The Awá Suffer Third Mass Killing This Year
posted by: Natasha G. 91 days ago
On August 26, twelve members of the Awá indigenous group, including five children, were killed in the Colombian department of Nariño. Attacks have gone on since September 2008, claiming the lives of over 50 members of the Awá community and displacing thousands.
The Awá, as well as other Colombian civilians, are vulnerable because they reside in areas that are used to grow or transport drugs, making claims to the land extremely valuable. The gunmen who attacked were unidentified, but the last series of killings were blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla group that is engaged in a forty-five year long civil war with the Colombian state.
Although the central government has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those involved, the indigenous organization Camawari wrote an open letter to President Alvaro Uribe claiming:
"We have been victims of all the perpetrators of armed conflict: guerrilla, paramilitary and forces of the State, who seem to be in favor of exterminating us to expel us from our territory. Hundreds of Awá have died either one by one or by massacres. And not one person has been detained for these acts. There is total impunity."
While often claims to territory or drug trafficking gets discussed in political terms, it is tragic and outrageous events such as these that show that innocent lives are at stake. Learn more about how you can protect human rights in Colombia here.
The Awá, as well as other Colombian civilians, are vulnerable because they reside in areas that are used to grow or transport drugs, making claims to the land extremely valuable. The gunmen who attacked were unidentified, but the last series of killings were blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla group that is engaged in a forty-five year long civil war with the Colombian state.
Although the central government has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those involved, the indigenous organization Camawari wrote an open letter to President Alvaro Uribe claiming:
"We have been victims of all the perpetrators of armed conflict: guerrilla, paramilitary and forces of the State, who seem to be in favor of exterminating us to expel us from our territory. Hundreds of Awá have died either one by one or by massacres. And not one person has been detained for these acts. There is total impunity."
While often claims to territory or drug trafficking gets discussed in political terms, it is tragic and outrageous events such as these that show that innocent lives are at stake. Learn more about how you can protect human rights in Colombia here.
Read more: colombia, human rights, Indigenous Rights
comments
Totally new approach to drug taking needed.
A thought - instead of terrorists buying the Afgani heroin to then buy weapons with their profits - we buy the heroin from the Afgani farmers and encourage them to grow saffron, pomegranets etc instead.
With the heroin we've bought, supply it free to those who must have it, but only in a safe/secure place away from the general population, with rehab facilities for the addicts and nurses/docs to prescribe to make sure no over dosing etc. Wouldn't that help take away a lot of crime relating to obtaining, supplying and affording to take this drug? I should imagine there would be financial savings on policing etc which could help pay for these facilities.
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Nobody in their right mind would come forward about anything for fear of death to themselves or family and can hardly blame them but someone has to do as long as their entire family is protected but even at that they have a lot of money so they can buy anyone they want to and that is another fact.
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Awá, Tule, Kankuamo, Wayú, Wiwa, Kogui, Embera Katío, Embera Chamí, Boca de Yi, Mandí, Virabazú, Nukak Makú, U'wa are only a few indigenous COLOMBIAN groups WHO WANT TO LIVE IN PEACE inside their millenarian lands, THEIR ANCESTORS' TRADITIONS, CULTURE AND RELIGION. The "civilized" war on drugs is killing them all. Narcoguerrillas, narcoparamilitary and official forces crossfire and uncountable and unspeakable associated forms of violence have condemned them to extinction. Meanwhile drug money (700.000 million dollars a year worlwide) and its corruption rules the world. LEGALIZATION WITH HEALTH CONTROL IS THE ONLY WAY OUT.
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When will we learn from our mistakes? This is exactly what happened to Native Americans, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, & handicapped people in Europe during WWII, and on and on and on. It's true that history repeats itself.
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If you really want to understant what our gov. has been doing in South and Central Americal for the last 50 years check out SOA Watch or read Tales of an Economic Hit Man. Our military trains para militaries at the School of the Americas to go back to their countries and kill and torture innocent people. We spray toxic chemicals all over their crops to kill the drug crops, but of course it also pollutes all the rest of the vegetation and the land. We create treaties like NAFTA which put million of small farmers out of work. Then we complain when they come here illegally because they are starving or their people are being wiped out by warring forces. Of course, The corporations also make money selling both sides weapons.
I agree with the previous poster all drug addictions should be treated the same way we treat booze. People should be jailed only if they commit a crime while on the substance such as driving, robbery endangering others etc.
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This is a sad commentary on American intervention. It is simply something that is kept out of the mainstream media and facts are never the issue of contention. These stories never are written up, expect for in rare cases in an obscure corner of a newspaper. I commend the expose's. The public has to be aware that these atrocities are not only part of the policies of the host governments, but due in part to the United State's political stance with these countries. It's a crying shame!
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More than 180 indigenous groups in South America are close to extermination either physically or culturally. Coca croppers and traffickers either kill or expel them out from their ancient lands. Also Colombian government and military forces are involved. Read the news and learn how many colombian congressmen are being investigated for their ties with narcoparamilitary groups (almost 100). US GOVERNMENT MUST STOP DRUG PROHIBITION and address its consumption as the public health issue it really is, and these and many other mass crimes and human rights violations will end. The world will change. Check Portugal's example.
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in1500 there were somewhere between 65-75 million natives living here. byt 1900, the white christian from europe had cut that to about 3 million. imported diseases were being used as germ warfare by at least 1612, even before europe understood germ theory. spanish and portugeuese catholics under orders of both church and state wiped out at least 30 million native people by 1700,in south, central america and mexico. up north they were being wiped out by the protestants. this scenario was repeated by the europeans and americans throughout the world: australia, tasmania, new zealand, oceania, africa, then onto colonize even india and africa, the middle east. leonard peltier rots in prison while not a single killing of sioux during that time was ever prosecuted. the bushman group from whichall human DNA comes is being cut to nothing in africa as they happen to reside on valuable mining lands...
FARC are no angels and have long since changed from their original role as a leftist guerilla movement to unseat yankee and multinational captialist exploitation of their people and resources. but as many years of reports show, the colombian government, often in dealings with american officials, has also been deeply involved in the vast fortunes fro that drug we americans love so much: cocaine.
even the native-holocaust-denying pope had words for colombia's uribe government over its death squads, including one that specialized in killing homeless kids...
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I agree that the media is a part of the problem in what they report, how it's packaged and in what they don't report. Colombia isn't "news" in Europe so we don't hear about these murders, but then also people get the news they deserve. We have an uneducated electorate in the U.K. more people voted in a TV talent contect than in our last parliamentary election. Keep getting the news out and it's up to the rest of us to lobby our decision makers and pass the word on.
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This is the thing with power: it also is an addiction, and a taste of it makes you want more and more. In the US we have been grafually loses our hard won freedoms, and this will not stop unless we become less the passive consumers of the "good life" and more active participants in the real world with so many people in paiin and want. Right now we are more ruled by an oligopoly than a republic. Many have their 'purchase" in on both sides of the ticket. It takes a brave and wise person to swim against that torrent. Such a one needs real and constsnt support from the people. I do hope we wake up and help our brothers and sisters in n eed. Next time it could be our turn to be deprived. Would we not want protest and succor on our behalf then? Then let us do that for those suffering and persecuted now.
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