"Land and Life" is ACA's quarterly newsletter which analyzes current conditions in Colombia's agrarian struggles.

Edition #1, February 2006: "The Illusions and Realities of the Confrontation between Indigenous and Campesino Communities"

A publication of the Asociación Campesina de Antioquia – Edition 1- February 2006

In the final months of 2005 the indigenous communities of the North of Cauca, led by the CRIC – the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca- carried out an aggressive campaign of land seizures in which their prime objective was to demand that the State follow through on a series of political agreements which have accumulated in the last 80 years and which successive governments, during their time in power, have systematically failed to carry out. This initiative of the indigenous communities also aimed to put back in the public arena the debate about agrarian reform.

The theme of agrarian reform is especially important today not only because land reform has become a truncated dream that each president has acted to bury, but also because narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, with the patronage of the government, have begun in the last two decades to carry out a gigantic counter-agrarian reform, expelling campesinos , indigenous and afro-Colombians from their lands.

The campaign to recuperate land which was carried out by the indigenous last year (2005) received support and solidarity from a good number of social and grassroots organizations in the country. However, and paradoxically, we also saw on television a number of marches by campesinos and afro-Colombians protesting the actions of the indigenous. We then saw other marches by campesinos and afro-Colombians supporting the indigenous’ campaign. This generated confusion in public opinion about what is really happening in the North of Cauca between indigenous, campesinos and afro-Colombians, and which could also be seen as a reflection of the how relationships are, or might be, between these communities in other regions of Colombia.

The indigenous communities are sure that the marches by the campesinos against the indigenous action came about due to a manipulation of the campesino population by the landowning class of Cauca, headed by the Governor Juan Jose Chaux Mosquera, whose family is one of the largest landowner in the region. They also claim that the march was related to the declarations by the Governor of Cauca and also by the Vice-President of the Republic of Colombia, Francisco Santos. In front of the press the Vice-President cast aside the indigenous’ demand to more land for farming and said that the indigenous were already landowners and those who really had need for land in the region were the afro-Colombians. In the same vein, the Governor Chaux Mosquera assured, also in front of the press, that the indigenous didn’t need more land, and that those who really had a shortage of land were the campesinos. The role of the government and the landholders of Cauca didn’t stop here. According to the indigenous, they went as far as to directly organize the protests.

This manipulation is true and not all that unusual, but we shouldn’t ignore the tensions that have arisen between the indigenous, campesino and afro-Colombian communities in the last few decades, caused by the particular dynamics that each of the organizations have assumed in order to struggle for their recovery. These tensions are obvious today in Cauca and are taken maximum advantage of by the landholding classes, not only in Cauca, but also in the whole country.

The most recent tensions may have their root in certain political strategies that the indigenous movement has adopted, which have clashed with the dynamics of other organizations. Above all these are the indigenous proposal around controlling their own education, their aims at expansion and drainage of their lands, autonomous management of health as well as the role played by the subsidized Administrator of Indigenous Health Regime.

It would be worthwhile therefore to analyze these three elements and the way in which they affect relationships between indigenous and campesino communities.

The Provision of Health Services

It is undeniable that because of their mobilizations, and also possibly due to the favorable environment in the world today towards ethnic minorities, the indigenous of Cauca have achieved recognition of some of their particular rights – a fact which has privileged them from the rest of society. An example of this is that in order to aid them in developing their own health system, they have been given the opportunity to construct their own health administrative system so that the resources they are assigned for health can be managed in their own way. This doesn’t just give them access to resources, but also to a certain autonomy in their health programs and policies, which allows them to advance and consolidate the practice of traditional medicine, the development of which has been one of their greatest historical struggles with western society.

The problem is the way this post of the health administrative system (ARS – Spanish acronym) is constructed. According to the law the notion of doling out funds per number of members which a program has, is fundamental. Therefore in order for the program to gain sufficient resources to be viable, the indigenous need to recruit a large number of members. The need to increase the size of the registered indigenous population is therefore implied, which in turn implies a need for an increase in the amount of indigenous territory. The heart of the problem therefore is land, although it may seem at first glance to be something tangential. The increase in the size of the registered indigenous population also has implications for the make-up of regional power, as it will not just increase the resources of the indigenous reserves, but also the electoral potential of the indigenous, giving them the chance to not only a few seats the Chamber or the Senate but also change the set up of regional powers like the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of North Cauca (ACIN) and the Indigenous Social Alliance. This has meant that the logic of the indigenous organization has begun to cross with the dynamic of traditional politicking. The leaders don’t always manage to stay honest enough to escape the perversions that are implicit in this, and leaders sometimes carry out actions that clash with the dynamic of the popular movement and form alliances that cannot always be justified.

Because of these motives, the affiliation of the campesino population with the Indigenous Councils has been encouraged, with a focus on encouraging campesino populations to affiliate themselves first with an Indigenous Council and later with a Indigenous Health Administration. In some cases this has stimulated discomfort on both sides. Due to the lack of available good quality health to which campesinos have access today, many have no qualms about linking themselves to an Indigenous Council in order to find better care. However, they are not disposed to assume the responsibilities that belonging to an Indigenous Council implies. This ends up de-legitimizing indigenous authority and injuring the movement. Furthermore, this linking of campesinos to indigenous hasn’t occurred as part of a strategic plan that responds to political or socio-cultural ideas, but rather looks only to addressing the material want on both sides.

Added to this should be the fact that a large sector of organized campesinos have begun to warn that this practice of indiscriminate linking of campesinos to Indigenous Councils is a way that the indigenous are buying consciousness with the solitary aim of gaining a large amount of resources for its health programs, but which results in weakening the construction of a campesino organizational process.

Another example of this is in the teaching examination promoted by the State, which aims to fill the many teaching vacancies in the various regions. Teachers sought the approval of the Indigenous Council, but this was done not to consolidate the indigenous movement but rather to secure teaching posts in the area. This subject however is something that deserves separate analysis.

Project of Educational Autonomy

We know that education is a fundamental element in the struggle of indigenous communities and is the backbone to their strategies; the strengthening of its autonomy, development and strengthening of their culture, the recuperation of identity; the consolidation of unity and even the fight for land. All of these things are influenced by education. The indigenous community has achieved a few triumphs in this, but always as a result of pressure they have asserted and mobilizations that they have carried out. This has given them a certain recognition today, at least legally, as the existence of the Law 804 [promoting ethnic education] demonstrates.

The CRIC have used to their advantage the context of privatization in which education finds itself today, and they have demonstrated their desire to offer educational services in indigenous territory. The strategy adopted by the indigenous movement looks to take advantage of institutional spaces that will allow them to realize their collective objectives. In the case of education this lets them win state resources and then reinvest them in educational processes for indigenous communities and also turn themselves into the driving force of educational policies in indigenous territories, snatching this right away from the hands of the State and also the Catholic Church, who continue functioning as directors of education in many regions. The indigenous community in the North of Cauca, under the guidance of the CRIC, now not only has the possibility to administer their own education centers, but can also construct their own educational proposals for all classes from primary up to university level.

This has created some discomfort within campesino organizations. At the heart of the proposal is the definition of indigenous territory, which in an indirect way ends up touching upon the interests of other communities as well, above all in the zones where legal constituted indigenous reserves haven’t been established, but in which the indigenous aspire to have one and where a constituted Indigenous Council is already operating – which is the traditional indigenous authority and is defined as the political and administrative entity of any indigenous reserve.

Often in zones where there is a Council but no official reserve there is a large campesino population, who have come there either through the colonization process or, due to the violence that Colombian campesino communities have been forced to endure dating back to the days of the Wars of Independence, they have come there as victims of displacement in other rural zones. Therefore the economic policy of the indigenous community to enlarge their territory and political and organizational influence, which has in its sight these zones of campesino colonization, end up also affecting the campesino community. In this way, the educational problem is part of the tension between indigenous and campesino communities in so far as former intends to form official reserves in lands that are not fully indigenous. Campesinos warn that by controlling education in this way the indigenous are looking to enlarge their territory and by co-opting non-indigenous populations for this project they are affecting the campesino identity. One example of this is that the educational project of the CRIC has, as a fundamental element, the teaching of the nasa yume language. When there is a large population of campesinos in these territories, who are thus obliged to study in these institutions administered by the CRIC, it becomes complicated and campesinos, which have faced the weight of cultural discrimination for centuries, often view the obligation to learn the nasa language as something rather offensive.

And finally, the fact that the CRIC is turning itself into an administrator of educational services can be judged as a contributing to the privatization of education.

Enlarging territory

The process of constructing an indigenous reserve requires the formation of an Indigenous Council in the territory that is being claimed as ancestral. After this is carried out, the community claiming itself to be indigenous begins a process with the Interior Ministry’s ethnicity department in order to gain official recognition. This requires a socio-economic study that ratifies the many aspects needed for a community to be officially identified as indigenous, bearing in mind the history of the relationship between indigenous groups and the land. Due to this long process, the indigenous have been searched for intervening mechanisms to gain access to “their land”. One of these has been the land seizures; another has been buying land either with public resources or their own, which are often acquired by means of their mobilizations. The indigenous have also carried out a series of judicial battles, before national and international tribunals, as part of the dispute for the lands that they view as theirs.

On many occasions, however, these mechanisms have resulted in clashes with campesino and afro-Colombian communities, most of all in regards to some of the land purchases. One example of this was in the southwest of the country, specifically in Cauca and Nariño. In this area there is a large population of small farmers, the largest of whose holdings do not exceed 50 hectares. In contrast, the large estates in these regions are concentrated in very few hands. Nevertheless, the indigenous community has many times demonstrated their intention to purchase smallholdings occupied by campesinos, the sale of which results in the abrupt rupture of the campesinos from their land – a resource equally essential to campesino survival as it is to the indigenous.

Campesinos suffer continual displacement and loss of their land throughout almost the entire country. This has resulted in constant displacement causing them to have to constantly start over in another place. This is why it is necessary today to understand that land is as important for campesino and afro-Colombian communities as it is for indigenous. They also live off the land and throughout their history have created a special relationship with it. In addition, campesinos have also carried out battles in order to maintain and recuperate their lands and in this process have been repressed to such a degree that the backbone has been taken out of the campesino movement on a number of occasions. The campesino shares with the indigenous this idea of land being inherent to their identity.

If today there are campesinos inhabiting and cultivating lands which the indigenous consider to be part of their territory it is not because of any desire on the part of the campesinos themselves but rather due to the dynamics of the war that that has installed large scale landowners and thrust the campesinos from one place to another. In each new place the campesino has tried to secure once again his intimate relationship with the land that sustains him and which forms his cultural base.

In needs to be kept in mind, however, that the most common practice of the indigenous isn’t to try and buy campesino lands and take them over. This happens only occasionally and is due to the arrogance of specific leaders. In general terms the indigenous have focused primarily on the purchase or invasion of large estates that are in the hands of large landowners - a concentration of land that affects indigenous and campesino communities alike. However the small rifts that have been allowed to grow between campesino and indigenous have been exploited in a very intelligent way by the landowners, helped by the ruling class of the country.

This is how the idea has been sown in certain sectors of campesino and afro-Colombian communities that it is the indigenous that are actually responsible for the problems they face accessing land. Some people claim that the indigenous are in fact large-scale landowners and that they have accumulated some of the country’s best lands, which they then often leave uncultivated. These arguments were spread and distributed in an editorial of El Tiempo [Colombian newspaper] which was circulated throughout the country precisely during the days of in which the indigenous were carrying out their land seizures. The editorial stated as definite the opinion that the indigenous have many privileges which campesinos don’t. This is true in part, but it is due to the achievements they have made in having such privileges consigned to law, thanks largely to the mobilizations that they have carried out and in which they have suffered many deaths. There exists, in addition, a favorable international environment towards the conservation and preservation of ethnic ‘minorities’. But it needs to be left clear that none of the privileges that indigenous enjoy in legal terms are a detriment to the rights of the campesino, or at least this is not their intention.

Regarding the statement that indigenous are actually large-scale landowners who don’t actually work their land, it is true that the indigenous have in their hands some of the best lands in the country. However, it is worth citing how the ACIN responded to this argument in a communication that was put out on their website on the 18th October of last year, which stated:
“We the indigenous have title (which doesn’t mean possession because in the jungle and the U’wa reserves, this land hasn’t been ‘drained’) to 27% (not 30%) of Colombia’s land. However the majority of this legally recognized indigenous land is located in the Amazon jungle (67%) in zones of hunter gathering and itinerant farming, where it is not possible to have – as in the case of the Nukak – even one family within 1000 hectares due to the risk of destroying the jungle. We have 1 million hectares of jungle in the Pacific and 1 million hectares in the Guajiro desert. The majority of our lands are therefore not in the Andean Zone, such as Cauca, Nariño, Tolima, Cordoba or Caldas, where the majority of the indigenous are living on small farms. Furthermore a large percentage of the reserves in Cauca and Nariño are lands that are unsuitable for agriculture or ranching, such as in the snow covered areas”.

Unity is more important than ever

What should be clear is that both indigenous and campesino communities need land in order to live and develop themselves; without land neither of them are anything. These lands are concentrated not in the hands of the indigenous – as some cynical landowners would like one to believe - but precisely in the hands of these traditional landowners who control ever greater amounts of land. In addition, a good portion of the best land is in the hands of paramilitaries who either leave it uncultivated or use it for intensive production of a single crop.

Therefore, the land takeovers carried out by the indigenous at the end of last year have to overcome the tension with these two groups and not make enemies of them, but instead lead them into new ways of interacting. The reason that the recent mobilization of the indigenous population in North Cauca were so heavily discussed was not so much due to the tensions with campesinos but rather the revival it brought to the discussion of an agrarian reform which would favor communities that live off the land and from that starting point a program of agricultural development for the country could be negotiated. The landholder class, entrenched in power, want to dodge this by taking advantage of the tensions between indigenous and campesino, tensions which social organizations have been unable to resolve.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that it was precisely out of this consciousness regarding the need for an agrarian reform that the National Association of Farmers (ANUC) was created. The CRIC was part of this, forming another wing of the campesino organization, thus creating a very strong relationship between campesino and indigenous - although due to discriminatory attitudes they were not permitted to describe themselves as indigenous and were therefore identified simply as campesino.

Due to this the CRIC was born out of the ANUC in 1971, and the process of land recuperations which gives motivates the calls for an agrarian reform and campesino mobilization allowed the indigenous movement to realign many elements of its history, particularly its aspirations for independence and land control. With the process of land recuperation also began the process of recuperation of memory, and also of their cultural roots and language. All of this resulted in a strengthening of the indigenous movement and its process.

However, this was a process that saw the indigenous begin to mark their boundaries, which clashed with concepts that give life to the campesino movement in regards to the theme of land. An example of this was the campesino belief that land should be for whoever works it. The indigenous, on the other hand, promoted the idea that they should recuperate land because it is belongs to them and thus began the process of having it legally defined as being such.

Since the 1970s these two principles have remained unchanged. In the struggle to have land rights recognized, the campesino movement has been decimated many times by the repressive apparatus of the State and the para-State [eg: paramilitary forces]. The indigenous movement has also suffered repression and has been the victim of various massacres, disappearances and imprisonments, but their cultural unity and organizational capacity that comes to them through their own ancestry has allowed them to resist more fully and to be the group that today is redesigning the whole dynamic of the struggle for land.

In the 1970s the dynamic of the campesino movement in its struggle for land pulled the indigenous movement forward and made it possible for it to strengthen itself. Today it is the indigenous movement that needs to irrigate the campesino movement and give it fresh impetus. Although the large landowners try to convince the campesinos that the motives behind the indigenous movement are antagonistic to their own interests and in this way are trying to pit these two groups against each other as the Romans pitted the lions against men in the Coliseum, the fundamental reason why both campesino and indigenous are organizing a struggle against the landowners who have expropriated their land may appear to be different but it is at its base both similar and complementary; they both struggle for the land because it is theirs and because they need it.

Therefore one of the principle tasks of the social organizations, especially indigenous and campesino groups, is to resolve these tensions and avoid spreading them to other parts of the country where these communities are living similar realities. This is indispensable in order to be able to advance towards the creation of a united strategy and give energy and dynamism to the struggle for land. This could be done by the creation of a proposal for agrarian reform which integrates the initiatives that have been developed by both groups, sometimes together and sometimes separately, inspired by the indigenous mobilizations and the agrarian mandates developed by the campesino, afro-Colombian and indigenous communities which converge in the National Agrarian Coordinator (CNA). Not to manage to resolve these tensions, so insignificant in comparison to immense task facing the campesinos and indigenous, will make it increasingly more difficult to move forward with their confrontation of the policy of neo-liberal and its silent and ominous agrarian counter-reform.