[News] Afro-Colombians, Indigenous Fear New Pitfalls in Peace Deal

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Afro-Colombians-Indigenous-Fear-New-Pitfalls-in-Peace-Deal-20160925-0011.html 



  Afro-Colombians, Indigenous Fear New Pitfalls in Peace Deal

27 September 2016

The signing of a historic rapprochment Monday 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombia-Peace-Deal-20160916-0030.html> between 
Colombia’s government and main rebel group Monday will be largely 
symbolic for the people hit hardest by more than five decades of civil 
war, as the country’s Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities gear up 
for a struggle in the face of the new challenges while the lasting 
legacy of the peace deal remains in question.

Carlos Rosero, a leader of the network of Afro-Colombian 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Meet-Esteban-the-Afro-Colombia-FARC-MC-Who-Raps-for-Peace-20160918-0025.html> 
organizations known as Process of Black Communities, told teleSUR by 
phone from Bogota that the end of the war “means the possibility of 
being able to live without any anxiety.” The peace accords, he said, 
could signal a change in the government’s attitude toward land rights, 
but there is no question that Colombia's communities of color must 
continue to struggle for access to land and other resources that 
continue to be coveted by multinational corporations, and agri-businesses.

“We have to rise up in the daily battle knowing that like always we have 
to maintain our resistance,” he said.

Clemencia Herrera, a representative of the Organization of Indigenous 
Peoples of the Amazon, shared a similar perspective on the beautiful new 
realities of peace, with cautious optimism amid the potential for rapid 
change in the countryside.

“For Indigenous peoples, the signing of peace means an opportunity to 
live more peacefully in our territories without being displaced, 
massacred, and violated as it's happened during the more than 50 years 
of conflict,” she said.

But as some 7,000 remaining FARC rebel fighters descend from their 
jungle camps to hand over their weapons 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/FARC-Rebels-Begin-Moving-to-Demobilization-Zones-20160923-0022.html> 
and reintegrate into society for the first time in the groups 52-year 
history, new conflicts over land and resources could bubble up as 
conflict-ridden territories open up — possibly for business.

That’s exactly what Herrera, Rosero and their fellow leaders are worried 
about. They said that Indigenous and Afro-descendent groups expect that 
the default position of the peace treaty's land reform provisions is 
likely to follow a model of resource exploitation that traditionally has 
disadvantaged Black and Indigenous communities. That extractive model, 
they argued, would promote private economic interests on communal lands 
at the expense of environmental and humant rights.

“It could create more competition for the resources on our lands,” 
Herrera said.

“It is going to generate many more problems that have to do with the 
economic model promoted the territories,” Rosero added.

*Laying the Groundwork for Peace*

The FARC guerrilla army and the Colombian government unveiled the 
landmark final peace accords on Aug. 24 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/FARC-and-Colombian-Government-Announce-Final-Peace-Accord-20160824-0026.html> 
in Havana, Cuba, after nearly four years of long-awaited negotiations. 
Members of the FARC unanimously ratified 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/The-War-Is-Over-FARC-Rebels-Approve-Peace-Deal-with-Colombia-20160923-0015.html> 
the deal at the last armed national conference before they demobilize 
and take up new a brand new strategy as a legal political party. 
President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Timochenko will officially 
sign 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/15-Presidents-Will-Witness-Signing-of-Colombia-Peace-Deal-20160925-0005.html> 
the historic 297-page document 
<http://www.urnadecristal.gov.co/sites/default/files/acuerdo-final-habana.pdf> 
on Sept. 26 in the coastal city of Cartagena before the question is put 
to a popular vote on Oct. 2 asking Colombians to say “Yes” or “No” to 
the peace deal.

The “Ethnic Chapter” of Colombia’s peace accords between the FARC 
guerrilla army and the government outlines an inclusive approach to 
fomenting a durable peace. The agreement calls for “maximum guarantees” 
for these communities’ human and collective rights in light of the grave 
suffering they endured during the civil war and their “historical 
conditions of injustice resulting from colonialism, slavery, exclusion, 
and having been dispossessed of their land and resources.”

The “safeguards” detailed in the deal call for respect for Indigenous 
communities’ internationally-recognized right to free, prior and 
informed consent 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/New-World-Bank-Policies-Imperil-Environment-and-Land-Defenders--20160804-0001.html> 
for development projects on ancestral land and guaranteed participation 
in various peace-promoting processes, such as measures to enshrine 
victims’ rights and combat drug trafficking. The text of the deal 
promotes an intercultural, intergenerational approach that recognizes 
the importance of collective land ownership and stresses that in no way 
should the implementation of the peace accords infringe on the rights of 
  Indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples.

*An Eye of Caution from the Margins*

Despite the positive rhetoric championed in the deal and the 
unquestionable victory of ending more than half a century of armed 
conflict, history has taught Colombia’s Indigenous and Afro-descendent 
groups that their rights, land, and resources must be defended, and 
that’s what community leaders are prepared to do in peace — just as they 
did in war.

According to local organizations, the Colombian government is sitting on 
at least 1,000 pending requests for legal recognition of Indigenous and 
Afro-Colombian title to their collective lands. For Omaira Bolaños, 
Latin American program director of the Rights and Resources Initiative, 
the “historical debt” of unrecognized traditional and ancestral 
territories weighs heavy on the country’s current page-turning moment. 
And whether or not authorities show the political will to act on pending 
titles could mark the difference between progress and setbacks for 
Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, as well as the environment.

“Indigenous peoples are already mobilizing themselves to present their 
own proposals,” said Bolaños, highlighting movements struggling to 
protect the local environment and assert their rights to informed 
consent as tools of resistance against the economic policies that put 
mining exploitation at the top of the agenda.

She said that the peace accords “create new proposals for sustainable, 
agrarian development and land access that are going to greatly affect 
rural communities.” But for many, the question of what kind of 
development remains key.

Rosero argued that the armed conflict deepened historical inequalities 
battering those at the margins of society and “served to impose a set of 
economic, social, cultural policies while the people were focused on 
survival.” He emphasized that Colombia’s poorest and most vulnerable 
communities have suffered widespread forced displacement and runaway 
poverty, while a proliferation of mining exploitation and drug 
trafficking has taken a toll on the environment.

The imposed development model Rosero talked about — and fears will get 
another boost with the peace deal — is directly at odds with the 
collective, sustainable, low-carbon way of life practiced by native 
communities spread across Colombia’s ecologically-rich Amazon rainforest 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Deforestation-Increases-in-Colombia-Threatens-Amazon-20151120-0038.html>, 
Andes mountains, Orinoco savannas, Caribbean plains, and other regions. 
Together, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities legally hold 37 
million hectares of land across the country, and about half of 
Colombia’s total forest area is located in designated Indigenous and 
Afro-descendent reserves, known as resguardos.

A growing body of research shows that collective land rights of 
Indigenous groups has the power to support local economic development, 
improve community well being, strengthen environmental preservation, 
slash carbon emissions, and ward off deforestation. Underlining the 
centrality of questions of communal land tenure, the first chapter of 
the peace agreement identifies unresolved land ownership issues as one 
of key the reasons for the outbreak of the conflict with the FARC in the 
first place in the 1960’s.

At the crossroads of critical and complex issues, land ownership is a 
matter that urgently needs to be addressed, not only for the Indigenous 
and Afro-descendent communities whose territories are in question, and 
not only for the climate, but also for a future free of conflict with 
guarantees that the war will not repeat itself.

*Learning from the Past*

The challenges facing Colombia may be new to the country after decades 
of war, but the looming questions, particularly about the inclusion of 
diverse groups and protection of their rights, don’t come as a surprise 
to those who have observed similar peace processes elsewhere in the region.

Rodolfo Cardona, a representative of a nature conservancy and community 
well-being program in Guatemala’s Peten region, told teleSUR by phone 
from Bogota that Guatemala’s peace deal — and its shortcomings — can 
offer many lessons to Colombia as it navigates this historic moment. 
Importantly, he stressed that even though Guatemala ended its 36-year 
civil war with the signing of the peace accords in 1996, the Central 
American country failed to transform its culture of violence 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/telesuragenda/New-Guatemala-President-20160112-0017.html>, 
while sidelining Indigenous issues in the agreements. Now, Guatemalan 
society still struggles under the weight of the root problems of 
inequality that spurred the war, epitomized today in soaring levels of 
outmigration, rampant gang activity, and unfinished fights for justice.

While the process in Colombia has significant differences from 
Guatemala’s, the history can still offer a warning sign, Cardona argued. 
Critics say that lawmakers in Guatemala dragged their feet after the 
1996 accords, betraying a lack of political commitment among elites to 
build — as it has been called in Colombia — “true and lasting peace.” 
The 50 proposed constitutional amendments born directly and indirectly 
out of the peace accords were struck down at the ballot box in 1999 — 
three years after the 1996 accords — as confusion and disillusionment 
discouraged over 80 percent of voters from going to the polls. As a 
result, Guatemala’s dictatorship-era constitution hasn’t been updated 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalas-Indigenous-Fight-to-Rewrite-Civil-War-Constitution--20160810-0012.html> 
since the final years of the 36-year civil war in 1993, leaving 
cornerstones of the peace process unprotected by the constitution.

The historical lessons hangs heavy for Cardona as Colombians prepare to 
vote in the Oct. 2 plebiscite 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/New-Poll-Gives-Yes-Huge-Lead-in-Colombian-Peace-Plebiscite-20160903-0002.html> 
on the question or whether or not they accept the peace deal between the 
Colombian government and the FARC. Unlike in Guatemala, the plebiscite 
comes quick on the heels of the signing of the agreement and is aimed at 
giving democratic legitimacy to Congress to make legal reforms after the 
vote, but it is still pivotal in defining the tone of the path forward.

“The ‘Yes’ represents approval for carrying out changes in a concerted 
way,” said Cardona, adding that he sees it as a question of completing a 
process that started with the outbreak of the conflict 52 years ago. “A 
‘No’ represents leaving the process in the middle and incomplete.”

He expressed hope in Colombians to vote “Yes” to the deal, predicting it 
could play a part in helping to prevent future social conflicts, 
violence, and even unnecessary deaths.

Cardona was pleased to see the “Ethnic Chapter” in Colombia’s peace 
accords, a preliminary remedy to the problem of Indigenous issues being 
“forgotten” in Guatemala’s peace deal after the Maya population suffered 
a brutal genocide under the dictatorships 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalan-President-Praises-Exemplary-Work-of-Genocidal-Army-20160704-0026.html>. 
Nevertheless, as a leader of a successful community forest management 
project that has borne great benefits for the environment and local 
rural Indigenous population in Peten, Cardona warned that government 
dialogue strategies don’t always mesh with Indigenous practices. He 
stressed following the will of the people, not imposing technocratic 
solutions from above, is essential.

While offering advice for Colombia, Cardona also said he hopes that the 
end of the longest war in the Western Hemisphere will cause his own 
government to reflect on its progress — and lack thereof — toward peace.

“Now Colombians have inspired us once again,” he said. “We hope 
Colombians will take into account the problems and experiences we had in 
Guatemala, so as to not take the same path.”

It’s a challenge Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities have already 
accepted.

-- 
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