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."
