Casanare isn’t the only part of the country where the army is killing members of populations who don’t fit into a development model geared towards resource extraction by multinational corporations. Last week we traveled to Catatumbo in the north-eastern region of Santander to hear evidence that social organizations had collected into murders by the army in the part of Santander near the northernmost part of the boarder with Venezuela.
This is an interview with a member of CISCA, the Committee for Social Integration in Catatumbo, which is made up of representatives of peasant farmer and indigenous communities and is building a local level model of society and economy called a Plan de Vida (Plan for Life).
TELL US ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN CATATUMBO AND ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE MOMENT IN THE REGION
We’re peasant farmers in Catatumbo who arrived in the region in search of work, through a process of land occupation. Catatumbo is on the border with Venezuela and has rich deposits of coal and oil as well as great biodiversity. The Catatumbo river runs through most of the region and is the main source of the Maracaibo lake in Venezuela. The land is shared between farmers and the original inhabitants, the Barí indigenous people who have lived on thos land for centuries and who today work closely as a community with the campesinos – both in food production and in acts of resistance, so that both the Barí and campesinos can live on the land.
Through this, the Catatumbo Committee for Social Integration – CISCA – was born, the aim of building social proposals for remaining on the land and in defense of life, which integrates everyone in Catatumbo – teachers, workers, peasant farmers, the Barí people, women, children, old people – so that we can follow the dream of continuing to live in Catatumbo and oppose the Colombian state’s intention to remove the people who live here in order to exploit natural resources – to empty the region of inhabitants in order for the state, along with transnational corporations, to remain with riches like coal and oil and to implement new cultivation strategies, such as crops of oil palm, cocoa, caucho and higuerilla, which they have been proposing to us but which we haven’t accepted.
There’s extensive oil palm in lower Catatumbo [see our previous posting http://www.bristol.indymedia.org.uk/newswire.php?story_id=26987&search_text=Tribunal ], which reflects the fact that the area was under paramilitary control since 1999. After the so-called paramilitary ‘demobilization’ in 2004, [http://www.espacio.org.uk/backgroundtocolombia.htm] the oil palm crops were increased, as has the interest in oil and coal exploration and extraction by transnational companies and the Colombian government. There is an important relationship between the paramilitaries and the current exploitation of natural resources [http://www.espacio.org.uk/backgroundtocolombia.htm] and the repercussions this has had on the lives of those of us who live in the region.
WHAT US YOUR ORGANIZATION’S PROPOSAL AND WHAT HAS THE STATE’S RESPONSE BEEN THE DEMANDS AND REQUESTS THAT YOU’VE PRESENTED?
We are in a region that has been abandoned by governments and hasn’t achieved the indicators of development that all human beings deserve as part of human dignity. This abandonment is reflected in appalling roads to access the region, no possibility of selling our products, isolation, denial of the right to education, denial of the right to health – and to even talk of housing just highlights the impossibility of having a dignified home. Because of this we’ve organized ourselves and begun to build a proposal called a Plan for Life (Plan de Vida), where the different communities begin to reflect about what it is we want, what we ought to have, what our rights are and to understand that there is a state that is responsible for what happens to us or what stops happening. So, with the participation of the communities, the different villages, the Barí people and campesinos, we’re building a Plan for Life – a plan so that we can stay on our land, have life and live in Catatumbo.
However, the government has ignored all the iniciatives coming from the region and given us a military presence. The only state presence in the region is Mobile Brigade No 5 and Brigade No. 30, and it’s being announced that from November Brigade No 21 will also be in operation. Which is to say, a strong militarization for a region inhabited by only 250,000 people and made up on only 8 municipalities. This offer of the state to the communities, in form of military presence, has mean numerous atrocities in the form of an increasing number of extra-judicial execution, which so far this year have amounted to more than 30. There are 30 dead inhabitants of the region, who have had nothing to do with armed conflict, but who are presented by the military as guerrillas killed in combat.
We’re worried by the number of deaths and the way campesinos are being attacked. We can’t walk on the paths alone any more because at any moment we could be shot and a ‘guerilla’ reported killed in combat, when it is a campesino who was going to market for their family, who was harvesting crops or just working on their farm. This situation has been ongoing since February this year and represents a systematic decision to kill those who live in this region of Catatumbo. To recount some cases… Eliécer Ortega … is detained by the army and later appears in the Ocaña morgue reported as a guerilla killed in combat when he’s a campesino from the region. Carlos Daniel Martínez … the army arrive at this house and find him alone, a man of almost 50, and he’s killed in the morning and reported as a guerilla killed in combat. The same in the case of the two young men who were detained by the army, murdered and thrown into the Catatumbo river – the bodies were found in the lower part of the river. This could continue, there are more than 30 cases.
This is a great worry, because the army Brigades are ‘successful’ by killing campesinos and reporting them as killed in combat. We want to tell the national and international community about all of this because what is happening to us is a decision to get rid of the people who live in the region of Catatumbo. We know about the conflict in the region but we demand that they respect the civilian population, the non-combatants, the campesinos, the indigenous people, those of us who live in the region…. The only thing that we have is a bit of land to work and on which to raise a family. We are not using arms, we are not saying anything other that that we want to live in the region and build a project for staying on our territory.
The national army is committing these atrocities against the population, and we have reported this to government bodies – the Vice Presidency of the Republic, the Ministry of the Interior and also to the Brigade commanders. In the municipality of El Tarra, the community, the families of the victims, of those who have been executed by the army reported this behaviour to the high command of the Mobile Brigade No 15.
We believe that there should be some mechanisms so that the Colombian government and army understand that we have a right as Colombians to live in this region and to be allowed to live peacefully in Catatumbo.
ACCORDING TO YOUR ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION, ARE THE OUTRAGES THAT ARMY IS COMMITTING AGAINST THE POPULATION A RESULT OF THE NEED TO REPORT KILLINGS OF GUERRILLAS AND SHOW RESULTS AGAINST THE INSURGENCY OR ARE THEY PART OF A STRATEGY TO EXHAUST AND DISPLACE THE POPULATION IN FAVOUR OF THE INTERESTS THAT YOU MENTIONED – OIL AND COAL EXTRACTION AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INDUSTRIAL MONOCULTURES?
The army Brigades are in the region under the pretext of counter-insurgency and of ending the guerrilla presence in the region. However, we believe that underneath this military strategy there is an aim to guarantee the extraction of mineral and energy resources and natural resources in general… This military presence provides security for the oil companies, for the transnational corporations who are putting everything into coal extraction, those who are sowing oil palm, those who want to privatize the water, as well as providing a presence near the frontier to control the project of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It’s also a strategy to stigmatize those of us who live in the region, accompanied by the terror sown by the national army across the region of Catatumbo, village by village, saying that now the Black Eagles [paramilitary militias] are coming.
We think that this strategy of terror is being sown by the national army so that we are afraid, so that we leave. In some cases, the army has directly asked the campesinos ‘why don’t you go, why don’t you leave the region’. Which is to say that there is an interest in emptying the territory by whatever means – by criminalization, by legal cases against us, by detentions, by murders, by the strategy of terror, so that the people leave. All of this goes hand in hand with whatever counter-insurgency strategy, so that there are the security conditions for the transnational companies to exploit the region’s resources. That is how we understand it.
In the face of this horror, we ask the national and international community to be aware of our situation and ready to act because they are killing and displacing us in order to have a territory – a territory that is going to be practically wiped out as 15 thousand hectares of Catatumbo are being requested for open-face coal mining. This will be an ecological disaster, it will end life in the region, end the culture of production and also certainly put an end to the Barí people, who despite having been in the furthest corners of the territory for years, the last bit that remains for them will be threatened by the exploitation of energy resources.
I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to give your our voice and join it to the voices of the peoples of the world so that people know what is going on in the region of Catatumbo. Here we are building resistance, building a project for life that will allow us to remain in the territory, that will allow us to bring up our families and participate in society…. The Colombian government may not be interested in the people, but only in resources and the riches of Catatumbo which can contribute to the enriching of transnational companies, but we are interested in life – for us the most important thing is to live life in harmony with nature. For this reason, the indigenous people and campesinos of Catatumbo demand that the Colombian state respect our lives and our decision to remain in the territory. We also ask for solidarity from all those who can hear us or read us, from those who know that we are building resistance, they don’t forget us, that they accompany us, that they are ready to act and help so that you are our voice in all places for the defence of life and the right to remain on the land.
A fraternal embrace from Catatumbo for everyone who is building resistance and the conditions for life in the world.
