Resisting Displacement and Armed Control

Building from The Inside Out-3

Communities in Nonviolent Resistance in Urabá

 

 “The conflict in Colombia is experienced at the grassroots and waged within communities. Efforts to resolve the conflict must deal with this painful and complex reality. These initiatives show that peace-building in Colombia has to be seen as more than the signing of peace accords, but as social inclusion and citizen participation at the community level.” - Esperanza Delgado

 

 

Urabá, a northwestern region of Colombia, is a land of thick jungle undergrowth, of hot cement cities, of mile upon mile of curving banana leaves, of some of the most crushing violence of the conflict, and of powerful civil organization and resistance. The Urabá region includes parts of the provinces of Chocó, Antioquia, and Córdoba, the border with Panama, and the Gulf of Urabá, which opens onto the Caribbean.  Campesinos (peasant farmers) started settling the region in the 1940s and 50s, drawn by plentiful jobs with banana exporters and the fertile soil, where after clearing the jungle plants, they could plant their own food crops. 

 

The government had virtually no presence in Urabá during this time, nor did the newly forming guerrilla groups.  In the late 1970s, Urabá became one of the hubs for guerrilla activity.  It remains a key area, coveted by all of the armed groups, because of its natural wealth and strategic location.  The Unión Patriótica, a progressive political party which was started by the FARC, was an attempt to participate in civil society that became extremely successful in the region during the 1980s.

 

The 1990s was the most violent time for this area as the paramilitaries and the military fought the guerrillas to gain and maintain control.  The violence touched everyone and shook the foundations of civilian organization and activism.  Hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced off their land by direct threat from the armed groups, or fear of attack. 

 

Internally Displaced

Colombia currently has one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world - around three million people. To resist displacement, some communities developed nonviolent strategies that allowed them to return to their land.  The region of Urabá has been particularly rich in this kind of organizing.  Many started their community processes from their sites of displacement in the late 1990s and developed initiatives together that would allow them to return.  They didn’t want to work with, or belong to, any of the armed groups.  They wanted to be allowed to stay on the land that they had cultivated.  And they wanted to be independent.

 

All these communities have been attacked by the different armed groups, because the armed groups sometimes perceive them to be working for the other side, or because the fact that they are organized  threatens the social control that each armed group wants to exercise.  The communities have lost many leaders, friends and family members, and some of the communities have disintegrated. 

 

But many continue to flourish, strengthening themselves from within by training and educating their young people in what resistance means, and from the outside through their relationships with Colombian and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), communities, and government agencies. Esperanza Delgado, a researcher on communities in resistance, explains: “The exercise of nonviolent resistance to all armed groups, including the security forces, is developed as a protection strategy for community members. Through active nonviolence, residents also aim to rebuild the social fabric through solidarity, participation, collective work, and life in community.”

This is how the members of these communities practice radical, direct nonviolent civil disobedience on a daily basis.

 

Lower Atrato River Peace Communities

In 1997, thousands of AfroColombian and Mestizo Colombians from throughout the lower Atrato River fled on foot or by boat through the thick jungle to the community of Pavarandó, Antioquia.  It was here that about 50 communities declared their nonviolent resistance to the conflict as civilians. The peace initiatives they developed were specific to their own community, emphasizing what they found most important.  Most of the communities are small settlements on or near the Atrato River in Chocó Province.  The majority of Emberá and Waunaan Indigenous communities also continue to resist either inclusion in the military forces or displacement from this conflicted zone, yet they were never officially brought into the Peace Community organization effort.

 

The villages of the lower Atrato River basin have been displaced more over the past seven years than those in San José de Apartadó.  The communities in the Cacarica River basin were exceptions to this displacement, but only because of their tenacity and strong organizing to resist the violence.  The response in the Peace Community of Costa de Oro was to remain in spite of the killing of their Health Promoter and youth organizer by the guerrillas and the death of seven other members of the community in the ensuing months by paramilitary. 

On the other hand, in Chicao, the killing of the health promoter by the paramilitary in 2002 was a blow that led the entire community to flee into the jungle.  They returned to their village only in late 2004, despite poor security conditions. These communities requested an international accompaniment presence so as to be able to rebuild with less fear of reprisal by the paramilitary and guerrillas. It should be noted that there was national and international accompaniment from a joint French/Spanish/Colombian team before the flight of people from Chicao, but they were forced to abandon the community under threat of more community members being killed if they did not.  Still, the community of Chicao recognizes that they have greater security with accompaniment than without.

 

Here we profile two communities: Esperanza de Diós and Nueva Vida, on the Cacarica River in the lower Atrato region of Chocó province, and San José de Apartadó, in Antioquia province.

 

Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

Alejandro, in shorts and a baseball cap, with a bright, open face, comes in and tells his story, a variation of all the stories.  He tells about July 8, 2000, when the paramilitaries came in with hoods covering their faces.  They separated the men and teenage boys, like Alejandro, then 15, from the women and children and asked them questions.  One by one, they let each of them go, except for the six, whom they forced to kneel down and then shot, their bodies collapsing into the grass of the small field in the center of town where usually the children play soccer as the sun is setting. 

 

The massacre works as a sort of founding legend for the community – a symbol for all of the atrocities committed against them, central in their history.   A few hours outside of the banana capital of the region, Apartadó, a few hundred peasant farmers stand up against the logic of the conflict and refuse to engage in it. From the perspective of the armed groups, there is no such thing as being neutral.  The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó is at the forefront of a movement of communities who declare themselves to be civilians, deserving of all the rights of civilians in a conflict zone. 

 

They have declared their land, a strategic corridor between guerrilla- and paramilitary-controlled regions, a community in resistance. They attempt to forbid the armed groups to enter. They refuse to sell supplies or food to combatants. They participate in community work groups. They do not pass information to any of the armed groups. They do not keep any weapons. They will not participate in the war, nor will they leave their contested land to become internal refugees in the larger cities.

 

Researcher Esperanza Delgado explains the steps that led to the founding of the Peace Community: “Local residents report that in 1996, a group of paramilitaries entered the ward with the collaboration of the security forces, to wrest control of the region away from the insurgents. There were massacres, selective killings and for nine months, a paramilitary regime prevented the entry of food and medicines. The armed groups presented local residents with stark choices: To join them, leave the area, or die. With the support of the Catholic Church and some Colombian NGOs, the population decided to resist these options by creating a neutral zone and refusing to collaborate with any of the armed groups. The idea was developed through workshops, where the concept and practice of active neutrality was defined. Each resident then had a free choice as to whether to assume this position.”

 

Frequently their civil resistance is not respected by either the guerrillas or the army and paramilitary. Since the founding of the peace community of San José de Apartadó in 1997, over a hundred community members and friends of the community have been killed or “disappeared,” many of them leaders of the community, like the six whom Alejandro remembered being killed in 2000.

 

As San José obtained support from national and international organizations and protective measures from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the armed groups – especially the paramilitaries and Colombian military – have changed their methods of attack.  From killing community leaders, paramilitaries switched to stealing the community’s funds and cocoa crop on its way to market, and killing drivers transporting people and produce on the single road into and out of the community.  Recently the community has perceived a new strategy of the government to “judicialize“ them - that is, to bring groundless legal charges against community leaders, in order to damage the community‘s reputation and force the community to use scarce resources and time defending themselves. 

 

Community members are experts at everything from trimming the banana trees and keeping their balance on the slippery paths, to surviving with dignity as human beings while the currents of war and greed rage around them.  Together with the many organizations that support them, they are speaking out about the continued violence in their region and about “judicialization.”  They are leading a network of communities in resistance and finding ways to share and support one another.  They are attempting to live their lives the way they choose to—outside of the armed conflict.

 

San José Testimony:

Declaring Themselves a Peace Community

“When the [peace community] declaration was signed, the campesinos thought that they were going to respect our process as a community.  The people went back to the countryside happy because now they had signed the declaration and we had the total security that the armed groups were going to respect us. But it wasn’t like that, because within a week, they started combat in the area and massive displacement, and the people had to leave.”

Despite Attacks

“In spite of all the deaths and in spite of all that they were doing to us, that they wanted to end us, we kept struggling. And then in ‘98 and in ’99, another massacre, in 2000 there were two massacres, one that they did in La Union and another here again in San Jose.  In 2001 they burned the houses and there were threats.  But we kept planting because our hope isn’t dead, it wasn’t dead and it isn’t dead. From the beginning there were many misunderstandings with the armed groups, as much with one as with the other, because, for example, if I am not with the guerrilla, I am with the army.”

The Force of Hope

“In spite of so many robberies, in spite of so many deaths, in spite of so many threats, we keep planting these seeds of life and of hope because the reality is that we are strengthening day by day a corn stalk that we planted or a banana tree that we planted. Each plant that we sow is like that force of hope and of life that we keep having in spite of the attacks, because they won’t end us in that way.”

 

Community of Self-Determination, Life, and Dignity of Cacarica (CAVIDA)

           

The Cacarica River Basin lies in Chocó province in northwest Urabá, and as in the rest of the Chocó, its population is historically black, descended from Africans brought as slaves. The people in the region lived in scattered farms among the winding rivers that feed into the broad Atrato River. In February 1997, they were invaded by paramilitaries, together with soldiers from Colombia’s 17th Brigade, in an operation intended to clear out a leftist guerrilla presence from the region. Men dressed in camouflage, carrying guns and machetes, accused the subsistence farmers in the area of collaborating with the guerrillas. Helicopters dropped bombs, and houses were burned. More than 85 people were killed or “disappeared.”

 

The families of all the Cacarica communities fled in terror. Some fled across the nearby Panama border, but most ended up in Turbo, where they were given refugee housing in a dilapidated athletic structure in a public park. Some had to continue to live in “El Coliseo” for four years, in unsanitary conditions. But they were befriended by members of a human rights group, the Interchurch Commission for Justice and Peace, who had also worked with San José. The Commission began encouraging the Cacarica families to claim their rights and organize themselves according to their community values.

 

The communities spell out their commitments in signs posted near river and land entrances to their settlements: ‘We enjoy special protection because we exercise ancestral rights according to Law 70. We freely assume the Project of Life. We do not participate in hostilities. We do not provide support to military operations. We do not carry weapons. We do not give information to the participants in the conflict. We believe in truth, liberty, justice, solidarity, and brotherhood.’

 

The return was completed in early 2001. Like San José, Cacarica has used support from the international community, including accompaniment groups and the protective measures issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as one of their survival strategies. 

 

As in San José, fewer members of the Cacarica community have been killed or “disappeared” recently, but they are still subject to detention, false accusations, economic pressure, and constant threats. Large sections of their land have been taken without their permission and used for environmentally unfriendly projects, like clear-cutting of tropical hardwoods.

 

The CAVIDA community emphasizes ethno-education for their children.  They know that for children to internalize the community’s values, they need integrated, holistic learning experiences that include performing traditional Choquano dances and music, working on projects that contribute to the benefit of the whole community, and learning to care for the land and for the community’s self-sufficiency through organic farming.

 

Testimony from Cacarica

Relationship to the Land

“Ancestrally, we lived off the land, the patrimony that our grandparents left us and that we have known how to preserve.  It isn’t just anything: We consider it like a mother, something you value, you feel, you are able to care for, analyze, and enjoy.”

Abundance and Scarcity

“We had 30 years of living in Cacarica and we had never heard rumors of war or anything.  We were happy to plant corn, rice, plantain, yuca, ñame, sugarcane.  There in our community, we lived very deliciously.  We, the campesinos, worked and supported the towns that depended on us for their supply of corn, of rice, of plantain.  But now the town is the one that has to support us because unfortunately this violence hasn’t left us anything to survive on.”

How They Displaced Us

“In 1997, in February, was the displacement.  But before the displacement, initially, there were bombings, machine gun fire.  That is to say, from the air the kafir airplanes and helicopters, and from the ground, well, a very big incursion by army and paramilitary troops.  They would arrive at certain sites or communities and said that they were the army, but behind them came the others and those ones sure did chop off heads.  That happened in many of the communities that now are known as part of the collective territory of Cacarica.”

 

Living in Exile, Starting to Organize

“We went down to the coliseum and today I tell you that that day was the hardest for me.  I had never lived like that.  I saw the other compañeras and I asked them: ‘Where do you get dressed, where do you bathe, cook?’  And they said to me: ‘Here everything is difficult, even going to the bathroom.’  That was very hard in the coliseum but there were some advantages: the training, the organization, starting to work on our list of demands, to demand from the State, to work community by community to improve the living situation, to go to the communal farm, the workshops.  We worked on three questions: What happened?  What of ours was destroyed?  What do we want?  As time goes on, I believe that the displacement was a school of awareness and dignity, of dreams of transformation, of big changes for each of us and for our community.”

Rainbow of Life

“The project of life has five points: truth, which we identify with the color yellow; liberty, we identify with the color red; justice, we identify with the color blue; solidarity, with the color green; and fraternity with the color brown.”

Return

“We are here today because three years after being expelled from our land, we were not disposed to remain without it.  We are here because even though we had to cross over mountains, seas, rivers, and borders to leave, we have also crossed over them to return.  We are here because we can’t forget the macabre killings, the damage and exploitation of our resources, our disappeared brothers, we can’t forget the customs forged by our ancestors.”

Fighting for Urabá

“In 1974 there was a massacre of seven or eight peasant farmers in La Resbalosa [rural settlement of San José.]  At this time there were no guerrillas, there were no guerrillas in Urabá.  And they killed them with their hands tied. Only one person survived to give testimony.  The worms were eating them and the survivor still has the scar where the worms were eating him.  So we asked ourselves, well, when I still didn’t have much understanding, I wondered, why did they do it?  Now they do it because supposedly there is an insurgency, there is a guerrilla that is disputing them for territory but in this time then, why did they kill them?  I used to ask myself that question.

“There’s a reason they kill people; it’s because of certain interests.  Urabá is very rich in water, in carbon, in wood, in agriculture, in oil, and there are many other things in Urabá, that, because of our sense of not letting them exploit our land, they kill us for.”

- Community Leader, Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

 

The Paradox of Displacement

“What [the rich people] say is that we come to search for payment; to search for a better life in the cities, as if we lived poorly in our communities.  Lies. They are wrong. No campesino gets used to the city, because in the city we don’t know how to do anything.  In the countryside we have everything. It hurts us a lot because, after having been people who had food through our own efforts, now we have to receive a few crumbs.  Unfortunately, now after all this displacement, we seem like beggars because the government is the one who says that we are beggars, because the little bit that they give us they always throw it in our faces, saying, why don’t we work?  But we ask ourselves, who displaced us?”

-Member of CAVIDA

 

The Indigenous Guard of Northern Cauca

 

What you remember is the stick. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that a successful nonviolent defense force exists. Perhaps the most unusual is that the force includes women and children alongside men. But the stick is the most memorable. 

High up in the deeply scored mountain ranges of Colombia, in the Department of Cauca, lie the traditional lands of the Nasa People. The Nasa rule here, promised sovereignty by the Colombian Constitution. But in the middle of a war that coerces everyone to take sides, exercising sovereignty is dangerous business.

The Indigenous Guard protects the Nasa People, their territory, and their exercise of autonomy. This special group of men, women, and youth are chosen and trained to defend against others who want to abuse their communities’ lands and rights. They carry sticks.

Not arbitrarily gathered branches, these sticks are carefully crafted, decorated, and consecrated wooden staffs of office. They identify the carrier as a member of the Indigenous Guard. “They’re not weapons in the usual sense, but symbols of authority used to confront those who carry guns,” explains a Nasa leader.

The Nasa know the warrior spirit flows in their blood, and the staffs represent a warrior’s real weapons: the will, strength, and authority to defend life. This defense is nonviolent. “At no time will we take up arms,” explains another Nasa leader. “Arms are symbols of death.”

 

A History of Resistance

 

The Indigenous Guard as it is exists today began with colonization. Across the continent, outsiders were invading lands and demanding tribute from indigenous peoples. The Nasa refused to submit. During the creation of indigenous reservations in the late 1600s and 1700s, a special group of Nasa were responsible for the protection of their communities. It was during this period that the Spanish crown also officially recognized indigenous authorities, called Cabildos. But outsiders, time and again, invaded Nasa territory and rejected their authority. Colonial independence from Spain actually made the situation worse for the Nasa, who became indentured laborers on their ancestral lands.

In the early 1900s, the Nasa regained some of their land through largely unarmed, mass land occupations. In the mid-19th century, this struggle was galvanized by the bloody onset of Colombia’s present war. Indigenous communities began to organize. With other indigenous groups of the region, the Nasa formed the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca in 1971. Representatives of the 200,000-strong Nasa community met to discuss strengthening Cabildos, creating people-centered development, and recovering usurped lands. As they had for three centuries during land occupations, a special group of Nasa protected the communities against attacks from large landholders. 

 

We are all Guards. “The Indigenous Guard began with the recovery of our usurped land, though we weren’t called the Indigenous Guard. It was our job to defend against angry landholders. In March 2000, the Indigenous Guard was formalized by a resolution that says we are the guardians of our community, under the legitimate authority of our community. As a coordinator of the local Indigenous Guard unit, I teach members how to protect our communities and prevent our people from being displaced. My area has 126 active guards — men, women, and youth. But when we’re under attack, the whole community is involved. When there is conflict, we are all guards.

We’ve confronted the guerrilla, the paramilitary, the army, and the police — and been successful. It used to be that an armed group would come into our community, and because we had no protection, the people would flee. The armed groups would say: “If you don’t leave, we’ll kill you.”

The Power of Dissuasion. “But things have changed. We’ve learned to take care of our communities. Now when an armed group comes into our territory, the community gathers and evaluates. Then we all approach the intruder, and say: “Gentlemen, you’re involving us in a conflict that is not ours. But you are in our territory, and here, we govern”. We’ve avoided many problems this way. We’ve saved many people — from killing and being killed. We’ll let people go around our land, but they can’t stay; because if the guerrilla is here, the army comes, or if the army is here, the guerrilla comes. Of course, if we have to kick out one group, then we have to kick out all the groups. We have to treat them all equally.”

 We Carry Sticks.”One of the biggest risks in resisting is of being falsely accused of supporting one group or the other. So, we’ve had to educate our community and public authorities. We explain that we are the “soldiers” of our community. But as soldiers, we don’t look for security through weapons: We carry sticks. Now, public authorities recognize us with our sticks. We know our sticks don’t shoot. We’re here to defend our communities — but not with lead. With traditional medicine, our sticks are mediating forces. We purify them with ceremonies. Then people see us as friends, not enemies. This protects us.

Many people say they don’t believe in the power of traditional medicine. But we do. It strengthens our culture and us. We still have a lot to do. We have many problems, but we’ve begun. The path is difficult and sometimes we fall, but we’re able to get up again and keep walking.”

 Creating Community. “We’re creating consciousness. We’re recovering our history and building unity. We’re re-learning our native language. We’re stopping our youth from joining the armed groups. We encourage them to help the community.

 

Our young people struggle. They’re taught success means not having to return to their villages. But we don’t see this as success; we see it as a deterioration of our communities. But youth can see there is even more poverty in the cities. At least here, we have something to eat. In the cities, there’s an excess of people and no work. So, as young people gain consciousness, they stay in their community. More women used to leave, too. They went to cities to work for the rich, and forgot about their community. That’s not life — that’s exploitation. So, we understand that a strong community begins with a strong family, but we have to work together. That’s what it’s all about.”

 

Guardians for Life. “We were talking to the army the other day. A soldier asked us: “What would you — the Indigenous Guard — do if this conflict erupts into full-fledged war in your community?” We said: “We will defend our communities.”

- Indigenous Guard Leader of Corinto, Cauca

 

But Colombia’s war continued to deepen and widen. Increasing violence in their territory during the late 1990s and early years of the 21st century led the Nasa People to discuss the creation of a permanent civilian defense force. It would be rooted in the Nasa People’s long tradition of resistance  — a formal protection force that would be recognized internally by the indigenous community itself and externally by the public authorities, the paramilitaries, and the guerrillas. Most importantly, it would be unarmed. And so the Indigenous Guard was formalized by resolution on March 28, 2001.

Today, each Nasa village has ten members of the Indigenous Guard. They in turn form part of progressively larger units that together are able to patrol the borders of Nasa territory 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When they need to report in or alert others to an intruder, they communicate by walkie-talkie in their native language. They always carry their sticks.

 

Unarmed Autonomy

 

Unarmed resistance is a courageous choice for a community determined to rule lands coveted by armed groups so that they can move supplies and troops. Reservations are discrete legal entities under Colombian law; they are communal lands governed by indigenous communities and cannot by rented or sold. As a result, the presence of the Nasa, like that of many indigenous peoples in Colombia, is an obstacle to armed groups’ intended domination of territory and population. This places the Nasa in a tight spot; right in between antagonistic groups that have no interest in acknowledging neutrality in Colombia’s war. Not taking one side means becoming the target of all sides.

Since the 1970s, over 400 Nasa leaders and organizers have been killed in targeted assassinations by the army, paramilitaries, and guerrillas. The official formation of the Indigenous Guard in 2001 has not stopped the armed groups’ assault on the Nasa People. Even members of the Indigenous Guard have been killed. But their nonviolent strategy for protection has allowed the Nasa People to overcome the impasse of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. And the Indigenous Guard has helped show how real autonomy is possible, even under the threat of ruthless armed groups. In July 2003, guerrillas kidnapped a Swiss social worker who was visiting a Nasa reservation. The Indigenous Guard, armed with their sticks and plenty of resolve, confronted the kidnappers and freed the captive. The Indigenous Guard’s tenacity and success have garnered it and the Nasa People recognition in Colombia and throughout the world.

Strengthening the Power Within

 

As indigenous people, the Nasa recognize their current resistance as the continuation of a struggle they have upheld carried out since the Spanish Conquest. The greater organization of their community through Cabildos and the creation of the Indigenous Guard are elements of a larger plan designed to confront armed groups and defend indigenous and human rights and International Humanitarian Law.

This larger plan is called Project Nasa, whose success earned it the Equator Prize in February 2004. The prize was awarded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in recognition of the Nasa People’s “courageous work to incorporate holistic strategies for natural and cultural preservation into daily life — while in the midst of civil strife and violence ….”

In the face of such violence, the vitality of the Nasa cultural renewal is remarkable. The Nasa People are exploring their cultural identity and its application to the modern world. Their unique ideology, mixing spirituality and politics, sends out this message: “Our elders and ancestral spirits will guide you, come help us build this new process …” 

 

On the Road for Life

 

The Nasa People are resolute; even high-profile kidnappings have not deterred them from their common goal of advocating for life over war and death. In August 2004, a car full of Nasa leaders on their way to a meeting about indigenous organization was detained by Colombia’s largest insurgent group, the FARC. Two of the Nasa leaders were taken captive.

Such an incident could have caused the Nasa community to put on hold some of its more public activism. At the time of the kidnappings, the Nasa community and several others from around the country were planning a large mobilization against war, against free trade agreements which threaten their access to land and well-being, and against constitutional counter-reforms that will take away indigenous autonomy. When communities in Colombia claim their legal right to be neutral and to protest government policy, armed groups, including the government, feel threatened. Violence often results.

Enter the Indigenous Guard. Several dozen members went to the FARC and demanded the release of their leaders. The FARC is one of the most “successful” and heavily-armed insurgent groups in modern history. The Indigenous Guard carried only their wooden staffs of office. And they were successful in winning the release of their leaders, unharmed. The March for Justice, Happiness, Dignity, and Liberty would move forward.

On September 14, 2004, 65,000 people — including indigenous, Afro-descendants, peasant farmers, and trade unionists — from around the country began a four-day, 100-km march along the Pan-American Highway toward the Colombian city of Cali. Some 5,000 members of the Indigenous Guard protected them. Those who were able to brought an extra bag of rice and some blocks of sugar to help feed the demonstrators. Various organizations supported the march with foodstuffs, transportation, and emergency health care.

The logistics for such a mobilization were immense. The determination to march for four long days under the hostile watch of armed groups and an unfavorable government was even greater, demonstrating the power of a community with a common vision for peace and dignity. The Nasa People strive to walk their talk, putting into practice a saying they live by: "Words without actions are empty, actions without words are blind, and words and actions outside of the spirit of community are death.”

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©2003 Fellowship of Reconciliation