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<h1 id="reader-title">Afro-Colombians, Indigenous Fear New
Pitfalls in Peace Deal</h1>
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<p>27 September 2016<br>
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<p>The signing of a historic <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombia-Peace-Deal-20160916-0030.html"
target="_blank">rapprochment Monday</a> 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. </p>
<p>Carlos Rosero, a leader of the network of <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Meet-Esteban-the-Afro-Colombia-FARC-MC-Who-Raps-for-Peace-20160918-0025.html"
target="_blank">Afro-Colombian</a> 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. </p>
<p>“We have to rise up in the daily battle knowing that
like always we have to maintain our resistance,” he
said. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>But as some 7,000 remaining FARC rebel fighters descend
from their jungle camps to <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/FARC-Rebels-Begin-Moving-to-Demobilization-Zones-20160923-0022.html"
target="_blank">hand over their weapons</a> 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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“It could create more competition for the resources on
our lands,” Herrera said. </p>
<p>“It is going to generate many more problems that have
to do with the economic model promoted the territories,”
Rosero added. </p>
<p><span><strong>Laying the Groundwork for Peace</strong></span>
</p>
<p>The FARC guerrilla army and the Colombian government <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/FARC-and-Colombian-Government-Announce-Final-Peace-Accord-20160824-0026.html"
target="_blank">unveiled the landmark final peace
accords on Aug. 24</a> in Havana, Cuba, after nearly
four years of long-awaited negotiations. Members of the
FARC <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/The-War-Is-Over-FARC-Rebels-Approve-Peace-Deal-with-Colombia-20160923-0015.html"
target="_blank">unanimously ratified</a> 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 <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/15-Presidents-Will-Witness-Signing-of-Colombia-Peace-Deal-20160925-0005.html"
target="_blank">officially sign</a> the historic <a
href="http://www.urnadecristal.gov.co/sites/default/files/acuerdo-final-habana.pdf"
target="_blank">297-page document</a> 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. </p>
<p>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.” </p>
<p>The “safeguards” detailed in the deal call for respect
for Indigenous communities’ internationally-recognized <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/New-World-Bank-Policies-Imperil-Environment-and-Land-Defenders--20160804-0001.html"
target="_blank">right to free, prior and informed
consent</a> 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. </p>
<p><span><strong>An Eye of Caution from the Margins</strong></span>
</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Deforestation-Increases-in-Colombia-Threatens-Amazon-20151120-0038.html"
target="_blank">ecologically-rich Amazon rainforest</a>,
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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p><span><strong>Learning from the Past</strong></span> </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/telesuragenda/New-Guatemala-President-20160112-0017.html"
target="_blank">failed to transform its culture of
violence</a>, 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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalas-Indigenous-Fight-to-Rewrite-Civil-War-Constitution--20160810-0012.html"
target="_blank">dictatorship-era constitution hasn’t
been updated</a> since the final years of the 36-year
civil war in 1993, leaving cornerstones of the peace
process unprotected by the constitution. </p>
<p>The historical lessons hangs heavy for Cardona as <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/New-Poll-Gives-Yes-Huge-Lead-in-Colombian-Peace-Plebiscite-20160903-0002.html"
target="_blank">Colombians prepare to vote in the Oct.
2 plebiscite</a> 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. </p>
<p>“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.” </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalan-President-Praises-Exemplary-Work-of-Genocidal-Army-20160704-0026.html"
target="_blank">brutal genocide under the
dictatorships</a>. 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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.” </p>
<p>It’s a challenge Indigenous and Afro-Colombian
communities have already accepted. </p>
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