CPTnet
1 September 2007
COLOMBIA: FARC anti-personnel mines kill two Indigenous victims as ethnocide
against the Awá Community continues
In an urgent release, CAMAWARI (the Council of Awá Elders of Ricaurte)
informed the Christian Peacemaker Team in Colombia that on 18 August 2007,
mines planted by the FARC (Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia) killed
two Awá indigenous youth, Robert Guanga, 20 and Alonso Guanga, 25. They
died as they were traveling from Maldonado in Ecuador to the Quelbi
Community in the Nulpe Alto Reserve in Ricaurte, Nariño.
The armed conflict in Colombia is wreaking havoc on this indigenous
bi-national (Colombia and Ecuador) community. Counting these men, seven
members of the Awá community have been killed by antipersonnel mines in
the last two months. Since 2004, Colombian military operations in Awá
territories have provoked armed confrontations generating massive
displacement: 457 persons were forced to leave their territory in that year,
1300 in 2005, and 1500 in 2006. Presently, 1287 indigenous remain confined
in their reserves´ schools to prevent other mass displacement. In
2006, sixteen Indigenous died as result of the armed conflict, and in the
first eight months in 2007, seventeen Indigenous have died. The magnitude of
this crisis is striking, considering the Awá population in the
municipality of Ricaurte is only 10,500.
The FARC guerrilla organization and the Colombian Armed Forces are thus
committing ethnocide against the Awá community in Ricaurte. According to
CAMAWARI, "our territories are no longer spaces of life and peace, they
are now spaces of confinement, battle and territorial dispute, leaving us a
long history of assassinations, massacres, disappearances and
detentions--The government approaches a negotiated and peaceful solution
to the conflict with authoritarianism and intolerance. We, however, do
not believe that military action will solve the conflict. To the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), we demand respect for our
lives; we are not human shields. We are indigenous communities that are
working on an organizing process that reflects our own cultures values --"
On Friday 10 August 2007, the National Human Rights Ombudsman Office in
Bogotá held a hearing on International Humanitarian Law infractions and
Human Rights violations suffered by the Awá community in Nariño.
During this audience, the Ombudsman gave the government a series of
recommendations that focused on carrying out the government's current
commitments to this indigenous community. At the same time, the Awá
leaders demanded an end to the fumigations and military operations on the
Awá's ancestral territories. Sadly the Human Rights Ombudsman Office
cannot make formal recommendations to the FARC, because is an illegal
armed group. But the lack of government censure does not excuse the
guerrillas for the continued abuse and killing in this community.
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