Indigenous activism in Colombia has been remarkable, despite the small size
of the country’s indigenous population. The government’s response, however,
has been promises worth no more than the paper they’re written on.
ast August, in the municipali- ty of Piendamo in the southern department of Cauca, about 6,000 indige- nous peasants rallied to denounce the Colombian govern- ment’s failure to make good on its pledges to indigenous communi- ties over the last decade. The mobiliza- tion, one of the largest
since the anti-quincentennial demonstrations of October,
1992, was called by indigenous leaders of the Paez,
Guambiano, Coconuco, Totoroe and Yanacona commu-
nities to force the government to respond to demands
ranging from government assistance for local economic-
development projects, to the prosecution of the culprits
of a 1991 massacre of 20 Paez indigenous people.
The mobilization and subsequent talks with Interior
Minister Horacio Serpa Uribe led the government to for-
mulate a new timetable by which it promised to address
the indigenous demands. The protest and its settlement
reflect the nature of relations between the Colombian
state and the indigenous movement over the last five
years. In the past, the government would respond to
indigenous organizing through the force of its military
and police apparatus; over 400 indigenous leaders have
been killed in the movement’s 25-year history. Today,
although local para-
military activity sup-
ported by large
landowners and drug
traffickers continues
to challenge indige-
nous self-determina-
tion through violent
means, indigenous
activism is met with
negotiations and
agreements on paper
Colombia (ONIC) poster announcing that are ultimately
Natagaima-Tolima. ignored once the
dust has settled.
The National Constituent Assembly of 1991, which
rewrote Colombia’s antiquated Constitution, is a case in
point. With great fanfare and excitement, the National
Constituent Assembly included three indigenous leaders
representing the country’s 84 indigenous nations. The
traditional political parties and dominant economic
actors of Colombia had to accept indigenous participa-
tion in the Assembly because indigenous peoples-
despite representing only 3% of the population-have
demonstrated a tremendous capacity to mobilize in
defense of their rights, whether in the form of mass
protests, land-recuperation programs, or armed insurrec-
tion in places like Cauca and Tolima.
“We applied a lot of pressure, before and during the
Constituent Assembly, even though we were a minori-
ty,” said Ciro Tique, a former commander of the
Indigenous Armed Movement Quintfn Lame (MAQL), a
guerrilla organization that signed a peace agreement
with the government before the Constituent Assembly.
“There were three compaiieros against 70 others who
were not at all interested in the indigenous question. But
Mario Murillo is director of public-affairs programming at WBAI
Pacifica Radio in New York City and a member of NACLA’s edi-
torial board. He is currently working on a video documentary
about Colombia’s indigenous movement.
Vol XXIX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1996 21REPORT ON INDIGENOUS MOVEMENTS
these three representatives gave legitimacy to the gov-
ernment and the entire Constituent Assembly.”
Because of this participation, the 1991 Constitution
included 21 different provisions recognizing for the first
time indigenous cultural, social and territorial rights.
These constitutional provisions cover everything from
the right to a bilingual education (65 different indigenous
languages are still spoken in Colombia), to the right to
control the natural resources of their territories. It also
guaranteed two seats in the Colombian Senate for the
indigenous communities, as well as representation in the
House of Representatives. But
perhaps most importantly, the
new Constitution laid the
groundwork for the establish-
ment of Indigenous Territorial
Entities (ETIs), a political-
administrative apparatus that
was to form the basis of state-
recognized autonomy.
The ETIs, like the Departments and the
Municipalities, would be funded with federal monies,
but their projects would be directed, organized and
administered by the indigenous authorities. In 1993, a
joint government-indigenous commission began a
process of public consultations aimed at drafting the law
that would regulate the ETIs. Many issues had to be
ironed out, such as how the territories would be demar-
cated, what would happen to non-indigenous popula-
tions living in predominantly indigenous areas, and who
would govern territories where two or more indigenous
communities currently co-exist. A further point of con-
tention was over who would control the subsoil of the
indigenous territories-the Constitution says the subsoil
is the property of the state, but it also guarantees respect
for the natural resources of indigenous lands. After over
a year of intense wrangling, a consensus was reached on
the proposed legislation. The government of then
President CUsar Gaviria Trujillo, however, did not pre-
sent it to the full Congress.
“Therein lies the greatest problem. There is no politi-
cal will on the part of the members of the Congress or
the administration to make the ETIs a reality,” said
Francisco Rojas Birry, one of three indigenous repre-
sentatives in the Constituent Assembly.
The footdragging continued under the Samper admin-
istration, which took office in 1994. Indigenous leaders
were angered when Vice-President Jorge Eastman, in his
first meeting about the ETIs, told the leadership that he
was meeting with them, “but not because we have to
take into account what you’re going to say. The govern-
ment has its own autonomy.”
“I asked myself, ‘then why the devil do you bring us
to this meeting if you’re not going to take us into
account,”‘ said an exasperated Abadio Green Stocell,
president of the National Indigenous Organization of
Colombia (ONIC). Despite “the great words written in
the Constitution,” Green said, the ETI process had been
put on permanent hold.
The problem has been made more difficult by the rel-
ative inexperience of the indigenous senators who are in
positions of influence in the capital. As a small minori-
ty in an institution run by the two traditional parties-
Liberal and Conservative-the indigenous leadership in
the Congress has been unable to muster any kind of sup-
port for their proposals.
nternal divisions within the indigenous movement
have not helped matters. The political aspirations of
some indigenous leaders vying for the small spaces
allotted to the communities in the new Constitution have
inevitably led to the formation of competing political
organizations, such as the Indigenous Social Alliance
(ASI), representing the mostly Andean communities of
Cauca, and the Indigenous Movement of Colombia
(MIC), led by Senator Gabriel Mujuy Jacanamejoy, an
Inga from the Amazonian department of Putumayo.
Many grassroots indigenous activists accuse some of the
national figures of having lost touch with the communi-
ties back home. These internal debates
were the focus of the Fourth Congress
convened by ONIC in early 1995.
“Because of this, we decided in our
last national congress to avoid political
campaigns and focus on our work as a
mass-based social movement,” said
Abadio Green of ONIC. “If we had
launched a candidate for office, it
would have meant the end of the
indigenous movement in Colombia.”
Not surprisingly, it is through the
ONIC, as well as the many regional indigenous organi-
zations throughout the country, that most of the work
gets done. The difficult and at times dangerous task of
demarcating indigenous lands in the department of El
Guaviare, for example, is coordinated by the Indigenous
Regional Council of Guaviare (CRIGUA) with the local
indigenous leaders. They work under tense circum-
stances with little or no help from the government.
The government response to most indigenous actions
has been to make promises worth no more than the
paper they are written on. “What happened with the
1991 Constitution was an acceptance of the reality of the
indigenous presence in this country,” said Jesdis Rey
Avirama, former president of the Indigenous Regional
Council of Cauca. “But what’s happening in practice is
the continuation of a policy of unawareness, the contin-
uation of a policy of oppression against the indigenous
communities. So the problem of discrimination continues
in Colombia.”
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