Earlier this afternoon, the Association of Indigenous Authorities of Northern Cauca (ACIN) received the text of a threat by email, which we are attaching below for you to read. This letter of terror, signed by the CEC (Campesinos Embejucados del Cauca, or ‘Furious Peasants of Cauca’), announces that “at approximately 00:00 tonight, you will receive information regarding the murders at the hands of peasants of paHECES [1] and the ex-guerrilla heads of the CRIC, which will be confirmed by phone and a consequences of their disrespect.” In this threat, we are referred to as paHECES, or ‘excrement,’ exposing the racism of the author(s). Más...

“At 2:00pm yesterday, the Indigenous Council of the Delicias Reserve received a call from Afro-Colombians from Mirasoles, who were at the foot of Cerro Catalina, informing us that there were outsiders in our territory. We left immediately, and in half an hour arrived in the area. When we arrived we found 12 people: some from Bogotá, some from Buenaventura, and there were even some indigenous people from Amazonas, from Leticia specifically, who identified themselves as members of the community of Miraña,” explained a member of the Council in Delicias.
Más...

Yesterday, 29 May, Amparo (23 years of age) and her brother Silvio Chaguendo Ipia (27 years of age), two indigenous Nasa and members of the Tacueyó Council, ran for refuge in their home during confrontations between the guerilla and the army that were occurring near La Cominera, Northern Cauca.  According to many witnesses, soldiers from the National army assigned to the Codazzi or Pichincha Battalions, ordered a woman and her daughter to open the door to their home only to murder Amparo and Silvio.
Más...

Today, 21 May 2008, in the hacienda La Emperatriz, nearly 500 people claimed their right to land and demanded the fulfillment of agreements that the Colombian state made with indigenous communities in Northern Cauca. Agreements associated with the massacre in El Nilo. The community was attacked by the ESMAD [the Colombian version of a 'SWAT' team] of the national police with bombs and firearms, seriously injuring 8 indigenous Nasa. Victims of the attack included Eulogio Dagua Cuetia, Luís Enrique Ramos, Alex Méndez and Luís Eduardo Ramos, community members from the reserves of Jambaló, San Francisco, Huellas, and Toribío.
Más...

We have just received painful news, invading our souls with bitterness and hopelessness upon learning that the lifeless body of our compañero Ovidio Málaga, ex-governor of the Puerto Pisario Council, in the Lower San Juan, and those of another five Afro-Colombian compañeros, were found in García Gómez, a territory located between the Chocó and Valle departments.
Más...

Dear Representative Pelosi and Congress of the United States of America: 

First, we would like to express our joy and gratitude for the decision made April 10, 2008, in the United States Congress. With 224 votes in favor and 195 against, the House of Representatives, over which you preside, decided to indefinitely freeze the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the US.

"Three years later, like us, you said no to the Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement."

Author: Manuel Rozental, Translation: Micheal O’Tuathail.

The introduction of the Indigenous and Popular Mandate [2] of September 2004 in Cali put forward the struggle of the peoples and social movements of Colombia. “The challenge that unites us” [3] is the recognition that it is not a struggle of demands within a social order but one of a confrontation between two paradigms, two ways of understanding life that are opposite and incompatible.
Más...

"I think that there is a basic ethical principle that most Canadians I know would sign for: no corporate investment in a country or a region where human rights abuses are endemic."
           
 By Stuart Neatby. January 4, 2008 Más...