By Jesus “Chucho” Garcia
www.redafrovenezolana.com
www.fundacionafroamerica.com.ve

The Afro-Colombian movement has been one of the most important vanguard organizations of Latin America.  Since the uprising of Benkos Bioho (17th century), a maroon of Wolof origin (present-day Senegal), through the struggle of Afro-Colombian miners in the Chocó until the contemporary struggle, Afro-Colombians have always maintained the high ethics of African ancestry characterized by a flood of dignity.  It was in the 1990s when an extraordinary alliance among academics, students and other social actors achieved recognition for Afro-Colombians in the Colombian National Constitution and from there was granted, through a transitory article, the Law of Black Colombian Communities, also known as the Law 70, approved in Congress in1993.  That law, among other things, guaranteed the recognition to their lands-- collectively ancestral and shared for the benefit of their communities (indeed, the senators of the center-right and Bolivarian left rejected a similar proposal that we Afro-Venezuelans made for Constitutional Reform on December 2nd, see and compare the two).  Upon the current president Alvaro Uribe’s arrival to power, what would be called the “Counter-Reforms of Uribe” began, which have affected all of the Colombian community and Afro-Colombians especially.  By the blessing or curse of God, Afro-Colombians are located in the bio-geographic Pacific, considered, along with the Amazon, to be the greatest diversity reserve of Latin America and one of the main ones of the planet.  The increase of armed conflicts, specifically of paramilitaries and U.S. army intervention, as well as some errors made by guerrillas, has provoked a massive displacement towards cities such as Medellin, Cali, and above all Bogotá, not to mention Venezuela, where those from the Amazonas state have arrived and constituted a neighborhood called Africa.  After Sudan, Colombia is the country with the most displaced persons in the world, of which 60% are Afro-Colombians, according to the organization AFRODES, which is led by activist Marino Cordoba. 

Uribe’s order is to re-seize Afro-Colombian lands

In Washington D.C. during this last week of February, an Afro-Colombian conference will be taking place at Howard University, where the following afrodescendent governmental representatives will attend: the Minister of Culture, Paula Marcelo Moreno, the Vice-Minister of Work Andres Palacio, Oscar Gamboa of the Commission of Advancement for the Afro-Colombian Population, and the Representative of the Afro-Colombian Office in the present government, Pastor Murillo.  Added to those Afro-Uribean senators led by Edgar Eulises, there are members of the United States Congress that support the Free Trade Agreement such as Gregory Meeks, who supposedly has a business in United States and Latin American airports.  This activity has been preceded by others done in Colombia since Bush visited and met with Afro-Colombian leaders; later by the mission of Afro-North American ex-General Colin Powell accompanied by some intellectuals such as Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and even Bill Gates, among others; and recently by the visit of Condoleeza Rice to Cartagena de Indias.  Uribe is trying to apply the Bush model of placing the new Uncle Toms, or what they call here in the United States “Oreo cookies” (black on the outside and white on the inside) to say that there is “racial democracy” in Colombia.  The truth is that this group that is now parading about Washington is the group to remind of the funeral marches of the coffins of thousands of Afro-Colombians murdered by paramilitaries with  the complicity of Uribe’s army and North American intervention.  They will cry out for the signing of the signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the United States in order to openly and bold-facedly exploit the region of the bio-geographic Pacific.  We as Afro-descendent intellectuals and activists express our active support to displaced Afro-Colombians in Washington and we condemn this right-wing “oreoization” by the plot of the first-ever paramilitary in power: Alvaro Uribe Velez.

Macobe Luchador 

Miremos todos lo que quieren hacer a una persona que piensa en la paz y no la guerra.

La proxima semana el gobierno de uribe, con sus aliados afro-politicos estaran realizando una conferencia en la howard university en washington dc, donde buscan ganar el apoyo de los congresistas negros para el tlc y, donde saben que el voto de los congresistas negros es clave, pero el tema de los afrocolombianos no les importa para nada.

Lo curioso es ver tantos negros (oscar gamboa, roberto asprilla, entre otros) que estan traicionando a sus hermanos negros, que estan sacando provecho de los lideres muertos y desplazados para llenar sus bolsillos, en cabezando la delegacion del gobierno en u.s.a. para que este en colombia, siga su campana de liquidar la renta, la unica renta del pueblo negro, entregar sus tierras a empresarios y perseguir hasta a sesinar a sus lideres como lo es la senadora piedad cordoba, asi como lo ha hecho con los lideres afros de las comunidades.

Mientras esto sucede su gobierno no dice nada, simplemente porque es complice de los ataque y persecusiones contra ella. Que desgracia tener negros que vivan del dolor de sus hermanos, de la sangre de nuestros lideres caidos.

Forward 
by Willie Thompson. Founder and President of  The Organization of African North Americans (OANA), 2/19/2008

Colombia, South America is an important for African North Americans and other allies. Afro-Colombians comprise almost 40% of the Colombian population of around 42 million people. These Afro-Colombians are treated brutally  by the Government and the Euro-Colombians. Now, the Colombian President Uribe needs the support of the Congressional Black Caucus to pass the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. So he accepts the proposal of some Afro-Colombians to create this phony Commission for the Protection of the 16 million Afro-Colombians. More than a million Afro-Colombians have been displaced from their homes and communities.  Afro-Colombians are killed and forced into exile if they resist the sale their land. The Colombian government provides very few services and infrastructure for the Afro-Colombian community and Law 70 that gives Afro-Colombian rights to their ancestral lands is not implemented and the para-militaries under President Uribe is driving the Afro-Colombians from their land. Congressional Black Caucus member Gregory Meeks of New York and member of the National Endowment for Democracy  (NED) deceived Congressman Bobby Rush of Chicago and caused him to write a letter of support for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement and have it signed by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. It was only the intervention of Marino Cordova, an exiled Afro-Colombian that caused Rush to withdraw the letter of support. The  Congressional Black Caucus is refusing to support the Colombia Free  Trade Agreement and needs our support. Please call or write your congress person and tell him/her to continue to oppose the Colombian FTA and support the Afro-Colombians. By the way the U.S. has given more than $5 billion to Colombia for mostly military aid which is used against the Afro-Colombians. 
 
Willie Thompson

Why Afro-Colombians Oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, 2/2008
by Marino Cordoba, founder of the Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES).
 

The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is considered a non-starter in the U.S. Congress because the country is the world’s deadliest for union activists. Less known, but equally disturbing is the systematic violence now confronting Afro-Colombians.

African descendants comprise 26% of Colombia’s population. As with other African descendants, we face racial discrimination which results in economic hardships far worse than those experienced by the average Colombian. However in Colombia, a vibrant 1980s civil rights movement won full recognition of our cultural rights and collective ownership and community control of our territories and natural resources. The 1991 Colombian Constitution and the landmark Law 70 explicitly enshrine these rights and recognize official democratic Afro-Colombian governance structures, similar to those of your Indian tribes.

The administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has worked consistently to undermine our hard-won civil rights and our control of our territories. Systematic violence against our people and assassinations of our leaders continue unabated to this day.

At the end of 2007, angered by the strong opposition of the majority of Afro-Colombian communities to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Uribe created a new Commission in Colombia that directly challenges our legal governance structure.

Cynically dubbed the Commission for the Advancement of Afro-Colombian People, it would undermine our communities’ ability to advance development strategies chosen by our people that comport with our needs and that help even the economic playing field.

Obviously, our official governance structure and our grassroots organizations oppose this new Commission. Despite this, President George Bush and other U.S Uribe allies, such as Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and the vast array of lobbying firms hired by the Uribe government are now trying to tout this outrageous Commission as evidence that Afro- Colombian concerns are being addressed as they push to pass the FTA.

Don’t be fooled. President Uribe, the Bush Administration and Congressman Meeks may not like what authentic Afro-Colombian representatives are saying, but our legitimate governing bodies vigorously oppose the FTA, as well as other efforts by Uribe to impose natural resource exploitation projects in our territories without our consent.

Because the Colombian law is on our side, wealthy interests have employed illegal means to physically remove us Joint operations between the Colombian military and illegal terrorist paramilitary organizations like the “Operation Genesis” in the Afro-Colombian Chocó region have targeted our leaders with assassinations while the Colombian military has aerially bombarded our communities.

Tens of thousands of us have been forced to flee. These attacks clear the way for the entry of oil palm plantations, logging operations, and mining projects advanced by allies of the Uribe Administration.

Colombia has more than 3 million internally displaced peope. This kind of forced displacement is now occurring in port communities and other regions supporters of the FTA seek to develop. None of our lands have been returned to our control.

Accompanying these physical attacks has been a legal assault aimed at formalizing the theft of our land. The Uribe government passed new Forestry and Rural Development Laws and has amended the Mining Law to extinguish our rights and empower oil palm, logging and other companies that have utilized the services of paramilitaries to occupy our territories.

Our communities have vehemently opposed these laws as unconstitutional. Recently the Colombian Supreme Court ruled against the Forestry Law, which would have removed our control of the forests on our land. Our Supreme Court ruled that under international and Colombian law, the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities that strongly opposed the law should have been consulted * which they were not.

The Colombia FTA is the same situation. It is a proposal that our communities oppose, about which our traditional authorities were not consulted, and which would lock in the paramilitary-financiers control of our land. Specifically, the FTA’s expansive foreign investor rights would empower multinational corporations investing in these projects with protections that would make restoration of our lands extremely difficult, even when we win in our courts.

Recognizing our opposition, Uribe and his allies devised this new Commission, which is stacked with Uribe supporters and individuals known to support the FTA, to feign “consultation” with Afro-Colombian communities and issue a determination that the FTA is good for us despite our communities’ contrary conclusions.

Rather than a positive development, this new Commission is a sophisticated ploy to undermine Afro-Colombian rights and is a part of a broader strategy to elevate unrepresentative and illegitimate pro-FTA individuals against the stated interest of Afro-Colombian communities themselves.

Congress can help Afro-Colombians by demanding that President Uribe respect the Colombian Constitution and terminate this Commission that challenges our civil rights. And, Congress should pass House Resolution 618 sponsored by Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) on the plight of Afro-Colombians.

Marino Córdoba is the founder of the Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES). He played a key role in the struggle to secure Colombia’s progressive Law 70, which grants land rights to Afro-Colombian communities. After surviving many attempts on his life, Mr. Cordoba has been forced to live in exile in the United States.

By Marino Cordoba, founder, Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES)