The dark side of "development": The struggles, threats and violence faced by indigenous defenders

Members of the Nasa indigenous guard, Wayúu activist Jakeline Romero Espiayu and the open pit coal mines in the north east of Colombia.

Article researched and written by Isabela Armenta, Maria Angelica Salazar & Diana Theran.

Violence has been inherent in the lives of Colombians for centuries. Also in the life of indigenous people as they own land whose ownership has been long-disputed. Since colonization and independence, multiple violations have been made against them. Alzate (2016), states that since the colonial period, many processes of appropriation of indigenous lands have been done to monopolize the exploitation of raw material found there. He also points out that due to independence, there is a context where appropriations of large portions of land have taken place; land that before then had been under the governance of indigenous communities, but not anymore. It is also remarkable the impact of the internal armed conflict, drug trafficking, multinationals, and the state on this situation. According to the Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (2020), “Those territories are the scenario of violence and disputes for territorial control between paramilitaries, guerrillas [currently the guerrillas are the ELN and other dissidents of the FARC, the largest guerrilla group demobilized following a peace agreement signed with the state], and state forces. All of these actors want to exercise a monopoly on violence. Drug business and mineral-energetic exploitation are spread all around (…)”. This complex variability of actors in the same territory denotes the intricacy around the problem of the violence committed against indigenous leaders. One example of the work they usually do as environmental indigenous leaders according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2019) is “(...) reporting acts of corruption and for defending their rights to a healthy environment, lands, and territories, which are being affected by economic interests ranging from mining and energy projects to illicit economies.” Despite all that violence, indigenous people still fight for their rights. Nevertheless, due to the internal armed conflict outlined above, their ancestral territories have witnessed multiple and generalized violations of human and indigenous rights. Taking this into account, this article will broadly outline two main branches of the phenomenon of the assassination and displacement of indigenous communities, focusing on the threats posed by both legal and illegal economic interests.

To begin with, it can be said that the legal negligence or complicity of the government is an important factor when talking about the violence committed against indigenous environmental leaders. Indigenous communities maintain and cherish a close relationship with the land and nature; this has given them the experience and authority to know how to preserve it, and this is what they aim to do. For example, according to La Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca (n.d ), for the Nasa community (situated in the south-west of Colombia), their economy is based on respect for, and their relationship with, Mother Earth, in which they search for meaning and plenitude, in harmony with where the spiritual and material worlds converge. That is why in this relationship everybody participates, being all part of the daily relation with the earth and the rest of its beings. However, such a relationship and such defense of natural resources often means that they are opposed to practices of extraction and mineral exploitation typically favoured by the Colombian government. Since the extractive model has arisen, countries like Colombia have been in the eye of multinationals. According to Luque et al. (2018), the extractive model consists of extracting many natural resources, processes which have a high environmental impact, for exportation. This can undermine a countries' economic sovereignty, and Luque also points out that the main countries related to the exportation of said resources tend to be the ones that have more environmental conflicts, with energetic mining and metallurgical extraction being the principal sectors. There is evidence of the complicity of the government and the military regarding favouring the interests of those multinationals, and this has been expressed in a failure to protect indigenous leaders. There have even been reports of the military threatening and murdering representatives of communities that do not permit those extractive megaprojects to take place. According to Torres et al. (n.d) “... serious violations to human rights have been present, violations that cannot be understood isolated from the implementation of an extractive model and the development of megaprojects.” But what is the role of the state in such a sorry situation?. El Pais (2019) writes that according to Aida Pesquera, director of Oxfam International Colombia: “ It is not just the absence of the state, which impacts the violence made. It is the deliberate silence. There are armed groups that act under the service of enterprises' interests and politicians. And the government does nothing.” To illustrate this, the same report states that the members of Asociación Fuerza de Mujeres Wayúu (Wayúu Women’s Force) in the department of La Guajira, Colombia “accuse the state of links with mining companies of the zone”, with representatives of this group being threatened by illegal actors following legals cases they have taken against multinational companies operating in the region. In relation to such instances, the jointly written report, ¿CUÁLES SON LOS PATRONES? Asesinatos de Líderes Sociales en el Post Acuerdo (2018), states that since the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC in 2016, there has been a reduction of victims related to the direct violence of the conflict. However, there has been an increase of violations to the right of life of many social leaders and rights defenders, in many instances including indigenous and environmental defenders. The current situation faced by numerous communities since the signing of the peace agreement and the weak response from the government has been a power vacuum in those territories that has increased violence and the assassination of social leaders in general. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, (2019) states that “Complex territorial dynamics, aggravated by the presence of extractive projects and new armed actors who are trying to move into territories that were abandoned by the FARC-EP and where the State has a very limited presence” play a big role in the wave of violence against activists. As a consequence of the historical ineffectiveness or mediocrity of the state, insurgent and paramilitary groups have arisen, assuming control in the midst of state absence, threatening and attacking many communities for their own financial benefit. However, illegal groups have a long and shadowy history of collusion with the state when it comes to the interests of private companies.

Another important factor that must be recognized when looking at the present is the links between multinationals and paramilitary groups. Multiple violations of human rights have been perpetuated due to the interests of multinational corporations that have allegedly used illegal groups as a way to achieve whichever project they are planning to implement. These relationships have been observed multiple times throughout Colombian history, but one of the most well-known is the case of the Drummond coal company. Drummond is an American multinational that extracted coal on the Caribbean coast and that, allegedly, financed factions of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), factions which participated in crimes against union leaders (Semana, 2014). According to Alcides Mattos Tabares, alias 'El Samario', who was in command of the northern bloc of the AUC in Cesar, although the paramilitaries did not work directly with coal companies, they had payment alliances to finance the illegal group. The logic being that Drummond financed these groups in exchange for removing any threat that may arise against its interests (Stöckle & Tamayo, 2020). Relatives of victims of this paramilitary group pointed out that Drummond financed and supported this armed group trying to protect its interests from the guerrilla attacks and the claims of union leaders, some of whom suffered from persecution, murders, and disappearances/kidnappings (Verdad Abierta, 2015). Witnesses assure that the links between the AUC and the company began in response to the increasing number of kidnappings and attacks against the companies by the leftist guerrillas of the FARC and ELN (Bargent & Yagoub, 2014). As we can see in this case, powerful corporations that have the government’s endorsement in order to take advantage of natural resources in Colombia without being affected by the violent conflict that exists in the country, have turned to illegal armed groups to do whatever is deemed necessary to protect their interests. Another relevant example of this situation is the case of Banacol, a large company that produces and markets different agricultural products and that was found to have a nexus with paramilitary groups such as the AUC. This multinational was investigated for the financing of armed groups outside the law, illicit enrichment, and forced displacement (Comisión Interclesisal de Justicia y Paz, 2012). There was evidence of the presence of Banacol in the collective territories of Curvaradó, which are located in the north of the department of Chocó, in the subregion of Bajo Atrato. This presence meant that the company was starting to spread its activity invasively into these territories, which would result in these communities being forcibly displaced (Bejarano, Correa & Ospina, 2018). Multinationals, which have the governments' tacit blessing in Colombia, have therefore had a murky history of alleged connections with illegal armed groups that violate human rights and perpetuate the violence in the country. Those instances outlined above are just some of the cases in which we find a nexus between legal and illegal actors in Colombia. Unfortunately, despite the 2016 peace agreement seeing the demobilization of the FARC guerrillas, rural communities, particularly indigenous communities, continue to face violence and displacement due to the presence of illegal actors in their territory. While there are still question marks regarding the issue of these groups acting on behalf of mega projects conducted by multinational companies, there is little doubt or debate about the lengths these groups will go to in order to defend their own illicit interests.

In addition to their links to legal mega-projects, illegal actors also use violence against environmental indigenous activists in order to further their own illegal economic interests. This is seen most clearly in the case of drug traffickers, illegal miners, guerrillas, and paramilitaries who pursue an increase in their territorial control and economic benefits. Steele (2017, cited in Mounu Prem et al., 2018) argues that “historically, leaders were selectively assassinated in Colombia as a complement to strategies used especially by paramilitaries to facilitate territorial control.” Moreover, the reasons behind the search for territorial control could in turn be associated with the exploitation of resources. Regarding this, the Somos Defensores Program, which is a space that offers protection to human rights defenders and seeks to develop proposals to prevent attacks and protect their lives, takes relevance. Carlos Guevara (cited in Mejia, 2016), the communications coordinator of the program, mentioned that although the regions of Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Nariño, and Córdoba had been key areas in the internal conflict, “the high number of attacks on activists is more related to economic interests. These include illicit cultivation and illegal gold mining”. In addition to this, it is important to highlight that La Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman's Office) estimated that in 2015 ‘illegal mining’ amounted to 56% of the illegal activity in the country” (p. 77, Defensores P. S. et al., 2018), a figure that shows the magnitude of this illegal business. The case of Celia Umenza is an example that shows the impact of illegal actors on indigenous communities and the environment. Umenza is an indigenous environmental activist, who defends the water sources near Toribío in Cauca, where illegal gold mining pollutes the water with mercury, and further north, pesticides used on illegal marijuana crops poison the soil. She mentioned that they "...have threats from governmental repression, retaliation from the guerrillas and also from the paramilitaries (…) They almost bombarded us with pamphlets.” Like Umenza, several activists suffer the same consequences for defending their territories. The threats are not perpetrated by a particular actor, and they are not limited to threats with firearms, which does not change the consequences of their actions. It just complicates the situation to the point that sometimes those actions end up connected and exacerbating the problems that indigenous communities already have. Also, in terms of illegal economies, one of the principal leadership roles targeted since the 2016 agreement has been community leaders involved in crop substitution programs. These programs were agreed as part of the 2016 deal as a way of reducing the amount of coca cultivation in areas which were traditionally under the control of the FARC. Between 2016 and 2020, 75 such leaders were murdered throughout the country (El Espectador, 2021). Figures such as these again highlight the threats faced by indigenous, Afro-Colombian, environmental and community activists trying to defend the interests of their community and the environment in the midst of a power vacuum which allows illegal interests to take precedence.

To conclude, due to the past and present, indigenous communities in Colombia have faced and continue to face multiple violations of their rights by different legal and illegal actors. Throughout this article, we wanted to highlight the necessity to take into account the economic interest pursued by actors such as paramilitary groups, guerrilla organisations, multinational and transnational enterprises, and the Colombian state, as factors that influence the problem of the assassination of indigenous environmental activists in the country. It was demonstrated that some actions committed by these actors are not isolated from each other, but are linked. Additionally, different cases were presented to expose the interest and the actors involved behind problematic situations, like the case of Celia Umenza, who suffered threats from guerrillas and paramilitary groups; or the Drummond multinational company, alleged to have financed the paramilitary group AUC, in order to protect the company benefits from the guerrilla attacks and the claims of union leaders. Finally, it is important to mention that people must be aware of the issue of environmental indigenous activists in Colombia due to the importance of their fight because they not only have to deal with the risks of being environmental defenders, but also the ones of being indigenous, in a country which has historically violated, and continues to violate, their rights and territory.

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