Caminando La Palabra (Walking The Word)

On The Bus From Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, Colombia

For the purposes of continuity, I'm writing this on the bus, after Hermanos Lebron, on the way to a UN caucus. Actually I'm in Cali much later on, being far too tired after 4 hours sleep and dancing all night to have written this then. Plus my battery wouldn't last, the damn thing only gives about 40 minutes of charge these days. So since the last post at La Toma we've done a 2-day 40km march with 10,000 people for a Minga, and travelled to Popayan to meet groups there. And danced all night at a Hermanos Lebron gig. A heady mix of party and politics in appropriate proportions.

Walking boots donned, I finally felt glad that I've lugged them 25,000 miles around the hemisphere without having used them for more than a 2-hour hike half-way up the volcano on Ometepe. Packing the essentials - tent, sleeping mat, sleeping bag, mozzie net, spare clothes - I thought I had a light pack... it started to bite after an hour. Probably a bit unfit too...


So being a little late for the start of the march from Santander de Quilichao, we jumped on the roof of a Chiva (eye-spy's book of modes of transport was filling up with ticks). We waited for the bus to fill up - I have never yet in 10 months in Latin America seen a bus leave before its full. After what couldn't have been more than 5 minutes on the road through town, the driver pulled into a layby in front of a restaurant. And got out, and sat down, and ordered his dinner. No-one complained, or said anything to the driver, just patiently waited. This seems to be a distinctly Latin trait - tolerance. It's interesting how this translates into a history of dictatorships. You can also see the effect on kids, who seem far more well behaved despite a more lax disciplinary attitude.

colombia solidarity campaign secretary andy higginbottom interviewed by caracol tv

Having waited 25 minutes for the driver to finish his lunch, we hit the road again and caught up with the march soon enough. We joined at the front of the march, but quickly fell back with the pace being pretty fierce. National TV news crew Caracol interviewed Andy and Rogelio, with a 5 second soundbite of Rogelio's appearing in a 30-second slot about the march on the peak-time national news that evening. The march's route deliberately passed through several towns and indigenous reserves and presently experiencing conflicting armed interests. One house was riddled with bulletholes from a confrontation several days earlier between the army and the FARC. The town we stopped the night in had FARC stencils, and while the thousands of marchers were resting and enjoying the evening in the streets, several dodgy looking folk around were pointed out to us by local friends as known "demobilised" paramilitaries - now just in civilian clothes - but everyone knows them as paras.


Along the way I met Aida Quilcue who until recently was leader of the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC). Last December, her husband was murdered in an attack seemingly meant for her. On 11th May this year, her 12 year old daughter was leaving her house when she saw men pointing handguns at her from a car parked outside. She fled back into the house, while they drove around the house until they realised she was there protected by Indigenous guards. Aida was due to come to the UK to speak in June, but had to cancel. She is due to come in September - watch this space.

We also met with Feliciano, a spokesperson for the Minga, indigenous to the Cauca. He spoke something that touched me very deeply, through a concept I admire and respect. He spoke of the liberation of mother earth, with it concepts of the importance of living in harmony with nature rather than tearing it up. He spoke of the evolution of the politics of the indigneous, as seeing a marked turning point with the 1991 Colombian Constitution, from a politics of protest to proposals through protest, from reaction to proaction. And in 2005 the campaign for the liberation of mother earth began - taking, protecting and liberating "tierra" - the earth, the ground, the soil. Francisco, from a human rights NGO Asociacion Minga, spoke about how in this area there is a permanent war between public forces and the people that has been totally invisibilised.

After staying the night, we were up and ready to smack pavement with our boots by 6am. Another 20-odd km, and we made it to Corintho, making 40km in total. Phew. Here, everyone gathered in the town square, and listened to brief speeches of all the indigenous governors from the local area. Together at the end they made a joint statement, supporting the Minga and its continuance, denouncing local acts of violence against the communities, and refusing to enter into new agreements with the government until previous agreements to protect the population are fulfilled.


On Saturday we made for Popayan, a historical colonial centre about 3 hours south of Cali. Here we met with two groups, one with the Minga, and another that exists parallel but outside of the Minga. The first was CIMA, a local group in the National Agrarian Association (CNA). Here we heard a round of presentations of local represenatives about their local issues. He heard about 4 people killed in a massacre in Peregosa in 2000, and 10 campesinos killed in January 2001, both as revenge attacks for mobilisations in 1999. Paramilitaries give out pamphlets with threats in the area. In August 2007, Smurfit-Kappa Carton de Colombia (who on their own website claim to be advancing their most "aggresive and important expansion in their history"), an Irish-based multinational, bought up huge areas of land, in some cases forcing the sale, for monoculture exotic pine forest plantations.

The local soft drinks group Postobon, in negotiations with the government, recently acquired the rights "to protect" two local lakes, the Lagunas de Magdalena and Cauca. Funny that, a soft-drinks company with a line in environmental protection of water sources. Doesn't quite seem to add up to me.

We also talked about the changes of land use over the last 15-20 years. Back then, the area produced 7,000 tonnes of food, and was almost self-sufficient. Now, that has reduced to 1,500 tonnes, and today the area imports 7,000 tonnes of food from abroad. Seems totally crazy, doesn't it, that an area so rich and fertile has to truck, ship or fly food from other parts of the world to feed it. But that's the story of Colombia, a country that imports thousands tonnes of rice from the United States!

Later we met with the Process of Popular Unity of South West Cauca (PUPSOC). They describe their work as parallel to the Minga, and in concert to it. However, they are critical of the Minga's involvement with the Peace Laboratories of Europe, formed in the Cartagena-London agreement of 2002. Effectively, state funding to construct peace, which involves a certain doublethink given the amount of European capital being pumped into Colombia, which must be seen as intrinsically linked. Especially when the third component to the Peace Laboratories is to strengthen productive industry. This article by Gearoid O'Loingsigh looks into this in detail.

We talked about local issues. In the 3 communities of Mariel, San Sebastian and La Vega, described as the crown of the Colombian Massif, Kedahda (a subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti) have mining concessions for 3,600 hectares. This follows exploration in the 1980s by Japan International. This is described as Phase 2 of Plan Colombia: the social phase. In Valencia, a community of 800 inhabitants, there are 1600 soldiers stationed. Other local issues revolve around water - "the eyes of the future" - and the importance of defending local supplies against privatisation.


Phew. After all that, catching my eye on a poster advertising Cuban salsa band Hermanos Lebron made me very excited, having listened to them heavily on the road trip through Mexico. They were playing that night in Santander. Phil, a English guy working with groups here, and I bought ourselves a bottle of rum and hotfooted it on the 2-hour bus trip. £2 to enter, we met up with our dance partners and salsad the night away - no way to learn like in the field! The only dark spot came later on, danced out, moving to get some food, when suddenly I realised that the lush Digital SLR camera that I'd borrowed was suddenly not in the case anymore. Ouch.