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<h1 id="reader-title">U.S. Is Aiding & Abetting
Afro-Colombian Genocide</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Dan Kovalik<br>
10/30/2015<br>
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<p>I just returned from Colombia with a delegation of the
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU). We travelled
to Cali, Quibdó (in the Choco Department) and Bogota to
hear from numerous representatives of the Afro-Colombian
community about the grave civil, human and labor rights
situation confronting them, and their demand to have a
say in the ongoing peace talks in Havana, Cuba in order
to find redress for their concerns. A copy of our full
delegation Report can be found <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.usw.org/news/media-center/articles/2015/report-on-the-cbtu-afro-colombian-accompaniment-mission-to-colombia">HERE</a>.
</p>
<p>As our delegation observed, Colombia is at least fifty
to seventy-five years behind the U.S. in terms of race
relations. Incredibly, there are no laws which protect
Afro-Colombians from racial discrimination in employment
or services. As a consequence, Afro-descendants, who
officially make up 10% of the Colombian population,
though in reality up to 25%, have no presence in
high-level positions in the State, or in the private
sector, media, industry or financial market. In
addition, 78.5 percent of Afro-Colombians live under the
poverty line, over 30 percent have no water and
sanitation services, their infant mortality rate is over
three times the national average at 76 per 100,000, and
their life expectancy is also well below the national
average at around 65 years.</p>
<p> Yet, these statistics do not begin to capture the
depths of the crisis confronting the Afro-Colombian
people. While <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/15-facts-about-colombia-s-land-restitution-process">6
million people in Colombia are internally displaced </a>(the
second highest figure on earth), one-third of these, or
2 million, are Afro-descendant. And, as many of us who
opposed the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) had
predicted, such displacement has only accelerated after
the 2011 passage of the FTA which has allowed, and
indeed encouraged, the penetration of the prized
Afro-Colombian land on the Pacific coast by mining and
agricultural companies which often utilize armed groups
to forcibly remove Afro-Colombians from territorial
lands - lands which are supposed to be protected by
Colombia's Law 70. </p>
<p>Moreover, as <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/15-facts-about-colombia-s-land-restitution-process">Amnesty
International has recently reported</a>, "[m]ost
forced displacement has been carried out by
paramilitaries and the security forces, either acting
alone or in collusion with each other,"and, as witnesses
we talked to confirmed, these forced displacements are <a
target="_hplink"
href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e492ad6.html">often-times
accompanied by grisly crimes </a>such as "the forced
recruitment of children and youth, sexual and
gender-based violence (SGBV), threats, disappearances
and murders . . . ." </p>
<p>As eloquently explained by one Afro-Colombian leader -
a young, brave attorney who herself has been displaced
for a second time and who would rather her name not be
mentioned -- the Colombian government has itself
recognized that their rights to the territory have been
violated. Indeed, they have won a number of court
decisions under Law 70 which was passed to protect their
territorial land, but none of these court decisions have
been enforced. She said that "a slave-like system, a
system of murder is instead being reinforced." She
explained that they are being targeted by a number of
armed groups, especially right-wing paramilitaries, but
also by FARC who recently assassinated one of their
leaders. Helicopters have bombed their homes, land mines
have been laid around their communities and the water
that they depend on is being contaminated by mercury
from illegal mining operations. But, she exclaimed, with
righteous indignation, "who cares, we're black?!" She
asked how one can talk about a peace process when there
are "chop houses" operating in Colombia <a
target="_hplink"
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/03/20/crisis-buenaventura/disappearances-dismemberment-and-displacement-colombias-main">(most
famously in the port town of Buenaventura</a>) where
paramilitaries terrorize the community by dismembering
social leaders while they are still alive. <em>She
related that 60% of the Afro-Colombian territory is
being destroyed by mining operations. She emphasized
that the U.S. has financed this war in Colombia and
that the U.S. has a duty to construct the peace. She
concluded by saying, "We Afro-Colombians gave birth to
humanity, we must give birth to the peace</em>."</p>
<p>For its part, the Office of the UN High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR) <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e492ad6.html">recently
reported</a> on the continuing problem with
paramilitaries forcing thousands (disproportionately
Afro-Colombians and indigenous) off their land. As the
report explains, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Areas such as Córdoba reported high levels of
pressure by armed groups, especially
post-demobilization armed groups [i.e.,
paramilitaries], in actions affecting land occupation
and land restitution processes. Conflict continues in
strategically important areas of Colombia,
particularly in the coastal and border departments of
Arauca, Chocó, Nariño, Norte de Santander, and
Putumayo. The Pacific region of the country continues
to generate most large-group displacements affecting
four departments, with the highest concentration in
Cauca followed by Valle del Cauca.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our trip was organized by Marino Cordoba, the founder
of AFRODES, a group which advocates for the rights of
displaced Afro-Colombians. Mr. Cordoba himself has been
forcibly displaced on several occasions, beginning in
1997 when his town of Riosucio, in the Choco Department,
was famously invaded by a paramilitary group known as
the Self-Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU) with
the active support of the U.S.-backed Colombian
military. Quite frighteningly, similar operations are
now being carried out in the same area by a paramilitary
group known as the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
Gaitanistas' (AGC). As <a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.semana.com/opinion/articulo/autodefensas-gaitanistas-de-colombia-farc-eln-recrudecen-guerra-en-choco/446990-3">Semana
Magazine explains</a>, "[o]ne of the similar aspects
of this raid with that of the ACCU in 1997 is that the
arrival of the AGC to the basins of the Lower Atrato had
no restriction by the security forces. State reports
outlined the presence of speed boats of the Navy that
crossed the Atrato River from the town of Riosucio, as
well as soldiers from Front 54. For this reason,
communities feel a deep mistrust because there is no
explanation as to how this illegal armed group reached
Truandó without an effective reaction" by the state
security forces. Moreover, some of the paramilitaries
entering the area are wearing official "uniforms with
insignia of the Marine Corps, but identified as
'Self-Defense Forces of Colombia Gaitanistas,'" again
showing the continuing links between the paramilitaries
and the U.S.-backed Colombian military. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, both the U.S. and Colombian
governments are vigorously denying the very existence of
the paramilitary forces. U.S. Ambassador Kevin Whitaker
indeed engaged in such denials in our meeting with him
at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota on October 5. The denial
of the existence of the paramilitaries serves quite well
<a target="_hplink"
href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/killer2.htm">the
purposes of the U.S. in creating them back in the
early 1960's</a> - that is, in order to give plausible
deniability to the U.S. and its Colombian military
surrogates for their war against those who would
challenge the unjust social order which continues to
reign in that country. </p>
<p>It is critical for those of us concerned with human
rights to shine a light on the Colombian
military/paramilitary alliance which continues to plague
the Afro-Colombian people with particular intensity, and
which is leading to what Afro-Colombians are terming,
"ethnocide"; others would call it "genocide."</p>
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