Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mario Murillo writes from Colombia

We are well into the new year, and already 2009 is a year of violence directed against indigenous communities in Colombia. Here are some recent developments.

Most dramatic was near the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. On December 31st, the indigenous Kankuamo community of Atánquez, in northern Colombia, about 90-minutes from Valledupar, in the midst of its year end festivities, suffered a major attack when a grenade was thrown into a hall where the local residents had gathered to bring in the new year. Five people were killed, and 67 people were wounded, many of them severely. Colombian authorities initially said the attack was carried out by a member of the community, a hypothesis that was immediately rejected by the indigenous cabildo. As Alfredo Molano wrote in Sunday's El Espectador, the official response is always designed to shift the focus of the blame when attacks are carried out in areas close to military or police installations (or paramilitary strongholds, as is the case here). In this instance, the site of the attack occurred very close to a Police Station.

The Kankuamos have been the target of systematic violence over the last ten years, with 262 members of the community killed by armed groups. As a result, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights has demanded the government provide guaranteed protection to the Kankuamo, something that President Alvaro Uribe has deemed unnecessary. The community is demanding a thorough investigation into the attack.

Further south, in the department of Cauca, the last several days has seen serious confrontations between the government security forces and FARC rebels, particularly in the town of Tacueyó. The Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca put out the following press release about these actions, which once again compromises the security and well being of the Nasa people of Cauca, and is a direct threat to their life plans.

For more communiques from ACIN about the developments in Cauca, followed by ONIC, about the situation facing the Kankuamos see MAMA blog on the OURMedia Blog Roll