IPO IN THE INDIGENOUS CAUCA

18.01.06

The project of IPO COMMUNICATION, developed with the principal objectives of technical formation, information and independent documentation, through the free circulation of its own productions, is what pushed and allowed IPO volunteers to be able to enter the Caucan lands known for the presence of interesting political and cultural projects carried out by the autonomous organization of the indigenous population.
We are in the north of Cauca, Southwest Colombia, where the indigenous Nasa community lives and struggles.
The first contact between IPO and the Nasa people happened in Santander de Quilichao (Cauca), in the Third Interethnic Encounter from the 9th to the 12th of October, 2005.
The objective of the encounter was to create a space of free meeting, reflection and exchange of experiences, to construct a network of community work in the active participation in the struggle, resistance and alternative proposals of the indigenous, campesino, and afroColombian communities throughout Cauca, faced with the violent repression of the current Uribe government.
One of the characteristics of the Nasa project that initially interested IPO was the Project of Community Radios. In the north of Cauca, there are several: the Global Project of the Jambaló zone; the Integral Project of Caloto; Chacha Wala in Corinto; Radio Payumat in Santander de Quilichao; and Radio Nasa in Toribio.
The first contact was with Radio Payumat, word of origen Nasayuwe, the language of the Nasa people, which means “Welcome”.
A simple exchange of ideas and communication projects, transmitted by live broadcast, began our interesting relationship, between different cultures, among objectives carried out and the instruments with which the project is done. Since then, IPO has had consistent contact, although there have not been committments of accompaniment to the community. We have always wanted to get to know the indigenous struggle, their processes of self-organization, and to be able to find possible means of participation, or at least, support their claims and projects.
IPO COMMUNICATION returned to Cauca for the Alternative Media Forum, in Popayán (capital of Cauca).
From there (Popayán), we entered along a trail, crossing green, immense mountains, alive with rivers and waterfalls, natural marvels that, for awhile, allowed us to understand, or at leasat, feel the roots of a strong struggle that sustains the demands, conservation and self-organization of the Earth as a Mother. In a chiva, a big and colored bus, completely open, two IPO volunteers arrived in Toribio. It was for only a few days, though full of knowledge and clarifications about the indigenous process and the community work that they do.
The people working in the radio explained to us that since 1980 the bases for the development of various projects have been constructed: family orientation; health qualifications for an adecuate assistence to the community; the education project in their native language; the womens’ project through which the tradition of harmonious manual work of bags, clothing and decorations is carried out; the garden project, the first resolution to the hunger problem; and finally, the youth project.
Since 1989, the youth movement has grown and has been developed in 7 municipalities, consisting of 17 indigenous reserves. The initial work is of coordination and organizational structuring. The main objective is to seek out places of encounter, exchange, informing, recognition and conservation of their culture.
The hardest work was that of being recognized as what they were, youth. The told us that historically, the game for the Nasa was the shovel or the machete, work tools of the field. The figure of the Youth was not recognized, it didn’t exist, the passage from child to adult was mandatory. They began to invent themselves, “the very youth invented themselves.” With dedication, responsability and consistency, the movement grew, and from there it was recognized by the initial skeptics, the adults.
The youth began to see problems with alcohol, a reality that has been repeated since their grandparents, when the aguardiente was exchanged with landlords for a piece of land, “the landlords offered drink to our grandfathers and once drunk, they made them sign papers in order to take away their lands.”
“Before, the youth were found in the fields, now we also look for them in the schools. One of the more dynamic and divergent inventions is the Minga. Passing through 13 reservations, a total of 374 little towns, looking for youth. In any place, we present ourselves as the youth movement and explain that there is an existing network that wants to build an organization and struggle for you, for we youth.”
Formation plans, cultural leaders, coordinators, everyone organizes and rescues the game and the recreation through social work. They are recuperating their culture through the coca leaf, traditional medicine through plants and harmonious rituals, and create mixes of traditional indigenous music with the music of today’s youth. They strengthen the network, the process, through knowledge of cultural roots and the creation of new forms, totally open and autonomous, of youth expression and organization.
Autonomy, Land and Liberty. Here the cultural and political struggle of one who identifies themself as indigenous comes together; respect to ethnicity is organized and reclaimed from the colombian population.
It is started from Earth, which from centuries before, takes the indigenous population to the occupation and reappropriation of lands usurped by the Colombian state through conflict and bloody massacres.
For a month now, the Nasa Kiwe indigenous people have been occupying the Japio Hacienda, red and fertile land in the north of Cauca. Sow and survive, resist and struggle, for a land that was taken away from the indigenous people and now is abandoned and not sown, where no one lives now, private property of an old family of the Colombian oligarchy, who most likely does not know its riches, nor does it matter to them, given that the only attention is for the horrible chemical industry and the military aggression against those who, up to date, still occupy, reclaim and live: children, women, old men and youth.
Mountains and fresh wind, so strong that the night transforms into a trial of resistance for the improvised tents of black plastic; sun and fire are the only sources of heat and light; plantains and mangos as basic food; all accompanied by, in the background, the Radio Payumat… and the night rounds, rounds of young people who seek life in the night, singing and screaming and recharging their struggle, perhaps trying to scare, or at least, be heard by the troops who surround the campments, ready to attack when they receive the order, the “yes” of Uribe.
This was the first time that IPO entered a zone of indigenous conflict, to get to know and share in the struggle for the Free Earth. The people, the majority very young, friends, are still there, because the deadline given to the government to give a response has already passed. Nothing was achieved, no lands recognized for them. The Nasa Kiwe, when IPO say goodbye and left for Bogotá, told them, “for the end of the year, if you want, come over here, we will celebrate together, we will not leave these lands, they are ours, here we will stay and resist until death.”

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