In the wake of the suspension of peace talks between the
Colombian government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), the country’s
civil conflict has dramatically esca-
lated. The Colombian military initi-
ated a massive bombing campaign
against the FARC-governed zone
(zona de despeje) before sending in
thousands of ground troops to
retake the zone’s principal towns.
The FARC retaliated by launching
an extensive bombing campaign
against urban targets and the coun-
try’s infrastructure.
For indigenous groups in the
southwestern department of Cauca,
however, the violence began esca-
lating long before the collapse of
the peace process. In recent years,
both paramilitary and guerrilla
forces have increasingly violated
the neutrality of indigenous com-
munities. These violent incursions
into indigenous territories have
resulted in the deaths of commu-
Garry M. Leech is author of the book, Killing Peace: Colombia’s Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention (INOTA, 2002) and editor of Colombia Report >
This article was funded in part by the Dick Goldensohn Fund.
nity leaders, the corruption of their
culture and the recruitment of
indigenous youths into the armed
groups. According to Fabio
Calambas, the vice-governor of the
Guambiano indigenous communi-
ties located near the Andean high-
land town of Silvia: “The end of
negotiations has made no differ-
ence to us. We have suffered inva-
sions by the armed groups through-
out the peace process.”I
The Regional Indigenous Council
of Cauca (CRIC), which is com-
prised of leaders of many of
Cauca’s indigenous groups includ-
ing the Guambianos, Paez and
Yanacona, has responded to these
invasions by repeatedly issuing
statements declaring the neutrality
of Cauca’s indigenous communities
with regards to the armed conflict.
But both the paramilitary forces of
the United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC) and the FARC
have refused to recognize these dec-
larations of neutrality. This fact was
clearly evidenced on March 4 when
a paramilitary death squad in the
small town of Santander de
Quilichao killed Samuel Fernindez
Dizu, the former governor of the
Las Delicias indigenous communi-
ties.
The murder of Fernindez Dizu
occurred one day before a national
forum organized by the CRIC was
to be held in the city of Popaydn to
address the social, economic and
cultural emergency faced by the
indigenous communities of Cauca.
At the forum, leaders vowed to con-
tinue their campaign of civil resis-
tance against armed intruders by
assembling entire communities to
peacefully confront them. The
CRIC’s director, Anatolio Quird,
criticized the media for aggravating
the situation by publishing reports
that indigenous communities armed
with sticks have confronted the
armed groups. Addressing the
media’s misrepresentations of the
nonviolent tactics used by indige-
nous communities, Quird stated,
“These sticks–bastones de
mando-are always with us. They
are not weapons. They are a part of
the relationship between us and
nature.” 2
Reports of stick-wielding Indians
confronting one of the armed groups
could prove deadly for indigenous
communities often accused of har-
boring sympathies for one side or
another. Paez leader Onesimo
Carpces says the indigenous com-
munities “have problems with all
Vol XXXV, No 6 MAY/JuNNE 2002 53UPDATE/COLOMBIA
the armed groups because when the
guerrillas come they say we are
army collaborators and when the
army comes they say we are guer-
rilla collaborators. For this reason
we are not really free.” 3
Carpces, mayor of the 6,500 Paez
who live in Pitayo, says that the
problem of unemployment in the
indigenous communities has
resulted in some of their youths
joining the armed groups or enlist-
ing in the military. He claims the
armed groups actively recruit
indigenous youths disenchanted
with a traditional way of life that
has left them impoverished and
with little hope for economic
improvement.
The CRIC is attempting to com-
bat this problem by encouraging
indigenous youths to participate in
regional conferences in order to
develop a closer identification with
their elders and traditional culture.
But it is proving to be an uphill bat-
tle in a country in which 80% of the
indigenous population lives in con-
ditions of extreme poverty. 4
Because of the difficulty of market-
ing their traditional food crops,
which are difficult to transport to
distant markets, many indigenous
communities supplement the mea-
ger subsistence provided by their
traditional crops of maize, plan-
tains, yucca, coffee, beans, pota-
toes, wheat and onions with coca or
poppy cultivation. As a result, says
a young Yanacona leader, William
Armando Palechor, “indigenous
communities have adopted illicit
crops as traditional crops. In the
high zones they grow poppies and
in the hot zones they cultivate
coca.” 5
The cultivation of illicit crops on
indigenous lands has aggravated
problems with the armed groups–
paramilitaries in the lower eleva-
tions and the FARC in the Andean
highlands-whose incursions onto
indigenous lands have increased as
they seek to expand their territorial
control over the drug trade.
According to Palechor, the FARC
doesn’t insist that the Yanaconas
grow coca or poppies, “but they
force communities to pay a tax for
cultivating and commercializing
illicit crops. Also, the problem is
worse now because the AUC is pre-
sent and there have been deaths.
They say they have come to socially
cleanse.” 6
The Guambiano Indians have also
experienced increasing incursions
onto their territory by the armed
groups-particularly the FARC’s 8
Front-because of poppy cultiva-
tion. According to Fabio Calambas,
“We have problems with the armed
groups who invade and conduct
activities in our territories without
authority. They occupy our territo-
ries with violence and then when
the public forces arrive we are
caught in the middle of the fight-
ing.” 7
Some of the 16,000 Guambianos
living in the region cultivate the
beautiful red, violet and white pop-
pies on small plots of land behind
their mud-brick houses. They also
grow high-altitude food crops on
fields spread across the steep moun-
tainsides. While poppies constitute
only a small percentage of the land
under cultivation, they provide a far
more reliable income for poor
indigenous families than traditional
crops. Legal food crops are mostly
used for subsistence because of their
low market value and the difficulty
of transporting them from remote
mountain communities to towns and
cities. Traffickers from Cali, on the
other hand, willingly travel to the
indigenous communities to pur-
chase the valuable opium latex from
Guambiano poppy growers.
But the individualistic nature of
the drug trade has corrupted the eco-
nomic culture of Guambiano com-
munities. According to Calambas, “Our economy is not an exploitation
economy, or an economy of profit. It
is a subsistence economy in which
we produce the minimum quantity
required for consumption. It is our
tradition. It is not capitalism, it is
communitarian.” 8
In an attempt to deter individual
Guambiano families from cultivat-
ing poppies and to encourage them
to return to a more communal sys-
tem of agriculture, the Guambiano
cabildo has been developing crop
substitution agreements with the
government. One alternative project
in which the Guambianos manually
eradicated some of their poppies and
began breeding fish in large outdoor
tanks was devastated by Plan
Colombia’s aerial fumigation of
illicit crops. Calambas claims the
guambianos “have suffered fumiga-
tions that contaminated the water
and destroyed the trout crop. The
few that survived were never
bought. These fumigations have
affected our crops and our
lifestyle.” 9
In order to effectively eliminate
poppy cultivation, the Guambianos
need more arable land and a means
of getting legal food crops to mar-
kets. Because of the rugged terrain
9,000 feet up in the Andes, there is a
limited amount of arable land and
much of the farming is conducted on
the sides of the steep mountains.
Calambas says “the survival of
Guambianos depends on land. We
want to negotiate with the govern-
ment to legally get more land for the
community. But when the land is in
our hands, there must be another
project to finance the traditional
crops.” 1 0
As a result of the escalating vio-
lence, Cauca’s indigenous commu-
nities are now organizing in order to
defend their traditional culture and
the neutrality of their lands, while at
the same time looking to the gov-
ernment to help them improve the
economic condition of their commu-
nities. This balancing act of main-
taining their traditional culture while
at the same time interacting with
Colombia’s economy-at-large is
made all the more difficult by a civil
conflict that is being fueled by the
profitability of illicit drug crops.
54 NAC(A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
No Sympathy for Either Side
1. Fabio Calambas, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.
2. A speech by Anatolio QuirA, Foro Nacional: Emergencia
Social, Econ6mica y Cultural de los Pueblos Indigenas del
Cauca y Mecanismos de Resistencia, PopayAn, Cauca,
March 5, 2002.
3. Onesimo Carpces, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.
4. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, “Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices 2001: Colombia,”
U.S. Department of State, March 4, 2002, online.
5. William Armando Palechor, interview with author,
Popayin, Cauca, March 5, 2002.
6. William Armando Palechor, interview with author,
Popaydn, Cauca, March 5, 2002.
7. Fabio Calambas, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.
8. Fabio Calambas, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.
9. Fabio Calambas, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.
10. Fabio Calambas, interview with author, Silvia, Cauca,
March 6, 2002.//www>
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