Memoria Y Camino del Tejido de Comunicación

When the indigenous community declared to the country that we want all armies and armed groups out of our territory, we understand that this would not be the end of the war in our territory. For us it is clear that this is only one step toward the return to harmony for our Mother Earth. For the Nasa and for other indigenous communities, afros, and campesinos, equally assaulted, it is totally clear that the war in our territories was brought by the transnationals with the help of the government. If there is to peace, the transnationals have to get out!  

 

Let it be understood by the president and his delegates that he cannot propose a negotiation of a war of bullets and blood for a cold war of submission and mistreatment of Mother Earth with transnational companies. It’s that the abuses of our community are not only of this time period. Ten years ago we have faced the amplification of the conflict. WIth the pain and blood it has cost us we clarify that they cannot underestimate this process, which is a constant process and not occasional, that the indigenous communities of northern Cauca don’t want the peace spoken of by Santos and Timochenco, we don’t want the peace of oppression to negotiate our autonomy, we don’t want the pace of those that use our struggle and effort to silence us and to tell us what to do. The pace that we want is the harmony of the mother earth, the harmony that means the departure of all that attacks life, the definite departure of the transnationals that are those that bring war to “clear” the territory commercialize its riches.

 

To the whole country we say that we don’t want more war in our house. The response of the government, in representation of the Minister of the Interior, is to go back on his word by missing the meeting with the indigenous authorities in Popayan to attend a meeting of councilmembers in Bucaramanga. The same response of the guerrilla in the letter of Timochenco is equally disrespectful, with formal cynicism it says that the guerrilla struggle is the same as that of the movement, it avoids that demands of the indigenous authorities in regard to the continuous attacks on the population and the recruitment of children and youth and instead warns, “If the army leaves then we will leave”… It follows the same game as the violent ones, their answers seek to locate us where supposedly and irremediably there are only two ways, where it would be they who decide for us. And on top of this, the paramilitaries now reappear with threats to our authorities and territories, nothing so different from the actions of the army and the guerrilla, as if it could be an agreement between them because all of them are disturbed by a community organized and in resistance.

 

The indigenous communities do not receive orders that are not from their own community, they order while obeying (as is well said by the Zapatistas), the orientation in the actions of the community are imparted by the same community. The community demands the departure of all transnationals who are those that profit from the damage to Mother Earth.

 

The original communities, all of them, want the war to leave their territories. The struggle of the Nasa to take out the armed actors is the sam struggle of the Awa in Nariño, which in the exercise of the law of origin and of the special indigenous jurisdiction they evicted the mining company “La Esperanza” located in the Resguarda Hojal La Turbia, community of Peña Caraño. The Awa community has received threats for tehse actions but assure that they will continue evicting all mining companies that invade and usurp their territories.

 

It is the same struggle of indigenous, afros, and campesinos of Putumayo that have decided to mobilize pacifically and to stop the attacks by the government with the thoughtless projects of development of infrastructure and resource extraction, due to the boom in the expediting of licenses for mineral exploitation, hydrocarbons and natural resources that expose their territory and their culture.

 

It is the same struggle taken on by communities from other latitudes of the continent. The Mapuche brothers congregated to reject the racist, violent, and discriminatory politics of the state derived from its “Summit of Security,” and to define he measures that permit them to confront the strong onslaught of the government that has gravely affected their community in recent days. They have had to deal with the brutality of the police that left children and elderly gravely injured, signals to the community members, that the augmentation of militarization of the zones where the recuperation of collective territories are realized.

 

It is the same struggle that our Peruian bothers raised against Proyect Conga of the company Yanacocha (consortium formed by the North American company Newmont, that has 51% of its actions, the peruvian Buenaventura, which participates with 43%, and Finance Corporation International, an institution that relates to teh World Bank and owns 5%), which in spite of the brutal aggression fo the government at the hand of the army against the community of Celedin, the companies and the government have not been able against Cajamarca because today communities in all of Peru are mobilizing in support of Cajamarca in defense of the water.

 

In the same way the Zapatista brothers of Chiapas confront a grave risk of aggression and displacement of almost 200 support bases of the EZLN in the indigenous community of San Marcos Aviles, now that since the Mexican elections in July they have seen the increment of threats against them. But the mobilization has not been detained. After several days of marching in caravan, they arrived o the capital of the country to continue with a march “with the goal of demanding respect for their right to the lands as original peoples and that they are not evicted from the 130 hectares on behalf of the municipality and the government of the state.”

 

The struggle of teh Nasa is not a separatist project, it is a struggle for the right to the autonomous exercise of territorial control and it is not a recent uprising, but rather an ancestral process. The defense of life and the harmony of Mother Earth is not a struggle only for the Nasa or for the indigenous communities they defend, rather for everyone. This struggle is not only to expel the uniformed ones that kill each other and kill us in our house, it is to expel the war, to expel the mining engines  that the government endorses for extractive companies and so that they send armies to repress the people that are a disturbance in their macro-business.  We are tired that everyone comes to talk to us about peace. What peace? They are many peaces according to each interest. The only peace that we ant is that of our territories free of extraction companies and mining concessions. Out with the transnationals from our Mother Earth!

 

Tejido de Comunicación – ACIN

tejidocomunicacion@gmail.com