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(CNN Spanish) - The blood and terror that have traveled to the department of Cauca, in southwest Colombia, during the last week recalls the history of violence that seems to have been waged against this territory since the armed conflict broke out in the country. First was the shooting murder of five indigenous people in Tacueyó, Toribío area, when on Tuesday they would have tried to prevent the entry of armed groups into their territory. Two days later, the murder of four people who were surveying in Corinth and, in a different event, the discovery of a corpse in the Huasanó district was known.
While President Iván Duque announced that he will send 2,500 soldiers and requested the transfer to the region of Defense Minister Guillermo Botero and the commander of the Military Forces, indigenous authorities have rejected the presence of troops in the territory. The Association of Indigenous Cabildos (ACIN) published this Thursday on Twitter that "the community of Tacueyó and Nasa project in extraordinary assembly said no more armed actors in our territories, whether legal or illegal."
The community of Tacueyó and project Nasa in extraordinary assembly said no more armed actors in our territories, whether legal or illegal, and gave 6 months to replace illegal crops @ONUHumanRights @ONIC_Colombia @MinInterior @CRIC_Cauca @DefensoriaCol pic.twitter.com/ZpDehfb3vW
- Cxhab Wala Kiwe - ACIN (@ACIN_Cauca) October 31, 2019
In that sense, Diego Jaramillo, from the Cauca Human Rights Network, explained to CNN in Spanish that there is concern in the territory about the consequences of increasing the power foot. "The fear of the communities is that the military increase, as announced, radicalizes the reaction of the armed organizations against the population much more," he said. He added that "it has been seen many times that the Army enters the area and does not respect indigenous jurisdiction, nor indigenous authority."
Isolated murders? No, according to the figures
The two massacres perpetrated this week in Cauca have also led international organizations to turn their gaze to the region and expose worrying scenarios. For example, the spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marta Hurtado, said Wednesday that so far this year the entity has documented 52 murders in Nasa territories, one of the indigenous communities of the territory. Eleven of those killed were human rights defenders. And precisely, a statement from this agency of the UN, stresses that "defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular, have been harassed and violently attacked for their work." Hurtado added that Cauca is increasingly affected by the violence that comes from criminal groups against indigenous peoples who try to prevent them from entering and operating in their ancestral territories. ”
Unfortunately, it is not a recent situation. Since November 2018, the Ombudsman's Office warned about the dangers in the territory: according to its figures, Cauca occupies the first place at the national level in the statistics of leaders and human rights defenders killed with 83 cases between January 1, 2016 to August 22, 2018. And it is aggravated by detailing that in 2017, of the 30 homicide leaders in the department, 15 were indigenous.
READ: Second massacre in less than three days in Cauca, Colombia, leaves several dead
To this we must add that the total murders recorded in the department for 2018 increased by more than 50% compared to 2017, reaching 532 compared to 303 the previous year, according to data from the Attorney General's Office. “Homicide figures for 2018 presented an increase after eight years of continuous decline. The reactivation of the armed confrontations in the Colombian territory seems to be the cause of this increase, ”explained the entity.
Walter Aldana, former peace advisor to the Department of Cauca, told CNN in Spanish that another worrying factor is not knowing exactly the armed groups that are attacking the communities. “It is not known who they are, some are presented without a name, others as Pelusos, as a strengthening of the ELN or as FARC dissidents. The community has the uncertainty of knowing who the armed men are and this leads to silence becoming life insurance: 'I say nothing, I have not seen anything'. It is a stubborn characteristic of war, ”he explained.
Coca crops, a dispute forged with violence
Aldana, who worked on the National Integral Program for the Substitution of Crops for Illicit Use Following the Peace Agreements of the Government of Colombia and the FARC, said that the departure of this guerrilla from areas that had historically controlled gave room for new armed groups to arrive whose main objective has to do with the drug and the routes that allow its exit. Which inherently carries a social issue. In his words: "armed groups will not allow anyone to oppose their project linked primarily to illegal crops," including indigenous authorities.
A report from the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz) published in 2018, registered that Cauca is one of the largest coca leaf producers in Colombia. And, with the withdrawal of the FARC, “and their withdrawal from the local illicit economy, these municipalities register a process of recomposition of powers and control with disputes between new and old armed, legal and illegal actors. And in the midst of this violent conflict there is an offensive of military control of the State and of supply with the programs of substitution or forced eradication ”.
MIRA: Colombia reaches record levels in coca crops and cocaine production, according to the US report.
At present, once the withdrawal of the FARC and its withdrawal from the local illicit economy took place, these municipalities register a process of recomposition of powers and control with disputes between new and old armed, legal and illegal actors.
This analysis is shared by Jaramillo, who emphasizes that the apparent tranquility in the first months after the signing of the agreement and the demobilization of the FARC “was the time that the armed organizations took to find the territories from which the guerrillas had left and They are areas where mining, coca production, marijuana are. In addition to the proximity to the Pacific to take out the drug. ” As it stands out, since last year and in 2019, the type of actions against the population and social organizations has been increasing as a result of this situation. It also highlights that in the territory some people are heard saying that they are “worse than when the FARC were here”.
Aldana adds that there are new varieties of coca leaves that make cultivar productivity higher, reaching almost 50%. "If before one hectare produced 350-400 arrobas, now it can produce 700 or 750," he says before adding that now four or five crops can be produced per year, with a product price that has increased considerably. However, he clarifies that the problem is not the illicit crops themselves, but the attention that the government is giving to the region. First because, he says, there were failures in the implementation for the voluntary substitution of crops, since the State only managed to serve a low percentage of families, and secondly because the only solution cannot be that the Army enters to “combat drug trafficking,” when what he ends up doing is "hitting the autonomy of communities."
Between the Calima Bloc of the AUC and the FARC they sowed terror for decades
The Colombian armed conflict swept through this region, in which 257,234 victims are registered, according to figures from the Victims Unit as of October 1, 2019. Of these, 21,536 directly suffered forced disappearance or homicide.
El Cauca was the department that suffered the most guerrilla incursions between 1965 and 2013, with a total of 309, followed by the Amazon with 252, according to the report of the National Historical Memory Center Tomas and guerrilla attacks . Most of them were from the FARC.
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The explanation, according to the entity, is that the actions obeyed the logic of the FARC to “keep a mobility corridor clear that communicates the north of Cauca with the departments of Valle del Cauca, Tolima, and Huila” and also “Deepen the influence in indigenous areas with the aspiration to adhere them to their political agenda”.
Precisely, since the first years of this guerrilla, Cauca was among its plans because since 1969, when the third conference is held in the Guayabero region, force is deployed towards this department, emphasizing the importance of the mobile guerrilla.
But the guerrilla attack was not the only thing that suffered the area. The paramilitaries also wanted to have a presence in the territory, more specifically since 2000 with the expansion of the Calima Block. Its objective in this case was “the acquisition of land in the northern area of Cauca and Jamundí and in the consolidation of a corridor for the exit of drugs to the Pacific”, in order to dispute the “business” to the FARC, as registered the National Historical Memory Center.
CaucaArmed conflictArmed conflict in ColombiaMasacre