the ‘El Nilo’ Agreements.

 

With the framework of a work meeting convened yesterday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to follow up on the IACHR ruling concerning the ‘El Nilo’ Massacre, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN by its initials in the Spanish language) and the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective elaborated several requests for the Colombian State, including an action to review the decisions adopted in military criminal jurisdiction, progress in implicating the intellectual authors of the ‘El Nilo’ massacre, support for the life plans of the communities to resolve part of the unsatisfied basic needs of the communities, and compliance with the ‘El Nilo’ Agreements.

These petitions were carried out three days before the meeting to be held between president Uribe Vélez and the indigenous communities of Cauca in the city of Cali. President Uribe had made the suggestion that the issue of indigenous peoples in Colombia could be resolved by purchasing a few plots of land.

In this respect, it is important to clarify that, even though this past March 2008 the Ministry of Interior and Justice recognized the State had acquired 11,382,271 hectares of the agreed-to 15,663,000 hectares in compliance with one of the commitments of the 1991 Agreements, according to the Nasa cosmovision, “most of this land is located in conservation and protection areas, since they are sacred places and mountainous or eroded areas.” That is, this land may not be used for crops or other practical exploits.

This was demonstrated by the indigenous governors from the 17 reservations in northern Cauca, who at a governors’ meeting that took place from March 16 to 21, 2006, established that of the 9,047,600 hectares turned over up to that date, only 3,619,040 hectares, that is 40%, was land suitable for agricultural and livestock production, in addition to the fact that only some of this acquired land was cleared since it had already been in possession of the community.

It must be taken into account that, as the community itself says, “the process of demarcation and effective acquisition of the rural property has been characterized by the existence of all kinds of structural inconveniences, with respect to the absence of consolidated technical studies sustaining a real comprehensive operative plan of delivery.”

As for the government’s apparent willingness to fulfill the purchase of the promised land, it should also be recalled that on November 27, 2006, the Minister of Agriculture Andrés Felipe Arias expressed that despite the unfortunate incidents occurring on this day in Caloto (Cauca), the government would not purchase land demanded by the indigenous people, reiterating what he had expressed in May 2008 before the Fifth Commission of the Congress, members of congress and the mass media, when he said there would be not “one more hectare for indigenous people.”

These statements are consistent with the speech given last week by president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, when he indicated that indigenous people were the owners of 27% of the national territory and that this percentage is not only “adequate,” but that the indigenous people of Colombia were large landowners.

What the government does not say is that of the 2 million 410 thousand hectares transferred to indigenous peoples since 1991, only 7.68% is located in areas within the agricultural border, while 92,32% pertain to reservations located in departments dominated by jungle, plains, savannah and desert, and are legally considered to be waste land, which fully refutes the national government’s argument on the supposed vast extensions of land in the hands of indigenous people and its justification of the major concentration of this land held by landowners from the Caribbean coast and the Inter-Andean Valley.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the IACHR recommendations do not only concern the purchase and titling of land -which in any case should have been done within the three years following the massacre-, but also focus its support on the Nasa life plan in order to decrease the level of unsatisfied basic needs, which at present reach 78%, as well as the financing of economic and social development programs coherent with the self-determination of this people.

Up to now, the government has not effectively responded to this issue or to the increasing impunity affecting this case 18 years after the incidents took place. Despite the existence of conclusive evidence concerning the responsibility of State agents in the commission of the massacre, their ties to paramilitarism, and recent testimony indicating the intellectual authors to be the large landowners from the region, no relevant judicial actions within the ordinary justice system have been carried out since 2000.

This is the rationale for the requests made yesterday -with the mediation of the IACHR- to the Colombian government, which take special importance in these times in which indigenous persons have been stigmatized, accused of being terrorists, offering bounties for their leaders, as part of a series of acts meant delegitimize and criminalize the fight for the defense of their territory, as occurred during the presidential Security Council in the city Popayán on March 15, 2008.

Lastly, it must be recalled that this fight for land, their land, has been carried out within a general context of grave, systematic and repeated violations to the rights of indigenous peoples in Colombia. Figures speak for themselves: over the last month 29 indigenous persons have been murdered, and over the last 6 years more than 1,240 indigenous persons were murdered in Colombia and at least another 53,885 forcibly displaced.