Indigenous Peoples in Colombia - Struggle For Rights

Struggle For Rights

The indigenous people represent 2-3% of the population of the Colombian region and its levels of income as well as the indicators of human development as education and health conditions are laying behind compared to those of the rest of the Colombians. During the last twenty years, there has been a remarkable increase of the interest dedicated to the concerns of indigenous communities all over the world. Therefore, the United Nations proclaimed the disclosure of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People and in Latin America on 10 December 1994 and in Latin America. More than in any other region, this period was characterized by a wave of indigenous movements which practised a growing political power, since the resistance of the Chiapas of 1994 until the fall of the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia.

The rise of indigenous mobilization in Colombia is explained as a reaction of crisis at various levels: a crisis of representation, caused by the shortcomings of political parties with sufficient representation to shoulder all collectives' interests; a crisis of participation, that is the result of the lack of citizen's participation in state's business; and a legitimation crisis, due to the discrimination against some social groups.

During their struggle for rights, indigenes abandoned the armed struggle of the 1980s and the new strategy included forms of legal liberalism, a politics of identity and the use of transnational networks putting pressure on the state to achieve recognition and respect. This hasn't always led to success and often turned into victims of the cultural project of neoliberalism. Besides the cultural accomplishments there was an escalation of the acts of persecution and in the number of violations committed against them.

According to the Indigenous National Organization of Colombia (ONIC) there are 102 indigenous peoples in Colombia and only 82 of them are recognized by the Colombian government. One of the main problems the Colombian indigenous communities are currently facing is the lack of recognition of their right to be consulted. Poverty is another central aspect in order to understand the contemporary situation of the indigenes of Colombia, which has been measured making use of the Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN), considering people poor who have insufficiencies in living, services and education. Facts show differences between zones: those of mayor influence of poverty measured with the UBN standard are Chocó, Sucre, Boyacá, Nariño and Córdoba, with numbers that exceed the 50% of the population and those of less influence are found in Bogotá and the departments of El Valle, Atlántico and the cafetero-core: Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. In 1986 the concept of pobreza absoluta was introduced in the nation, during a situation of crisis of governability and the escalation of the problems concerning the armed conflict. With the politics of struggle against poverty the presence of the state was tried to be consolidated in zones which were considered 'marginal', especially those areas including indigenous population.

Politics between 1986 and 1990 tried to rehabilitate the marginal zones and their integration to achieve development; specific institutions were set up to work with indigenous communities, seeing them as farmer communities which habits and forms of production had to be modernized. As a consequence, the indigenous minorities revolted, arguing that it was not up to them to reintegrate but it was the state that had to reform his ideas and recognize them as the original Colombian population. The goal was to solve the crisis of governability by eliminating poverty, without excluding local necessities and impulse development from out of the perspective of diversity. The indigenous communities were considered to be marginal sectors in disadvantage, a highly retarded population which had to be incorporated and integrated in greater society. The indigenous people were not seen as a part of the diversity of the nation which participation was needed for the construction of it. This conception has survived since the colonization of the continent until now: generally, the indigenous and also the black diversity is still seen as a negative element which has to be reduced or completely wiped out to guarantee the development and the modernization of Latin American societies.

Despite the Constitution of 1991 with the introduction of the plurietnic and multicultural character of the Colombian nation, the contemporary relation between the state and the indigenous communities seems to be contradictory, particularly because of the presence of the demands of autonomy of the latter. Until today the Colombian government has recognized the indigenous groups only as communities, meaning that they are considered to be culturally diverse and therefore require a different political treatment to be able to integrate them in national society. Different forms of participation have been assigned to the communities, but always in conformity with legal and constitutional regulations of the state, defined and established throughout history. Though the 1990s were a decade of mobilization and in some way a victory in terms of neoliberal multiculturalism, after twenty years of the Constitution of 1991 people have realized the need of turning to other forms of mobilization, more than legal mobilization. It has been shown that the recognition of equality is not enough; indigenous peoples have also demanded their right to difference, that is, access to particular rights as indigenous communities.

Currently, indigenous political participation, both in national and local elections, remains low, because of various reasons: the fragmentation of the movement due to the several groups within the Colombian indigenous communities; the loss of the vote from non-indigenous leaders and the low number of voters due to the fact that they comprise a small part of the national population and most of them live in the countryside without possibilities to vote.