Colombia's Indigenous Self-Defense Troops Go Without Guns
Colombia's Indigenous Self-Defense Troops Go Without Guns
Rural communities that have lost leaders to targeted killings have taken to protecting themselves, and without the use of firearms.
Edinson Arley BolañosEL ESPECTADOR2020-10-07
English edition • WORLDCRUNCH
BOGOTA — It happens again and again in Colombia. Community leaders and activists are murdered, often having received death threats beforehand. And in each case, we ask ourselves afterwards if there was some way the person could have been protected. Why, if they'd already been threatened, didn't they have bodyguards?
Since the government signed its Peace Accord in 2016 with the now disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), there has been a marked increase in such killings. In that span, the Defensoría del Pueblo, Colombia's national ombudsman's office, has so far counted 562 murders of community advocates.
In addition, more than 3,600 activists currently receive some kind of protection from the state: in some cases a bullet-proof jacket, armored car and two bodyguards; in others a phone with a panic button. But according to some of the most affected groups, the best form of protection comes from within the communities themselves. Collective protection, they say, works better than whatever kind of security measures the state can provide.
In the northern part of the Cauca department, increasing violence and the arrival, early this century, of paramilitaries, prompted residents to organize a Guardia Indígena, a unit of unarmed indigenous guards that recruits locals to defend the community and serve as "carers of life and the territory," as they're known in the area's native language.
With an increase in paramilitary violence, the guard increasingly took on humanitarian tasks, serving as peacemakers and helping dispense indigenous justice. After 2007, the communities also faced pressure from the FARC. These days, the guardians are facing a new wave of violence as armed men seek to block its work and progress.
Edwin Mauricio Capaz, human rights coordinator for the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, or ACIN, in Spanish, points out that last year, nine native guard members were killed. "The guard's strategy, once the FARC left its territories, was to fill those spaces," he explains. "The communities ordered the removal of armed actors from ancestral zones. That immediately led to an explosion of different armed parties accusing guardsmen of working for military intelligence or rival armed gangs."
More:
https://worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/colombia39s-indigenous-self-defense-troops-go-without-guns