September 18, 2008
Collectivizing Resistance:
Afro-Descendent Communities in Colombian South Pacific Region Plan to Convene for their Rights
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes
From October 1-4, 2008, nearly a hundred different groups, including national advocacy organizations and community councils, will be represented in Tumaco, Colombia, at the First Assembly of Black Community Councils of the Colombian Southern Pacific Region. The aim of the assembly will be to build solidarities across the region and to facilitate collectively structured forms of participatory democracy in resistance to the daily forms of violence confronted by Afro-Colombian communities. These communities face systematic displacement, arbitrary detainment, extrajudicial killings and massacres. The Assembly has announced that they will convene “toward a consolidation of territory with autonomy and self-government” in the face of state, paramilitary and guerilla aggressions ballasted by the structural racism and historically systematic, institutional marginalization and targeting of Black communities within Colombia. They write, “Despite the situation generated by the armed conflict internal to the country, the Black communities resist annihilation and we continue a permanent labor to recreate life, self-affirmation, and [libertarian] identity inherited from our ancestors.”
In 1993, Colombia instituted Law 70, which recognized the right of Black Colombians to collectively own, occupy, and subsist off of their ancestral lands. Additionally, the law was ratified in order to “establish mechanisms for protecting the cultural identity and rights of Black Communities of Colombia as an ethnic group and to foster their economic and social development…” Almost fifteen years later, according to a 2007 report filed by a delegation from the Rapoport Center at University of Texas at Austin, School of Law, Law 70, though progressive in its aims, has not been upheld by the Colombian State. “[I]ts realization has been hampered by a number of obstacles, including pervasive systemic discrimination.” Included in these obstacles are the infiltration of Afro-Colombian lands by agro-export businesses, tourism mega-projects, and targeting by paramilitary violence- for which the state offers no protection.
A 2002 massacre at Bojayá, where 119 Afro-Colombian civilians were killed, and another 98 injured, left these communities in the wake of one of the worst massacres in 40 years. Despite organizing efforts to demand justice, massacres, disappearances, and forced displacement of these communities are still rampant as effects of Colombian state practices, military funding through U.S.-backed Plan Colombia and violence between factions in Colombia’s internal war.
While estimates put the Afro-Colombian population at between 20% and 70% of the country’s people, of Colombia’s four million internally displaced, Afro-Colombians make up about two thirds, and remain economically among the poorest in the country. The ratification of Law 70 marked a milestone for Afro-Colombian rights as it officially outlawed race-based discrimination and offered Colombia’s Black communities recourse to their rights. That it has not been upheld remains part of the larger network of problematics within the Colombian justice system, particularly as the last couple years have seen the exposure of government-paramilitary alliances.
Plans for the Assembly as part of the efforts to further collectivize Afro-Colombian struggles for rights, arise amid collusions between the Bush and Uribe Administrations to pass the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement which would allow for further state legitimation of protracted violence against Afro-Colombian communities in the name of economic expansion. Already, Afro-Colombians are forced to reckon with the continued impunity of paramilitary forces in the perpetration of violence against their communities and their allies. For example, in Curvaradó (Chocó), paramilitaries have “violently and illegally usurped” land within Afro-Colombian collective territories, and specifically, “the paramilitary group “the Black Eagles” have been threatening members of the Inter-Church Peace and Justice Commission, a human rights organization that works with Afro-Colombian community council leaders to ensure” that these territories are fully and justly returned to their rightful holders.
To join others in signing a declaration of solidarity with the First Assembly of Black Community Councils of the Colombian Southern Pacific Region, go here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/1BCCC/petition.html
For more resources:
Proceso de Comunidades Negras de Colombia
www.renacientes.org/
Comisión Intereclesial Justicia y Paz
http://es.geocities.com/justiciaypazcolombia/
Article: Why Afro-Colombians Oppose the Colombian FTA
http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=11096
Afro-Colombian News
http://www.afrocolombians.com/Afro-Colombian%20News/Main%20Page.html
U.S. Office on Colombia
http://www.usofficeoncolombia.com/Afro-Colombian%20Groups/
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Sign Petition!
Sign a Declaration of Solidarity with the First Assembly of Black Community Councils of the Colombian Southern Pacific Region
Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:39 am (PDT)
Hola todos,To sign the Declaration of Solidarity with the First Assembly of Black
Community Councils of the Colombian Southern Pacific Region, please go here
by September 29, 2008. Thank you!
http://www.petitiononline.com/
For more information, see below:
FYI
_____
FIRST ASSEMBLY OF BLACK COMMUNITY COUNCILS OF THE COLOMBIAN SOUTHERN PACIFIC
REGION
Pacific Regional Territory, Tumaco, Colombia - October 1-4, 2008
Toward a Consolidation of Territory with Autonomy and Self-Government
The threats and aggressions against our lives and communities, against our
territories and our rights as human beings and Afro-descendants, have made
us systematic victims of displacement and confinement, massacres and
selective assassination. These actions are part of the strategies of
economic groups, armed actors and political sectors aimed at implementation
of large scale economic projects (in agriculture, trade, mining, tourism,
infrastructure, etc), that have aggravated the humanitarian crisis in our
communities and territories.
These aggressions are framed in deep structural racism, historical
discrimination and voracious, imposed economic models, all of which are tied
to external interests in the ancestral property of black communities, due to
its strategic position. This implies, among other aspects, the deliberate
negation of the contributions of Afro-Colombians toward the construction of
the country in all forms (economic, cultural, social, political and
scientific).
Despite of the situation generated by the armed conflict internal to the
country, the black communities resist annihilation and we continue a
permanent labor to recreate life, self-affirmation and libertarian identity
inherited from our ancestors.
The ethnic authorities, organizations and Community Councils of the Pacific
South, hereby take the historic responsibility to respond to these
challenges in a collective and consensual form. We commit to strengthen
participative democracy through our own organizational dynamics, as part of
this culturally and ethnically diverse country.
Therefore we call ourselves to gather in Tumaco on October 1st, 2nd, 3rd and
4th, 2008. On those days we will celebrate the FIRST ASSEMBLY OF BLACK
COMMUNITY COUNCILS OF THE COLOMBIAN SOUTHERN PACIFIC REGION.
Contact Information: pacificosur152008@gmail.com<
Community Councils and Ethnic Organizations of the Pacific South
Proceso de Comunidades Negras en Colombia PCN
Palenke Regional el Kongal
Palenke Regional Alto Kauca
Palenke Regional Kurrulao
Palenke Regional Kusuto.
COPDICONC- Consejo Comunitario para el Desarrollo Integral de las
Comunidades Negras de la Cordillera Occidental de Nariño y Sur del
Cauca.
Corporación Ancestros C.A.
Cooperativa de Profesionales Afrocolombianos Cooproafro
ASOCOETNAR
Consejo Comunitario prodefensa del río Tapaje
Consejo Comunitario de Unicosta.
Consejo Comunitario El Progreso.
Consejo Comunitario Unión Patía Viejo.
Consejo Comunitario El Progreso del Campo
Consejo Comunitario Manos Amigas del Patía Grande
Consejo Comunitario de Agricultores del Patía Grande
Consejo Comunitario Sanquianga
Consejo Comunitario La Amistad
Consejo Comunitario del Río Satinga
Consejo Comunitario Manos Unidas del Socorro
Consejo Comunitario Unión de Cuencas de Isagualpi
Consejo Comunitario Integración de Telembí
Consejo Comunitario Catangueros
Consejo Comunitario la Esperanza del Río La Tola
Consejo Comunitario el Progreso del Río Nerete
Consejo Comunitario Gualmar
Consejo Comunitario Bajo Río Guelmambí
Consejo Comunitario Alto Río Sequihonda
Consejo Comunitario Odemap Mosquera Sur
Consejos Comunitario la voz de los Negros
Consejo Comunitario Odemap Mosquera Norte
Consejo Comunitario la Nueva esperanza
Consejo Comunitario Alejandro Rincón
Consejo Comunitario la Gran Minga
Consejo Comunitario Nueva Alianza
Consejo Comunitario La Gran Unión Rio Telpi
Consejo Comunitario Renacer Campesino
Consejo Comunitario ACANURI
Consejo Comunitario Cuenca del Rio Iscuande
Consejo Comunitario Rio Chanzara
Consejo Comunitario Bajo Tapaje
Consejo Comunitario Playas Unidas
Consejo Comunitario Esfuerzo Pescador
COCOCAUCA.
Consejo Comunitario Manglares
Consejo Comunitario Mamuncia
Consejo Comunitario Integración
Consejo Comunitario Playon
Consejo Comunitario Sanjoc
Consejo Comunitario Cuerval
Consejo Comunitario San Francisco
Consejo Comunitario Napi
Consejo Comunitario chanzara
Asociación de Consejos Comunitarios de Timbiquí, Konsejo Mayor Palenke el
Kastigo
Consejo Comunitario Negros en Acción.
Consejo Comunitario Renacer Negro
Consejo Comunitario Negros Unidos
Consejo Comunitario Parte Alta Sur del Saija
Consejo Comunitario Patía Norte, San Bernardo
ASOCIACION PARA LA DEFENSA DEL AMBIENTE Y LA CULTURA NEGRA ASOMANOS NEGRA.
RECOMPAS
Consejo Comunitario Alto Mira y Frontera
Consejo Comunitario Bajo Mira y Frontera
Consejo Comunitario la Nupa
Consejo Comunitario Rio Cuanapi
Consejo Comunitario Rescate las Varas
Consejo Comunitario Rio Rosario
Consejo Comunitario Rio Gualajo
Consejo Comunitario Recuerdos de Nuestros Ancestros, Rio Mejicano
Consejo Comunitario Rio Imbilpi
Consejo Comunitario Tablon Dulce
Consejo Comunitario Tablon Salado
Consejo Comunitario Rio Chagui
Consejo Comunitario ACAPA
Consejo Comunitario Veredas Unidas Bien Común
Consejo Comunitario Cortina Verde Mandela
Asamblea de Consejos Comunitarios
CORREGIMIENTO # 8
Consejo comunitario Zacarias
Consejo Comunitario Alto Potedo
Consejo Comunitario de Sabaletas Bogotá y la Loma
Consejo Comunitario Limones
Consejo Comunitario Guaimia
Consejo Comunitario de San Marcos
Consejo Comunitario llano bajo
Consejo Comunitario de Agua Clara
--
AUGUST 2008, FIFTEEN YEARS OF LAW 70 OF 1993
For the right to choose their own future, Afro-Colombians have Law 70/93
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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