In August, during the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s (CERD) 75th Session, Colombia, Peru, and the Philippines were among the states that were reviewed for their adherence to and implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. CERD raised many concerns about ongoing discrimination against Indigenous Peoples and made concrete recommendations on how the three states can improve their record in its Concluding Observations.
Twelve members of the Awá Indigenous community are reported to have been killed by armed men in camouflage on August 26, 2009 in El Rosario, Tumaco, in the southern border state of Nariño, Colombia. Eleven people were shot and killed, including four children and three teenagers, and three more were wounded.
On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.
Empresa Colombiana de la Coca, a Nasa Indian cooperative in southwestern Colombia, has begun producing and selling a soft drink that uses the coca leaf as its main ingredient, Reuters reports. The drink, called Coca Sek, is being produced in the high altitude town of Calderas in the Cauca Province. This new product is intended to help build the alternative coca leaf market, thus creating a viable economic alternative to the drug trade for small local indigenous coca famers.
This year alone, 17 indigenous youths as young as 12 years old have committed or attempted suicide in the rainforests of northwestern Colombia, reports the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
"This is not normal. Suicide is never acceptable in indigenous culture," Gerard Fayoux, who has run the UNHCR field office in Apartado for four years, told the UNHCR. "This is a sign of great distress in the communities."
Wayúu indigenous people from Alta Guajira region of Colombia have asked for international help in the wake of a brutal attack on the town of Bahía Portete.
In the wake of reports of renewed oil exploration on U’wa lands in Colombia, Cultural Survival spoke with Campaign Coordinator Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch for an update. Mr. Koenig reports that Ecopetrol has taken over the abandoned OXY drill site and has drilled further and deeper than before. In the weeks that followed this drilling, mixed reports have come from the drilling location.
"Before the gold was yellow, now it is black, but the color of the blood that pays for them continues being red, continues being Indian..."- U'wa Traditional Authorities
“Plan Colombia is a death sentence for us… [It] is a plan for violence. The money the United States is spending in Plan Colombia will go to protecting the international companies by purchasing arms, more sophisticated equipment, and to constructing military bases in the richest [resource] zones.” - Roberto Perez, President, U'wa Traditional Authority, Feb 7, 2001
On June 28 a meeting was held in Quito, under the title of “International Forum: The Impacts of the Spraying of Crops, Typified as “Illicit Activity”, and the Armed Conflict. Responses of the Indigenous Amazon Peoples of the Boundaries”. Amazonian indigenous peoples from Ecuador, Colombia, Perú and Brazil met to discuss a joint proposal for defending their traditional ways of life and environment in the face of Plan Colombia. The proposal will be addressed to their respective governments and to the United States in the coming months.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.