Featured image: Indigenous women carry the banner of the VIII Pan Amazonian Social Forum (FOSPA) during the opening march from downtown Tarapoto to Universidad San Martin on April 28. Photo: Manuela Picq
Ever since European colonial powers started disputing borders on its rivers in the seventeenth century, the vast Amazon rainforest—known simply as Amazonia—has been under siege.
Amazon Peoples always resisted the colonial invasion, even after the borders were ultimately settled with the Amazon rainforest getting divided into the territories of nine states. They’ve had no choice. After all, the insatiable lust for ‘wealth at any cost’ did not lessen with time; the siege continued through the nineteenth century, in part with the rubber boom that gave way to the automobile boom.
The attack rages on even now, with the intensive push to extract everything the Amazon holds including oil, minerals, water, and land for agriculture and soy production.
Nations states are leading the land-grab, fostering environmental conflicts that kill nature defenders (most of them indigenous), displace communities, and destroy rivers for megaprojects. The organization Pastoral da Terra estimates that half a million people are directly affected by territorial conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon. About 90% of Brazilian land conflicts happen in Amazonia; 70% of murders in land conflicts take Amazon lives.
That is why people responded to “the call from the forest,” or “el llamado del bosque” in Spanish. This was the motto of the VIII Pan-Amazonian Social Forum, or Foro Social Pan Amazónico (FOSPA), that just gathered 1500 people in the town of Tarapoto, Peru.
The VIII Pan Amazonian Social Forum in Tarapoto, Peru
Photo: Manuela Picq
FOSPA is a regional chapter of the well-established World Social Forum. It is based on the same model that brings together social movements, associations and individuals to find alternatives to global capitalism. From April 28 to May 1, indigenous peoples, activists, and scholars from various parts of Amazonia got together in the campus of Universidad Nacional San Martin.
FOSPA is an important space, not only because the region is at the forefront of the climate crisis but also because it represents 40% of South America and spreads across nine countries—Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guyana. The 370 indigenous nations in the region are an increasingly smaller part of a booming Amazon population that surpasses 33 million.
This VIII forum was well organized in an Amazon campus with comfortable work space and the shade of mango trees. In the absence of Wi-Fi, participants gathered around fruit juices and Amazon specialties baked in banana leaves at the food fair. The organizing committee, led by Romulo Torres, was most proud of creating the new model of pre-forum. For the first time, there were 11 pre-forums organized in 6 of the 9 Amazon countries to prepare the agendas.
The forum started with a celebratory march through Tarapoto. During three days, participants discussed the challenges of extractive development and land grab across the region. There was in total nine working groups organized around issues such as territoriality, megaprojects, climate change, food sovereignty, cities, education and communication.
During the opening march in defense of Amazonia, Elvira and Domingo, from Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Amazon (Confeniae) walk along Carlos Perez Guartambel, from the Andean Network of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and Ecuador’s Confederation of Kichwa Peoples (Ecuarunari). Photo: Manuela Picq
“Development is the problem”
Speakers strongly criticized models of development based on extractive industries. “Development is the problem, not the solution,” said Carlos Pérez Guartambel, from the Andean Network of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and the Confederation of Kichwa Peoples of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI).
Speakers blamed the political left for being equally invested as the right in extractive development, destroying life in the name of development. Toribia Lero Quishpe, from the CAOI and the Council of Ayllus Markas of the Quillasuyu (CONAMAQ) argued that this investment in capitalist gains corrupted the government of Evo Morales, who licensed over 500 rivers to multinational companies.
Gregorio Mirabal, from the Indigenous Network of the Amazon River Valley (COICA) and Venezuela’s Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon (ORPIA) denounced a massive land grab by the state in the Orinoco region. He said the government is licensing land to mining companies from China and Spain to promote “ecological mining.” Indigenous populations, in turn, have not had a single land title recognized in 18 years and are denied rights to prior consultation.
Ongoing French colonization in Amazonia
A working group discusses the decolonization of power and self-government in Peru. Photo: Manuela Picq
One of the working groups focused on the decolonization of power; French Guyana being the last standing colonial territory in South America.
Rafael Pindard headed a delegation from the Movement for Decolonization and Social Emancipation (MDES) to generate awareness about Amazon territories that remain under the colonial control of France.
Amazon forests constitute over 90% of French Guyana. Delegates described laws that forbid Indigenous Peoples to fish and hunt on their ancestral territories. They explained the mechanisms of forced assimilation—the French state refuses to recognize the existence of six Indigenous Peoples, claiming that in France there is only one people, the French.
The Women’s Tribunal
The forceful participation of women was one of the forum’s most inspiring aspects. Amazon women held a strong presence in the march, plenary sessions and held a special working group on women.
The highlight was the Tribunal for Justice in Defense of the Rights of Pan-Amazonian and Andean Women. Four judges convened at the end of each day to listen to specific cases of women defenders. They heard individual as well as collective cases. Peruvian delegates presented the case of Maxima Acuña, a water defender from the Andean highlands of Cajamarca who faces death threats. Brazilian representatives from Altamira presented the case of the Movement Xingu Vivo para Sempre, which organizes resistance against the Belo Monte Dam.
The Women’s Tribunal also heard cases from across the continent. Liliam Lopez, from the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPINH), presented the emblematic case of Berta Cáceres, assassinated in 2016 for leading the resistance in defense of rivers. Delegates from Chile presented the case of Lorenza Cayuhan, a Mapuche political prisoner jailed in Arauca for defending territory and forced to give birth handcuffed.
Initiatives
Many working groups called for a paradigm shift to move away from economic approaches that treat nature as a resource. Participants defended indigenous notions of living well, or vivir bien in Spanish.
There were many initiatives presented throughout the gathering. The working group on food sovereignty proposed to recover native produce and exchange seeds, for instance, through seed banks.
The final proposals of all working groups hang in the main tent allowing participants to add suggestions before the elaboration of the final document. Photo: Manuela Picq
Delegates from the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) and the organization Terra Mater presented a collaborative project to protect 60 million acres of the mighty Amazon River’s headwaters – the Napo, Pastaza, and Marañon River watersheds in Ecuador and Peru. The Sacred Headwaters project seeks to ban all forms of extractive industries in the watershed and secure legal titles to indigenous territories.
Wrays Pérez, President of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampís Nation (GTAN Wampís) explained practices of indigenous autonomy. The Wampís, who have governed their territories for seven thousand years, have successfully preserved over a million hectares of forests and rivers in Santiago and Morona, Peru. The Wampís Nation designed its own legal statute based on Peruvian and international law, including those protecting the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Amazon communication
Radio Nave covered FOSPA, organizing live interviews and debates with participants. Photo: Manuela Picq
Many venues emphasized the importance of Amazon communication. All workshops and plenary sessions were transmitted live through FOSPATV and remain available on FOSPA’s webpage.
Community radios and medias covered the forum and interviewed participants, such as Radio Marañón, Radio La Nave, and Colombia’s Radio Waira Stereo 104 (Indigenous Zonal Organization of the Putumayo OZIP).
Documentary films played in the evenings, followed by discussions. The Brazilian documentary film “Belo Monte: After the Flood” played in Spanish for the first time, followed by a debate with people affected by hydro-dams in the Brazilian and Bolivian Amazons. Other films presented include “Las Damas de Azul”, “La Lagrima de Aceite” y “Labaka.”
The Tarapoto Declaration
A plenary assembly announces the final Declaration of Tarapoto, May 1 2017. Photo: Manuela Picq
The forum closed with the Carta de Tarapoto, a declaration in defense of life containing 24 proposals. The declaration collected the key demands of all working groups. It demands that states respect international indigenous rights and recognize integral territories. It invites communities to fight pervasive corruption attached to megaprojects and suggests communal monitoring to stop land-grabbing.
The declaration stresses the shared concerns and alliances of Amazonian and Andean peoples, explicitly recognizing how the two regions are interrelated and interdependent. It denounces state alliances with mining, oil, and hydroprojects. It defines extractive megaprojects as global capitalism and a racist civilizing project.
It echoes FOSPA’s intergenerational dimension, celebrating elders as a source of historical knowledge to guide the preservation of Amazon lifeways. Youth groups, who had their own working group, demanded that states recognize the rights of nature.
Women concerns are the focus of four points. In addition to making the Women’s Tribunal a permanent feature of FOSPA, the declaration calls for the end of all forms of violence against women and the recognition of women’s invisible labor. It asks for governments to detach from religious norms to follow international women rights.
In closing, the declaration expresses solidarity with peoples who live in situation of conflict, whose territories are invaded, and who are criminalized for defending the rights of nature.
It is in that spirit that the organizing committee decided to hold the next FOSPA in Colombia. Defenders of life are killed weekly despite the peace process, revealing a political process tightly embedded in the licensing of territories to extractive industries like gold mining.
The Colombian Amazon is calling. May it be a powerful wakeup call across and beyond the Amazons.
A Canadian oil company has told Survival International it will withdraw from the territory of several uncontacted tribes in the Amazon where it had been intending to explore for oil.
The company, Pacific E&P, had previously been awarded the right to explore for oil in a large area of the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier, a region of immense biodiversity which is home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else on Earth. It began its first phase of oil exploration in 2012.
The move follows years of campaigning by Survival International and several Peruvian indigenous organizations, including AIDESEP, ORPIO, and ORAU. ORPIO is suing the government over the threat of oil exploration.
Thousands of Survival supporters had protested by sending emails to the company’s CEO, lobbying the Peruvian government, and contacting the company through social media.
Survival also released an open letter, protesting against the threat of oil exploration, which was signed by Rainforest Foundation Norway and ORPIO. Sustained campaigning helped bring attention to the issue within Peru and around the world.
In a letter, Pacific E&P’s Institutional Relations and Sustainability Manager said that: “[The company] has made the decision to relinquish its exploration rights in Block 135… effective immediately… We wish to reiterate the company’s commitment to conduct its operations under the highest sustainability and human rights guidelines.”
At a tribal meeting in late 2016, a man from the Matsés tribe, which was forced into contact in the late 20th century, said: “I don’t want my children to be destroyed by oil and war. That’s why we’re defending ourselves… and why we Matsés have come together. The oil companies … are insulting us and we won’t stay silent as they exploit us on our homeland. If it’s necessary, we’ll die in the war against oil.”
Oil exploration involves sustained land invasion which can dramatically increase the risk of forced contact with uncontacted tribes. It leaves them vulnerable to violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and to diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
The announcement that it was not going ahead was welcomed by campaigners as significant in the fight to protect uncontacted peoples’ lives, lands and human rights.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This is great news for the global campaign for uncontacted tribes and all those who wish to halt the genocide that has swept across the Americas since the arrival of Columbus. All uncontacted peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected and we believe they are a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity and deserve their right to life to be upheld. We will continue to lead the fight to let them live.”
Background briefing
▪ Oil block 135 is within the proposed Yavarí Tapiche indigenous reserve. Peru’s national Indian organization AIDESEP has been calling for the creation of the reserve for over 14 years.
▪ Part of the oil concession is within the newly created Sierra del Divisor national park. The Peruvian government had awarded Pacific E&P rights to explore within the park.
▪ The Yavarí Tapiche region is part of the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier. This area straddles the borders of Peru and Brazil and is home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else in the world.
▪ Peru has ratified ILO 169, the international law for tribal peoples, which requires it to protect tribal land rights.
▪ We know very little about the uncontacted tribes in the area. Some are presumed to be Matsés, but there are other uncontacted nomadic peoples in the region.
Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.
Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years. They are the best guardians of their environment. And evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.
All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is leading the global fight to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.
Featured image: The Serapo Gate is one of three port of entries located on the Tohono O’odham Nation that tribal members can use to travel into Mexico. By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan
TUCSON, ARIZONA—The Tohono O’odham Nation Executive Branch is firm on their stance against a border wall being built.
“[It’s] not going to happen,” said Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Edward Manual. “It is not feasible to put a wall on the Tohono O’odham Nation…it is going to cost way too much money, way more than they are projecting.”
TON Chairman Manuel went on to say, “It is going to cut off our people, our members that come [from Mexico] and use our services. Not only that we have ceremonies in Mexico that many of our members attend. Members also make pilgrimages to Mexico and a border wall would cut that off as well.”
On January 25, President Donald Trump signed executive actions to begin construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Seventy-five miles of the U.S.-Mexico border runs through the Tohono O’odham Nation (TON).
On January 26, the TON’s Executive Branch sent out a press release stating that they do not support the building of a border wall and invited President Donald Trump to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
“We have been working with other law enforcement agencies any way we can because we are limited on funding and we are using our monies for border enforcements and helping out Customs and Border Patrol,” said Manuel. “We spend our own monies on them and helping migrants that are sick.”
Furthermore, the TON pays $2,500 per autopsy for bodies found on the reservation. Richard Saunders, TON Executive Director of Public Safety, said they found 85 bodies last year, ranging from recently deceased to completely decomposed.
“We spend about $3 million a year and we never get fully reimbursed on those costs,” Manuel said.
On February 8, the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council (TOLC) passed Resolution 17-053 which states, “…while the Nation coordinates closely with CBP and ICE and has supported the construction of vehicle barriers, the Nation opposes the construction of a wall on its southern boundary with Mexico…”
The resolution went on to list what would be affected from a border wall which included: deny tribal members to cultural sites; injure endangered species such as the jaguar and militarize the land on the TON’s southern boundary.
On February 10, the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona passed Resolution 0117, supporting the TON by opposing the construction of a border wall and “the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 Section 102(c) waivers of federal and other laws on tribal lands.”
Manuel and TON Vice Chairman Verlon Jose took a trip to Washington, D.C. from February 11-16 to attend the National Congress of American Indians Executive Council Winter Session and to meet with individuals.
Jose said they met with a lot of people during their time in D.C. which included Department of Homeland Security, the Congressional delegates from Arizona, the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and New Mexico State Senator Tom Udall.
Looking west, the U.S.-Mexico Border is visible for miles as well as the access road Border Patrol Agents use to monitor activity. Mexico is on the left side of the fence and the Tohono O’odham reservation is on the right side. By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan
Jose said the TON gave a formal presentation at NCAI and made another formal invitation to President Trump to come to the Tohono O’odham Nation.
“We are a sovereign nation so they have to come talk to us before they make a decision, that is what we told the Congressional people,” Manuel said. “We want to sit at the table if there is going to be any discussion on a wall along the international boundaries because it is going to impact us directly.”
Jose said they received an overwhelming amount of support in D.C. especially from tribal leaders.
So much so, that NCAI passed Resolution ECWS-17-002, supporting the Tohono O’odham Nation and opposing a border wall.
“The NCAI resolution is a clear statement from our Native American brothers and sisters across the country that they will not see their land seized or their rights trampled by this administration. Trump may have bullied his way into the White House by spreading delusions of a border wall, but if he expects to bully the tribes whose land the wall would cut across, he is gravely mistaken. Native Americans will not give legal consent to any entity determining what happens with their sovereign lands, and will in every way possible oppose the Trump Administration’s plans to build a wall on tribal land,” stated a press release from Arizona Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva and New Mexico Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham.
On February 17, the day after they came back from Washington D.C., Manuel and Jose were part of a border wall panel discussion organized by tribal members. The panel was held in the TOLC Chambers in Sells, Arizona. Almost every seat was filled that Friday evening.
The other panelists included Billman Lopez the Domestic Affairs Chairman for the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council, Lucinda Allen TOLC Vice Chairwoman, Adam Andrews a graduate of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona’s James E. Roger College of Law and James Diamond, Director of Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Tribal Justice Clinic at UA.
Each panelist had five minutes to address Border Safety, Narcotics and Smuggling, Environmental Impacts, Cultural Aspects and Solutions, what is the next step. Afterwards audience members had the chance to ask questions.
On February 20, Shining Soul released a music video for their song “All Day.”
“In light of Trump’s proposed wall, Shining Soul decided to highlight the faces and voices of those who would be negatively impacted by it; Borderland communities such as the Tohono O’odham Nation, Tucson, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora,” according to a press release.
On February 21, the TON Executive Branch released a video called “There is No O’odham Word for Wall.” The six-minute video highlights the TON Executive Branch’s opposition against a border wall while offering background information about the TON.
On February 28, the Native American Student Affairs at the University of Arizona held a discussion about the border wall as part of their Social Injustice Series. There were over 50 people who attended the talk.
“A border wall would not work right now because all the right parties are not at the table,” Jose said. “Take a look at other countries that have built walls, have they worked? There is a lot of other things that come with building a wall, we don’t know if they are looking at that and this border has already cut our home in half.”
Indigenous communities across Guatemala have brought the country to a standstill for the second day in a row. Blockading major crossroads and highways, the nationwide peaceful demonstrations are protesting against the Guatemalan congress’s rejection of a constitutional reform that would legally recognize indigenous justice as part of the country’s judicial system.
An estimated 60 percent, or more than 6 million inhabitants, make up Guatemala’s population (IWGIA). Yet indigenous systems of justice, wherein local authorities rule on community issues, have been looked down upon by a country that continues to hugely discriminate against its majority indigenous population. The reforms face opposition from conservatives and major businesses that control most of Guatemala’s land and economy. Although many of these business interests campaigned against the reforms under the guise of fearing “legal confusion,” indigenous activists and leaders at the protests describe the opposition as deriving from a fear of losing any of their elite power to those who have been oppressed and exploited for centuries–Indigenous Peoples.
Photo: Anna Watts
At Los Encuentros, one of the most important crossroads between major cities located along the Pan-American Highway, thousands of indigenous people of the Sololá region gathered to participate in the blockades. Carrying handmade signs and led by their respective indigenous leaders, community groups unloaded from packed cargo trucks and chicken buses, carrying ready-made lunches to last through a full day of protesting.
By 8:30 AM, every tienda, comedor, and tortilla stand had been closed down and locked up, a rare sight for the ever-bustling highway hub. The majority indigenous city of Sololá was deserted; not a car in sight nor shop windows open. Pick-up trucks and makeshift blockades of boulders and large tree branches cut off traffic between smaller communities surrounding Lake Atitlán.
Protesters organized and coordinated solely by means of meetings and phone calls between indigenous community leaders. Use of Internet or social media to communicate and gain protest support was entirely avoided out of fear of vulnerability and tracking by police and those opposing the reforms. This distrust was reflected in weak media coverage of the protests; in spite of the thousand plus standing in solidarity at Los Encuentros, only one reporter from a local agency showed up with a small video camera.
Featured image: A Yukpa woman tends laundry high in the clouds of the Yukpa lands, which rise over 3000 meters in the Sierra Perijá on the border of Colombia and Venezuela.
A community of indigenous Yukpa saw their land reduced to a third of what it once was due to violence and intimidation. Now Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit is helping the community return to their lands.
The spiritual equilibrium essential to the Yukpa community is off balance. Ancestral burial grounds have been desecrated by invaders; the trees that house the spirits are being cut down; and the wild game that Yukpa men once hunted with zeal is no longer available. The same limitations preventing the community from practicing its culture are preventing Yukpa parents from passing these activities, words, and stories down to new generations.
“The loss of culture is very real. Our children won’t know anything about the Yukpa if we aren’t rescued from extinction. If we don’t have space to preserve our culture, I guarantee that in thirty years, our culture will disappear,” says Andrés Vence, council leader of a Yukpa community consisting of 120 families living on 300 hectares in the Sierra Perijá on the border of Venezuela and Colombia.
“Culture’s longevity depends on territory.”
The yukpa believe that land is the key to allowing their culture, customs and beliefs to flourish.
There are an estimated 6,000 Yukpa remaining in Colombia, and the majority live on autonomous lands known asresguardos.Over the past thirty years, the Yukpa community living in La Laguna has been victim to abuse and intimidation stemming from the armed conflict. The community has also seen its ancestral lands become increasingly occupied by “outsiders,” whom they refer to as colonists. Now, the community is pushing back by launching an ethnic restitution claim that seeks to recover 964 hectares of land and allow the community the space it needs to flourish.
HUMILIATION AND ABUSE
In 1982, the guerrilla group known as the FARC came to Yukpa territory to recruit. Andrés Vence was abducted for eight days to be indoctrinated. He and the Yukpa resisted, but then another guerrilla group known as ELN arrived the following year. After the ELN abducted several young men, Vence and his men–armed with just bows and arrows–marched into the guerrilla camp and took their children back, saying the Yukpa would not participate in any war.
A Yukpa security guard, still armed with bow and arrow.
When the Colombian military entered the scene in the mid-1990s, the situation turned for the worst. Yukpa families could no longer move freely from house to house, leading to the systematic abandonment of more than 900 hectares of land. For years, military checkpoints restricted the flow of food between families. As if that wasn’t bad enough, paramilitary groups—who were often the same members of the military—came to the Yukpa villages at night to terrorize the community.
“They abused and humiliated us,” says Vence. “I think it was all in the hopes that we would open our mouths and say something that gave them the right to murder us.”
Andrés Vence, mayor and leader of the Yukpa community making the restitution claim.
DOCUMENTED HISTORY
In 2015, the regional Land Restitution Unit (LRU) in Cesar focused on “characterization studies,” an essential piece of evidentiary material that documents the background, victimization, and suffering of indigenous communities who wish to reclaim their land. Characterization is a critical step in substantiating an ethnic restitution claim. The USAID-funded Land and Rural Development Program* partnered with the LRU to expedite the process.
Over the course of six months, researchers visited the Yukpa, where they interviewed individual members and held focus groups. They also collected materials from the government, non-governmental organizations, academic texts, and the media. The end result was nearly 200 pages of history, mapping, experience, and evidence presenting how the armed conflict contributed to the decimation of the Yukpa’s culture, livelihood, and overall prosperity.
In addition to carrying out the characterization studies, USAID helped regional restitution offices improve coordination with partner members of the Victims Assistance and Comprehensive Reparations System and municipal officials.
“The partnership gave us operating capacity. Without this support, we would have taken another one or two years to get to this case,” says Jorge Chávez, Director of the Land Restitution Unit in Cesar.
The document will be filed as part of the Yukpa community’s land restitution claim, which will go before a restitution judge before the end of the year. By law, judges must issue a ruling within six months after a restitution claim is filed in the court. In Cesar, the Yukpa case will be the third ethnic restitution case to reach the courts, making the department an important player in the nationwide effort to heal the historic rift between the government and Indigenous Peoples.
Colombia’s indigenous communities are often the country’s most vulnerable. Over the past five years, Colombian restitution judges have issued three ethnic restitution sentences, delivering over 124,000 hectares of land back to indigenous communities.
There are currently over 24 ethnic restitution cases in the characterization phase that stand to affect over 10,000 families in Colombia.
“All over the country, there are ethnic restitution cases reaching judges. The LRU is in its fifth year and these cases are becoming more and more important to resolve. This particular case is very important because the Yukpa are losing their cultural identity, and we recognize that,” according to Chávez.
In its five years, restitution judges have issued three ethnic restitution sentences, delivering over 124,000 hectares of land back to indigenous communities.
As the Yukpa wait on the judge’s ruling, the case’s progress has emboldened Vence to mobilize the community—including the older citizens known asYimayjas—to transmit the collective memory and cultural skills like weavingmochilas, practicing spiritual rites, and crafting shields to fend off malignant spirits.
Every Wednesday and Friday, Yukpa children attend “Yukpa studies” at the only school in the resguardo.
A favorable ruling will be key to restoring Yukpa faith in the Colombian government. “We’ve put pressure on the government for many years to do this, so our hope is temporary. We watch television, and indigenous culture is never part of the conversation. Indigenous communities are the most vulnerable,” explains Vence.
* Nicholas Parkinson works for the Land and Rural Development Program.
Nicholas is an NGO writer currently based in Bogota, Colombia and working on a large land tenure program that sets out to strengthen government land administration agencies to better serve millions of victims displaced by the violence. Over the past six years, he has worked mainly on agriculture-focused projects in Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda and Somalia, among others. He specializes in NGO documentation and teaches local writers how to create attention-grabbing stories for their NGOs. On hisweblogyou can find stories from his immigrant life, some thoughts on development aid, and a strong dose of rock climbing and adventure.
On November 1, 2016, the Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court provided some good news to a Terraba (Teribe) Indigenous territory when it stopped the state-run Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE by its Spanish acronym) from going forward with the Diquis hydroelectric project for failing to consult Indigenous communities who would see part of their lands flooded.
The permit, issued in 2007 under former President Oscar Arias, had declared the dam to be located at the mouth of the General River Valley in the southern Pacific and part of the country of “national interest.”
The court ruling did not question the “national interest” part of the permit, but said ICE had failed to comply with a previous high court order to adequately consult the Indigenous communities. The project has been stalled since 2011 over the Indigenous consultation issue.
The 650 megawatt hydroelectric project was to be the largest such project in Central America. The project’s reservoir would occupy 7363 hectares of land, 830 hectares of which are Indigenous territories, and displace over 1547 people.
The project would also flood 10 percent of the Terraba (also known as Teribe) China Kichá Indigenous territory (104 hectares) and 8 percent of another Terraba communities of Curré and Boruca (726 hectares). Officials estimate that 200 sacred Indigenous sites would be destroyed by the reservoir.
Some see the development as very positive. The $2.5 billion project would provide employment in the region to 3,500 people. The Diquis project would increase that renewable energy capacity and also allow Costa Rica to sell energy to neighboring Central American countries. Costa Ricans are proud of their electrical energy system which provides energy mostly from renewable resources. In 2016, the country went most of the year without resorting to using oil-fired thermal generators. But sometimes even renewable energy has high cost, especially when it comes to hydro-electric dams.
The high court ruling referred to Article 8 of the Arias Administration decree which would have allowed ICE to gather materials for the dam, power station, and connected works in locales in the areas of El General, Buenos Aires, Changuena and Cabagra, despite the fact that Indigenous people live in the areas.
According to the Constitutional Chamber’s press office, the annulled article was challenged previously in September of 2011, when the court determined that the decree was constitutional just as long as the Indigenous communities were consulted within a period of six months from the notification of the ruling.
However, early the next year, the court ruled that the six months established by the Court had passed and the consultation had not been made. “The Constitutional Chamber has demonstrated that, in fact, in the space of time established in the 2011-12975 ruling, the referred to consultation was not made nor did any party come to this Chamber request an extension of the time limit granted. Therefore, since the condition dictated in ruling 2011-12975 have not been met, the Article 8 of the No. 34312-MP-MINAE executive decree is unconstitutional because the consultation failed to occur,” said the press office.
The Terraba say they are not interested in the offers made so far to relocate their communities to other lands and provide them with well-paid jobs. “We don’t believe in the promises of employment for Indigenous Peoples, as up until today it had been demonstrated that all the qualified and best paid personnel have been brought from outside, Indigenous workers are used only to break rocks,” said community leader Jehry Rivera.
For Indigenous people, ICE offers are only opportunism. Indigenous Peoples want better lands and compensation in order to agree for the project to go forward.
The Court said that the consultation of Indigenous communities under Costa Rican law was necessary since the project is located in areas declared as an Indigenous reserve, “In fact, Costa Rica could be in violation of not complying with international conventions in relation to the autonomy of Indigenous Peoples over their territory. Costa Rica is a signatory of the International Labor Organization’s Convention on Indigenous and Tribal People.”
Indigenous Peoples are not the only ones opposed to the project. Environmentalists say that the dam’s reservoir would dry up the intensely green Térraba River Valley and would destroy irreplaceable habitats such as the Ramsar wetland and the river delta that drains into the Pacific. The wetlands and delta are the nesting grounds for many species including the endangered hump-back whale.
–John McPhaul is a Costa Rican-American freelance writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During his many years in Costa Rica, the land of his birth, he wrote for the Miami Herald, Time Magazine and Costa Rica’s The Tico Times among other publications.
