President Ivan Duque’s plan to send 2,500 soldiers to Cauca in southwest Colombia may be a military offensive against indigenous authorities rather than narco-guerrillas.
The announcement triggered a red alert both in northern Cauca, where dissident FARC guerrillas massacred an indigenous governor and four guards, and in Geneva, the main office of the United Nations’ human rights office.
Both know Duque is distorting the truth about the causes and suspects of deadly violence in the province, and that his allies occupy land that belongs to the Nasa people.
Regional indigenous authority CRIC said Friday that it fears the military will not be used to protect their communities, but to impose “a model of land dispossession.”
“The permanent police and permanent military attack on the indigenous guard and the communities that recover land in the municipalities of Corinto and Caloto to favor the interests of the sugar cane plantations,” said CRIC.
How to steal land the size of a small country and get away with it | Part I
Duque’s distortion of the truth
In an interview with RCN Radio, Duque said that “the biggest challenge we have today in Cauca is the presence of these organized armed groups… FARC dissidents, who are trying to intimidate the community because they work in the service of cartels, including Mexican cartels.”
This is utter nonsense. According to think tank Indepaz, the primary reason behind the death of the 163 leaders who have been assassinated since 2016 is land.
Contrary to Duque’s claims, the cocaine trade in which the Mexicans have an interest is the last on the list of presumed reasons why Cauca’s leaders are being assassinated.
Presumed reasons behind Cauca’s social leaders’ assassinations
Source: Indepaz
Furthermore, the majority of the leaders who have been assassinated were allegedly killed by unidentified assassins and paramilitary groups.
FARC dissidents are suspected of 19% of the murders, making them hardly the “the biggest challenge” in regards to public security.
The conflict of interest
Controversially, the land-related conflicts directly implicate the president’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, and Carlos Ardila, the owner of sugar company Incauca and the radio station that interviewed Duque.
De la Salle University
Ardila and the CRIC have been at odds with each other, because the indigenous communities have been “liberating” the lands that are being occupied by Incauca in violation of the deal between the Colombian state, the indigenous and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
This has led to clashes with the military, which has been protecting Ardila’s private interests instead of the local community and their legitimate claims to the lands usurped by Incauca.
The military and the narcos
It is no secret that corrupt elements within the military have been working with drug traffickers and paramilitaries in the region since the 1990s.
In fact, “there are serious reasons to believe there are coordinated actions between sectors of the security forces and criminal groups,” the CRIC said Friday.
CRIC
According to the UN’s human rights office, “the Nasa community has repeatedly raised the alarm with the authorities about threats to their safety,” but apparently to no avail.
The military and the massacre
Neither the CRIC nor the UN Human Rights Office understand how the alleged FARC dissidents who murdered indigenous governor Cristina Bautista were able to enter and leave indigenous territory in shiny black SUV’s without being noticed by the military that controls the entry and exit points.
CRIC
UN Human Rights Office
The warnings to the indigenous communities
Duque’s vow to send troops has come with several messages to the indigenous communities indicating the military is not going to Cauca to protect the communities, but to invade autonomous indigenous territory where no armed group, legal or illegal, is welcome.
Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutierrez
National Security adviser Rafael Guarin
The authorities and RCN have claimed that the military and the unarmed indigenous guard will work together, making the guards a direct military objective of FARC dissidents.
The CRIC responded that “the moment that the indigenous guard begins to coordinate with the security forces, it loses its autonomous character and its legitimacy based on the fact that its power comes from community force (never from arms or armed forces). The State cannot pretend to turn civil, autonomous, non-violent protection mechanisms into a wheel of a military machine.
CRIC
The UN Human Rights Office stressed “once again the urgent need for effective protection and preventive measures for indigenous peoples across the country, and particularly in the Northern Cauca region, in line with their right to land and their right to self-determination, as recognized by the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
UN Human Rights Office
The government has ignored the indigenous’ persistent calls to implement the peace deal with the FARC, particularly the counternarcotics element that would reduce narco’s influence in the region.
Instead, it is sending the army, which in areas like Tumaco and Catatumbo has only triggered an increase in the killing of civilians and in northern Cauca has been protecting private property rather than the locals.