Visit to Colombia - political/social notes

While travelling through Colombia, I took the opportunity to become a little more familiar with the political and social situation by visiting a few social and civil organizations that I had contacts for. I visited four organizations; SINALTRAINAL Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos (SINALTRAINAL) which is a union that supports food industry workers, Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria (FENSUAGRO) which is a union that supports farmers, Organizacion Nacional Indigena de Colombia (ONIC), which is a national indigenous organization and Organizacion Indigena Kankuamo, which is an organisation that supports the indigenous group the Kankuamos.

SINALTRAINAL has been representing food and beverage industry workers since 1982 and campaigns against multinational companies in Colombia for whom these workers work for. They believe that there is a severe class struggle in Colombia, which is exacerbated by the presence and actions of multinationals in the country and they fight for a society where there is no exploitation of others, one based on peace and social justice.

FENSUAGRO started in 1976 with the objective of fighting for the rights of farmers in Colombia. They request for the recognition of farmers roles in developing and providing for their country. They also fight for farmer’s rights to their own land and advocate that farmers can do a lot to protect the environment.

Organizacion Nacional Indigena de Colombia (ONIC) and Organizacion Indigena Kankuamo fight for the rights of indigenous people in Colombia. They believe that there has been a complete abandonment of indigenous people by the government and want to expose the truth of the situation in Colombia, to the world.

The current population in Colombia is 44 million (acquired from the latest census) but SINALTRAINAL believe that there is a discrepancy of 5 million (therefore 49 million) which include people on the fringe of society who have been left out so as to manipulate the statistics. 57% of the population (25 million) who are economically active are temporarily employed and 65% of the population of Colombia live in poverty (28 million).

All four organizations reported similar facts and examples concerning the government’s intimidation of social and civil organizations and their members. They all agreed that paramilitaries have links to multinational countries and are supported to assist their needs. Many have committed violations of human rights and have harmed the environment in some way.

Coca-Cola has murdered 7 colleagues, have supported the ‘war’ in Colombia, have contaminated the environment and employ 94% temporal workers. In 1928, 10,000 workers and their families were murdered by military forces in Ciénaga (Colombia) by the Chicita Brands Company (the successor to the United Fruit Company) while protesting against the terrible working conditions in the company plantations. They were taken to court for this massacre but were fitted a bill for a measly $30 million for their involvement in the massacre. The reason given was that they didn’t directly murder the workers but instead supported the paramilitaries with money and arms who committed the act.

Colombia is the 8th most resource rich country in the world. A few years ago it was amongst the first. The fall in rank is due to the amount of resources that are being exploited mainly by multinationals. There are national reserves with lots of oxygen, many important rivers that commence in mountain rangers, situated throughout the country and a lot of diversity due to the broad climatic range. Colombia is rich in many minerals, metals, coal and oil. It also holds enough land to produce sufficient food for the entire country as well as export to neighbours, yet there is a large amount of starvation and malnutrition. The majority of the land in Colombia is controlled and exploited by multinationals making food unaffordable for many. The government has privatised almost everything: the roads, the health system, education, natural resources, etc. Other countries who aren’t half as rich resource wise, are much better off than Colombia as they have sovereignty over their resources. Farmers and indigenous people are being displaced off their land and are forced to move to the cities where there are few opportunities for them.

A few years ago farmers were being killed and buried underneath African Palm seeds which grows huge roots making it impossible to dig up the bodies. The practice was called Palma Africana. The military have also been known to pay people to accuse indigenous leaders of treason so as to have a reason to imprison them. They seduce indigenous girls so as to obtain information from them. But when farmers and indigenous people start to organise themselves, they are often signalled out and harassed for doing so. Justice in Colombia is only for a selected few. The law has been drawn in favour of the powerful, leaving out the majority of the population.

There are 102 indigenous groups in Colombia with a population of 1,300 000 and 66 different language groups (the governments figures are much lower than this as their criteria for who’s indigenous is incomplete); there are currently 38 indigenous communities in danger of physical and cultural extinction – 15 of these have less than 500 habitants and 10 of these have less than 200 habitants. In 2009 there were 1340 indigenous people murdered; in 2010 there have been 116 so far. Paramilitaries are responsible for over 60% of the deaths of indigenous people. Deaths and displacements occur in the name of resources. Gota a’ gota was a government project where they bought indigenous land by offering small amounts of money, yet the largest sum that many indigenous families had seen in their life time, resulting in the displacement of the leaders of the communities, loosing indigenous culture and destroying communities entirely. Indigenous people are displaced to urban centres and end up lost and convert to prostitution and drugs (on a positive note, diffusing information to indigenous communities has had an impact as in the case of the gota a´ gota program, people are now aware of the catch and are more skeptical.)

There are more than 20,000 displaced indigenous people in Bogotá. In total there are 100,000 displaced indigenous people in Colombia. “We can no longer practice our culture in urban centres” says Adolfo Montero, an indigenous Kankuamo man. Indigenous people’s relation with the earth is very powerful; where they are born is where they need to die. Their customs and traditions are based around the land where they are from.

The Kankuamos are some of the most affected indigenous people due to the resources that they hold on their land such as oil and minerals. More than 300 indigenous people have been murdered in Kankuamo since 1986 and more than 400 displaced and 700 orphaned. It has a population of 13,000 with 12 communities, some of which have been destroyed completely.

But it’s not just for resources that displacement occurs. Some people leave the communities to be further away from the conflict between the military and the guerrillas.

Colombia is one of the most militarised countries in the world with military checkpoints every few kilometres and surveillance in many parts of the country. The military presence is felt as you walk through cities, towns and villages, encountering numerous military in the streets, a much higher number than the police that you would find in other countries. Both FENSUAGRO and ONIC report that farmers and Indigenous people are repeatedly intimidated and harassed by the military; they are asked for their identification every time they go and in out of their communities and get given trouble if they are unable to produce any, even though the military know who they are and where they are from.

SINALTRAINAL and FENSUAGRO have had many staff who have been harassed by the government, having their emails and phone calls intercepted and intelligence being collected against them, which has led to some of them being murdered. Last year (2009) FENSUAGRO had all of their bank accounts mysteriously closed making it very difficult for them to continue their activities. Thankfully they have been able to reopen them since.

SINALTRAINAL have recorded 4300 unionists who have been killed in the last 20 years; the national union organization says that there are 2300 that have been killed. This discrepancy of 2000 unionists are the deaths of unionists who haven’t been denounced to the authorities for fear of retribution. 40 members of SINALTRAINAL have been murdered in 2009 and 10 have been murdered so far in 2010. FENSUAGRO have documented a total of 1500 members murdered in 33 years of operation plus 150 imprisoned and 500 displaced. But it’s not only the union movement who are being murdered. People working in the Indigenous movement, in the human rights movement, the student’s movement and any social organization that is opposed to the government is in danger. Liliany Obando, a worker of FENSUAGRO has been imprisoned for the last 20 months (since the 8th August 2008), falsely accused of having links with the FARC. The trial is repeatedly delayed as there is no proof of this false accusation and they want to keep her imprisoned for as long as possible. The war that has been occurring against the FARC has also been occurring against social organizations, farmers and indigenous.

There are 7 military bases operated by the United States in Colombia. In 2009 the U.S. and Colombian government signed an agreement to expand and formalise the U.S. military presence in Colombia, making the presence more visible than what it was before. Surrounding South American countries have spoken out in protest for the increase in foreign military presence and the threat that this causes towards South America. There is no vigilance on the American military in Colombia (no U.S. jurisdiction or court martials), making them largely immune to any responsibility for their actions. The United States has continued to fund the war against the guerrillas (FARC) and have given a total of 5 billion since the year 2000. There are 178,000 military in Colombia maintained by a huge military budget which is largely supported by the U.S.

Plan Colombia is a plan from the United States said to be against drug trafficking (when read in Spanish) but in fact is a plan of support for the war. The U.S. give a lot of money towards funding this war which goes towards ammunition, weaponry, aircrafts, etc. Transnational and multinational companies also send money to support this war. Through Plan Colombia the government have quotas that they have to fill in regards to how many drug traffickers they must arrest. To do this, they set people up, inventing stories and therefore filling their quotas. The ulterior motive of this plan is in fact aimed at social organizations that are against the interests of the transnational and multinational companies.

The government terrorises people to build fear so as to annihilate any popular mobilization, to stop people wanting to fight the system and to impede any resistance. The Uribe government has been in power for 8 years now and there is substantial proof that 35 out of the 102 senators in Colombia have been involved in supporting paramilitaries. The presidential elections are planned for May 30th in which the current President Alvaro Uribe is unable to seek a third term after the Constitutional Court rejected a referendum to allow a third term for President. SINALTRAINAL amongst other unions/organizations, are supporting a political party called Democracia Alternativa who currently have 18 congressmen in power.

SINALTRAINAL would like for the ‘La Gran Bolivar’ to take place, a plan headed by Chavez to unite and integrate South America. SINALTRAINAL want the population of Colombia to be part of the solution, to voice up their opinions of how they want Colombia to be. They want sovereignty in Colombia from any outside forces and want the population of Colombia to help construct a new Colombia. They want representative democracy and would like to work towards installing socialism in Colombia. But most of all, they want peace for Colombia. SINALTRAINAL feels like they have tried everything in their fight against multinationals; mobilisations, boycotts, picket lines, petitions, etc. They are now reaching out internationally to obtain support from the international community. So far they have been to the European Court to present their findings, Atlanta (where one of the headquarters for Coca-cola is based), requesting for Coca-cola to admit their violations against human rights and to construct help centres for the victims.

ONIC and Organizacion Indigena Kankuamo want the government to respect indigenous people’s land and territory. They want power to be within indigenous hands and hope to return people to their communities and reconnect them with their spirituality and culture. Indigenous people’s human rights need to be reinstated and respected and a healing process needs to commence. They are hoping to hold a consultative gathering for all indigenous people of Colombia to analyse 'where to from here'. They want to link communities together so that they can help and support each other as well as organise peace centres to help people towards their journey back to recovery.

All four organizations want the truth to be known about what is happening in Colombia. They want support from the international community and want pressure to build against the current government in place, the multinationals who are taking advantage of their natural resources and the human rights violations that they commit as well as the U.S. intrusion into their own internal affairs.