A coal train entering Bellingham, Washington has been blockaded by a fossil fuel resistance group, including members of Deep Green Resistance. This blockade, part of an ongoing regional campaign against fossil fuels, has been standing strong for six hours – with no end in sight.
Beginning at four PM this afternoon, protestors erected a portable tripod structure in the middle of a rail bridge crossing Mud Bay south of Bellingham. One protester has climbed to the top and will stay until removed by police.
The organizers of the blockade say that fossil fuels must be stopped to save the planet from global warming.
When asked about her motivation for joining the resistance movement, one Deep Green Resistance member responded, “We won’t be complicit in a global catastrophe. The government and the capitalists are working together to kill the planet. We’re going to work together to stop them.”
With two refineries sitting north of town and a tar sands pipeline running underneath, Bellingham has been in the sights of the fossil fuel industry for decades. The struggle to keep fossil fuel transportation out of the small city has been ongoing. The Lummi Nation and other local resisters recently defeated plans for a major coal export terminal. However, coal merchants continue to push for the project.
The protest also delayed passenger trains, but organizers aren’t overly concerned. When asked about possible inconveniences to travelers, a protestor responded, “What’s inconvenient is losing your island to rising sea levels, or having your home flooded in Baton Rouge, or digging mass graves in Pakistan in anticipation of heat waves.” She also noted that Amtrak was notified to minimize delays in passenger transportation.
This year’s Fourth of July week grew in horror as it passed. Each day brought new nightmares that struck me at a dizzying pace. By the end of the week, after I decided I was sick of weeping, I turned off the television, shut my Facebook tab, and remembered that the best antidote for despair is action.
My week started hopefully enough in Eugene, Oregon where I participated in a training hosted by members of Deep Green Resistance called Extraction Resistance: A Three Day Training in Direct Action. One of the goals of the event was to normalize direct action tactics, and I was asked to write a primer on the topic. This is that primer.
When I got home from Eugene, I found a video news story from Karachi, Pakistan showing men digging mass graves in anticipation of the number of heat-related deaths caused by soaring summer temperatures. The ghosts of people not yet dead climbed from trenches dug in the dry Pakistani dust. I could almost see the bodies piling in the grave-diggers’ shadows.
The next day I watched as two white police officers pinned Alton Sterling, a black man, to the ground, put a pistol to his head, and shot him execution-style. I went to bed wondering how the cops were going to get out of this one only to wake to see Philando Castile slumped over in the seat of a car, blood seeping through his clothes, as his fiancé, Diamond Reynolds, explained in a video that Castile was just shot four times by a police officer in a routine traffic stop.
Then, during an otherwise peaceful rally protesting the murders of Sterling and Castile, twelve cops were shot, five of them fatally, and two civilians wounded by Micah Xavier Johnson, a military veteran who had served in Afghanistan. The Dallas Police Department then killed Johnson with a robot bomb.
Now, I am white, and I will not comment on the efficacy of Johnson’s actions. I will, however, direct a suggestion to white people who benefit from the white supremacism that the United States is founded upon and perpetuates. Let me suggest that the same culture producing climate change is the same culture producing the cops who murdered Sterling is the same culture producing the cops who murdered Castile is the same culture that trained Johnson “to shoot and move” is the same culture that employs police departments who possess robots with bombs that can be remotely controlled to kill citizens.
Let me suggest to those white people who are truly interested in undermining racism and stopping white supremacy that to do this we must dismantle the dominant culture. If we want to live in a world where Pakistanis are not digging mass graves for the victims of climate change, if we want to live in a world where people of color are not being murdered by cops, if we want to live in a world where veterans are not sniping from parking garages, if we want to live in a world where humans are not made into veterans in the first place, then we must look to the roots of the problem. Finding those roots, we must dig this poisoned tree out.
And, how do we dig these roots out? The answer begins with serious, militant resistance movements that correctly identify the dominant culture’s sources of power. Once those sources are identified, resistance movements must engage in direct action to undermine the dominant culture’s power.
***
First, we need to understand power. Quite simply, power is how the powerful do what they do. Power is how the cops murder and get away with it. Power is how corporations extract fossil fuels, burn fossil fuels, and drive the planet ever-closer to runaway climate change.
Power is best understood as a physical phenomenon. Power is not merely a mental event. Power is not simply an emotion. Cops may or may not personally hate the people of color they are murdering. Corporate decision makers may or may not personally despise the Earth that gives them life. What matters is that cops are armed with real batons, real pepper spray, real tasers, and real guns and they are supported by an entire governmental system that can protect them with even more batons, pepper spray, tasers, and guns. What matters is corporations are armed with real machines, real poisonous chemicals, real labor forces, and once their projects have been granted permits by the government, they can call on real cops with all the real weapons I’ve already described to protect their projects. What matters is physical power in the real world.
There is perhaps no person on Earth who has spent more time understanding the importance of power in contemporary politics than Gene Sharp. There is also perhaps no person in the world responsible for more successful revolutions than Sharp. This is no coincidence.
Sharp describes his theory of power in his brilliant book, How Non-Violent Struggle Works. His work helps us identify the dominant culture’s sources of power and provides insight into how those sources of power can be undermined.
Sharp begins by explaining the central importance of power, and writes: “Power is inherent in practically all social and political relationships. Its control is the basic problem in political theory and in political reality. It is necessary to wield power in order to control the power of threatening adversaries.” In short, the goal of any serious resistance movement should be to undermine the opposition’s power while enhancing the movement’s power.
Sharp defines political power as power “which is wielded for political objectives, especially by governmental institutions or by people in opposition to or in support of such institutions. Political power thus refers to the total authority, influence, pressure, and coercion which may be applied to achieve or prevent the implementation of the wishes of the power-holder.”
According to Sharp, the sources of political power are authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources, and sanctions. These sources of power are interconnected and benefit and build off each other. Increasing power through one of these sources often enhances power in all the sources. This truth, while scary, also highlights weaknesses in the dominant culture’s power. If a resistance movement can undermine one source of power, it can deal a heavy blow to the others.
Sharp quotes Jacques Maritain to define authority as “the right to command and direct, to be heard or obeyed by others.” Taking this idea deeper than Sharp does, I want to point out that rights mean nothing if they are not enforceable. On the surface, it is easy to confuse the right to command and direct bestowed upon elected leaders, in the United States, as being derived from the results of an election. This is not completely true. Think, for example, what would happen if Barack Obama refused to yield the Oval Office to the winner of this year’s presidential election. Eventually, a governmental decision-maker would order police or soldiers to remove Obama at gunpoint.
Sharp describes how power is derived from human resources with, “The power of rulers is affected by the number of persons who obey them, cooperate with them, or provide them with special assistance.” These human resources come with the next source of power: skills and knowledge. Sharp writes, “The power of rulers is also affected by the skills, knowledge and abilities of such persons, and the relation of their skills, knowledge and abilities to the rulers’ needs.” Understanding this point, we see why the dominant culture is so obsessed with developing science and technology. It uses science and technology to enhance control. We see, too, why Western science has been a disaster for life.
Next, Sharp describes intangible factors as “Psychological and ideological factors, such as habits and attitudes toward obedience and submission, and the presence or absence of a common faith, ideology, or sense of mission.” To illustrate this point, imagine if rulers could convince people that this world isn’t real, that the sacred exists in an abstract sky God, and that the point of life is to suffer in this world to prove your devotion to this abstract sky God so you can join him, after death, in his abstract sky kingdom.
For material resources, Sharp writes, “The degree to which the rulers control property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, communication, and transportation helps to determine the limits of their power.”
To supplement Sharp’s analysis, here, we see one reason why the dominant culture is hell-bent on ecological destruction. Resource extraction yields power. Industrial agriculture – which requires the displacement of indigenous peoples, the extermination of animal populations, the theft of water from natural communities, deforestation, and the destruction of the world’s most important carbon sinks (grasslands) – yields a controllable food source. Mining – which also involves the displacement of indigenous peoples, the extermination of animal populations, the poisoning of groundwater, and mountain-top removal – yields energy sources for industrialization. And these are just two examples.
Sharp quotes John Austin to define sanctions as “an enforcement of obedience” and writes, “Sanctions are used by rulers to supplement voluntary acceptance of their authority and increase the degree of obedience to their commands…Violent domestic sanctions, such as imprisonment or execution, are commonly intended to punish disobedience, not to achieve the objective of the original command.”
We see, here, one of the primary roles of the police. Police exist to enforce obedience. Part of enforcing obedience is the performance of violent domestic sanctions like imprisonment and execution. To understand how this works think about a saying from the battered women’s movement: “One beating a year is enough to keep a woman down.” For a battered woman, it’s enough to keep her down that she merely be threatened with violence once she has experienced a man’s violence. The same is true for would-be resisters. After seeing videos of police murdering citizens, it only takes the threat of police violence to keep us in line.
***
Understanding that power is physical and identifying the material roots of the dominant culture’s power is only the first step. Now, we must act to physically dismantle those sources of power. Physically dismantling power requires direct action.
So, what is direct action?
The term “direct action” has been used so often within environmental and social movements in so many different contexts that it is in danger of losing its meaning. It is difficult to find a clear definition of direct action in activist literature rooted in a radical analysis, so I have formed my own. It has three parts: First, direct action involves a clearly defined and obtainable goal. Second, the success of that goal is demonstrable by a quantifiable reduction in the opposition’s physical power. Third, it is primarily the actions of those engaging in the direct action that produce the desired goal.
It is important that a proposed action begins with a clearly defined and obtainable goal because an action involving a poorly-defined goal makes it difficult to determine the scope of the action. And, proposed actions with unobtainable goals will be, by definition, ineffective. Planning to change the world through an educational program designed to illustrate the evils of the fossil fuel industry, for example, is neither clearly-defined nor obtainable. What does it mean “to change the world?” And, how will you possibly reach enough people to effect this change? Planning to delay the construction of a pipeline for a day, however, is both clearly-defined and obtainable. Resisters can, without too much imagination, envision a successful action.
Once a clearly-defined and obtainable goal is established, the direct action must reflect an understanding of power and be designed to materially affect the opposition’s physical power. Let’s say activists come up with a plan to drop a banner that says “Stop the Tarsands!” from the rafters of the Utah State Capitol. The plan is both clearly defined and, with some clever security dodging, obtainable. This action cannot be considered direct action, however, because there is no way to quantify how, or even if, the banner affects those in power’s ability to destroy.
Let’s look at another hypothetical plan: Activists plan to blockade, for 24 hours, trains carrying oil through the State of Washington where they will be loaded on to tankers to fuel the US Navy in Hawai’i. This plan has a clearly defined and obtainable goal. The goal also reflects an understanding of where the dominant culture gets its power. The US Navy, one of the weapons the United States uses to perpetuate imperialism, literally requires oil. Depriving the Navy of a little oil for one day may not be a big hit to its power, but it is quantifiable.
It is primarily the actions of those engaging in the direct action that produce the desired goal. Another way to say this is: There is a clear causal link between the direct action and the desired goal. If the goal is to block the construction of a pipeline, for example, then the planned action must literally stop the pipeline’s construction. If the goal is to liberate individual children from human trafficking networks, then the planned action must literally involve the means to escort children from human trafficking networks to safety. Yet another way to say this is: direct action does not leave it to external decision makers (governmental, corporate, or otherwise) to produce the desired goal. Direct action is not an appeal to those in power. It does not rely solely on moral persuasion, shame, or economic cost-benefit analyses.
A lawsuit, then, that is filed to gain protection for a species that lives on land where a mine is planned to be dug in order to stop the mine has a clearly defined and obtainable goal. If the lawsuit is won, then it will materially affect one of the dominant culture’s sources of power. But, this lawsuit is not direct action because it relies on a favorable ruling from a judge for its success. The actions of the lawsuit’s planners are necessary, but ultimately the planners themselves cannot produce the desired goal.
***
I’ve called this essay a “primer.” One definition of primer is “a short informative piece of writing.” Another is a “compound used to ignite an explosive charge.” I hope that this essay serves as both. We need to see the problems we face clearly and we need a spark to ignite the change that is so drastically needed.
Nine community members arrested for blocking construction on Spectra Energy’s AIM pipeline expansion – known as the “Montrose 9″ – join the national debate over harms caused by fossil fuel infrastructure
Cortlandt, NY — The “Montrose 9” are nine community members arrested for disorderly conduct for allegedly blocking traffic near the access to a Spectra Energy construction yard used for the expansion of a high-pressure fracked-gas pipeline known as the AIM pipeline. Their trial has the potential to become a landmark case with national implications involving the “necessity defense.” Defense counsel Martin R. Stolar is a prominent social justice attorney who argues that the defendants’ actions were justified since they were undertaken to stop a greater harm and were carried out only after all other legal and regulatory options had been exhausted. Court adjourned until July 15th at 1pm, when the other seven defendants are expected to testify regarding their reasons for taking direct action against the project.
While the necessity defense has been used in other types of cases, it is unusual in environmental litigation. One case occurred in May 2013 in Massachusetts when a small lobster boat managed to blockade a barge containing 40,000 tons of coal near the Brayton Point Power Plant. The charges of obstruction were dismissed and the presiding judge stated that the actions were morally justified. In a recent Seattle case, the “Delta 5” were found guilty of trespass for blocking an oil train but not guilty of obstruction. Jurors in that case cited sympathy for the activists and feeling of gratitude for their personal sacrifice for the good of all.
In questioning the prosecution’s police witnesses, Mr. Stolar also suggested a more traditional reason to dismiss the charges. He established that the defendants were not, in fact, causing the traffic jam on Route 9A as was charged. Rather, the Spectra workers caused the tie up when they obstructed the roadway with their cars. Police testified that once they began directing the workers to move, the congestion began to clear up even before the arrests took place. When asked how he determined that the cars belonged to pipeline workers, one officer replied that “there were a lot of out of state license plates.”
The greater harm to be prevented:
Defense witnesses, Cortlandt Councilman Seth Freach and two nuclear experts, testified to the dangers posed by the AIM pipeline. Councilman Freach discussed his own, and the Town Board’s, concerns about public health and safety and described letters that were sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other regulatory agencies expressing those concerns. Among the materials Cortlandt submitted to FERC was a report from an independent study that the Town had commissioned. Councilman Freach noted that, based on the Board’s thorough evaluation of the project, members had voted unanimously in opposition to the pipeline.
Paul Blanch, an engineer with over 50 years of nuclear experience, stated that there were “very significant unaccounted for risks” with the AIM pipeline and “an unacceptable probability” of a serious or catastrophic accident due to the pipeline’s close proximity to the Indian Point nuclear power plant. He also provided details of his efforts opposing the pipeline at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Physicist Paul Moskowitz described the radioactive materials, including lead 210 and polonium 210, that result from decay of the radon in fracked gas. He went on to discuss regulatory filings he’d submitted detailing his concerns about radioactive emissions from the AIM pipeline and their impacts on human health. He testified that FERC’s response to his concerns were “a total fabrication” that “ignored over 50 years of established science.” When asked about what process would be used to deal with these dangerous substances, he responded that since FERC denies the existence of those known radioactive materials in pipelines there is no process in place for dealing with them.
Two defendants explain their actions:
Only two of the Montrose 9 defendants were able to testify before court concluded for the day. Both told their own individual stories of why they had stepped up to protest in such a compelling way. Although members of the community have been working through regulatory channels, their efforts have been met with delays and legal maneuvers, leaving them no recourse but to pursue more direct actions.
Linda Snider testified that since all of the regulatory agencies had ignored the issues, she felt she needed to stop AIM construction herself. She stated, “I wanted to stop the Spectra trucks and stop them from putting in this pipeline. We’ve just got to stop this.”
Defendant Susan Rutman, a landscape photographer who lives next to the Hudson River, was the final witness for the day. She explained she had sought to stop the work through writing to officials. “My intention was to stop the pipeline, because I knew it would prevent a far greater harm.” she said.
Find out more information about the AIM Pipeline and ongoing resistance here:
Members of Brazil’s Awá tribe have blockaded a railroad owned by Vale mining company in the eastern Amazon.
The company has moved to expand the railroad, but the Awá say the expansion will increase the number and size of trains which transport iron ore from the Carajás mine to the port of São Luis – and that this will make it harder for them to hunt for food.
Carajás is the world’s largest open pit iron ore mine. To transport the iron ore, trains that are over 3 kilometers in length regularly hurtle through close to Awá territory.
The tribe are calling for a meeting with the company and FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s indigenous affairs department, so that their wishes can be heard and their rights respected.
On Saturday a large group of Awá families occupied a section of the railroad which runs alongside their land.
Following a meeting with Vale representatives yesterday, the Awá agreed to suspend the blockade on condition that the company upholds its agreement to mitigate the impacts on the Indians’ forest.
This is the first time that the Awá have blockaded the railroad on their own initiative and reflects their determination to hold Vale to account.
In April 2014 Survival’s international campaign succeeded in pushing the Brazilian government to evict illegal loggers and settlers who had destroyed over 30% of their central territory.
However, the Awá are still one of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Around 100 remain uncontacted and are very vulnerable to diseases brought in by outsiders, to which they have no resistance.
On Monday, 6th of June at 03:15 AM, the security company Valina stormed into the Rog Factory, which is formally owned by the Municipality of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The plan was to secure the place and turn it into a building ground, all according to the gentrification vision of the mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković. Despite the violent and brutal approach of the security, the community of the Rog Factory won that war, managed to defend the place and around noon, the demoralized security forces had to leave the premises. Within the hour, barricades were erected around the area, heavily protecting the main entrance, as it is expected there will be another attempts of eviction in the coming days, possibly with the help of police forces.
After the decades of neglect of the old factory premises – by the state and then municipality – artists, activists, philosophers, as well as members of various collectives and groups have been active here for more than 10 years. Since the government structures care more about fulfilling the Neoliberal wet dreams and obeying the directives coming from Brussels, the Autonomous Centre Rog, within years, also took over some of the social functions which should be, by the Constitution, provided by the state. Rog stands and works where the state failed. All the activities and services in Rog are based on voluntary approach, and supported by donations.
The Rog Factory is a complex of five smaller buildings plus the main building and all of these constantly house various activities. People have invested their time in repairing the building, so now the whole area is filled with culture, music, sport, social, permacultural and other activities. Since we are in the middle of the exam period for the students, a study room with a library was also established recently. Everything is based on autonomy, solidarity and mutual help.
There were attempts to achieve a compromise, but the Municipality of Ljubljana constantly ignores the activities already taking place in the factory. Their goal is to stop these, since they oppose the capitalist ideas of gentrification of the centre of Ljubljana. The mayor wants a clean space, he wants tourists and established-art scene. In other words: he certainly wants to keep the economy going. Hence, his goal is eviction of the current users and demolition of all the buildings except the central one, which would, supposedly, be renewed. The City’s PR succeeded in portraying the community of Rog as outlaws to the general public, meaning the Mayor has some lay-support behind him, which presents a good example of horizontal hostility at work.
Right now, there is a constant, 24/7 presence of approximately one hundred people on the premises ― with a couple of hundred more on a constant stand-by ― willing to defend the cause. There are two dozen various daily activities in Rog, from exercise, language courses and radio station to music, theatre, art exhibitions and lectures. People, institutions and various collectives from Slovenia and abroad are sending their statements of support to the struggle of the Autonomous Rog Factory. Some of the well-established artists are preparing a big art exhibition within Rog premises. People are also travelling to Ljubljana to join the fight for Rog.
The community in Rog keeps emphasizing that the question of the Rog Factory is a political question. It certainly is. It is a prime example of the struggle for a better, anti-capitalist society, so it is very likely a growing precedent, opening a path to future struggles.
The happening in Rog can be followed through the very active Facebook page Ohranimo Tovarno Rog (Let’s protect the Rog Factory).
Editor’s note: At publication, we received word that the entrance of the Autonomous Centre was attacked by neo-Nazis on June 10. A short description and call for support is posted here. If you’re involved in the Rog Factory occupation please feel free to post comments below, or contact us at newsservice@deepgreenresistance.org.
U’wa struggle against tuberculosis, parasitic worms, climate change and the threats of violent paramilitary repression
Featured image: “The U’wa were sent a photo of a sheep in military gear and carrying a rifle, implying that they are associated with the guerrillas. These are very serious accusations, providing a political rationale for violent paramilitary repression against the U’wa.”
—Andrew Miller, Director of Advocacy at Amazon Watch. Photo: unknown
This is the second installment of “The Guardians of Mother Earth,” an exclusive four-part series examining the Indigenous U’wa struggle for peace in Colombia.
Nestled below the snow-capped mountains on the eastern cordillera of the Colombian Andes is the town of Güicán, known internationally to hikers as the gateway to Colombia’s magnificent Cocuy National Park. To the east of the mountain range the impenetrable tropical vegetation provides cover from air strikes for the guerrilla armies along the Venezuelan border. On the western border of U’wa territory the vegetation disappears with the altitude into a vast network of Andean peaks, valleys, and pristine wetland ecosystems called paramos.
It was here late last year during the October 25 municipal elections when the mountains surrounding Güicán became the scene of an ELN ambush resulting in the deaths of one policeman and 11 soldiers from Colombia’s High-Mountain Battalion. The battalion had left the U’wa resguardo at 3am and marched down a narrow mountain trail while carrying 130 votes cast by the remote indigenous communities of Bachira when they stopped to rest only to come under fire from rifles and guerilla rocket-launchers called “tatucos.” The sergeant leading the group communicated back to base that his security detail of 34 soldiers and two policemen charged with protecting delegates from the voting commission as well as an indigenous U’wa guide were under attack when radio contact was lost.
A coordinated air and ground assault was launched by the Colombian military to rescue the survivors and recover the bodies at an altitude of 9,842 ft where the tough mountain terrain makes helicopter access difficult. Two police were found wounded but alive while two soldiers as well as the U’wa guide and the civilians from the voting office remained unaccounted for as the ELN disappeared into the mountains. Vladimir Moreno, an indigenous U’wa leader, told El Tiempo there was no precedent for such violence in the region and that historically the guerillas had never interfered with the votes of local U’wa. “This is a peaceful community,” he said.
“We will request from national and international organizations to demand that the armed actors in the resguardo withdraw,” Moreno told Caracol Radio, “and we also demand from the Ministry of Defence that the Army clears out of the area within the resguardo because this has violated international humanitarian law.”
The incident, which was the most violent confrontation between the ELN and the state military since peace negotiations between the FARC and government started three years ago in Havana, resulted in the consequent militarization of U’wa and rural communities across the western border of the resguardo.
Now, six months later, Güicán is the epicenter for a non-violent U’wa mobilization: for the last few months the indigenous community has blocked the entrances of the Cocuy National Park. “The U’wa Nation is the Guardian of Mother Earth and from now into the future we will not permit tourism into the national park,” Yimy Aguablanca, an indigenous leader from Güicán, told IC on March 21, 2016. He added that tourism is affecting the water and the entire eco-system around the park and that non-indigenous rural people have joined the protest.
An U’wa Indigenous Guard. Photo: Tatiana Vila Torres / Kinorama Copyleft
The scarce facilities like rubbish bins and toilets in the state-run park mean some of the trails are littered with trash and visitors are forced to defecate beside the mountain streams that supply drinking water for surrounding communities. Outrage over the poor administration of the park was further inflamed in February when a charity match of high-altitude soccer was broadcast over YouTube. The match took place on the glacier of the U’wa’s sacred mountain Zizuma, the resting place of their divine beings. Known as Mount Cocuy in Spanish, an estimated 90 percent of Zizuma’s glaciers have disappeared in the last 150 years due to climate change. What little ice there is left is receding at a rate of 25 meters per year.
“Today we cry as our Zizuma is condemned to disappear,” went out the U’wa Communiqué that was broadcast through social media. Yimy Aguablanca said this latest mobilization of the U’wa will not stop until the state hands over administration of the park to the U’wa. So far, their calls for a direct dialog with the Minister of Environment have been ignored. The Constitution of 1999 allotted 220,275 hectares for the U’wa but this is a fraction of their ancestral lands, which once included the Cocuy National Park and areas rich with oil and gas reserves, which were conveniently left out of the agreement by the Colombian government.
In 2015, the U’wa High-Council made up of indigenous leaders from different communities across their territory, approved the creation of the Indigenous Guard. These guardians are responsible for territorial control and defense, and while unarmed, they have a mandate to ensure that no one enters the reserve without authorization, especially technical staff like geologists. The decision to form the Indigenous Guard came in response to an event in May 2014, when the U’wa detained functionaries from the company ENCOMINING who were in the Campo Hermoso region of their territory attempting to take coal samples. The importance of the current mobilization around the Cocuy National Park to not just the U’wa but also non-indigenous rural communities in the region is evident by the fact that rural farmers are now standing side by side with the Indigenous Guard to block all entrances to the park.
“Today when we look at our rights over our territory it is not the same as that of our ancestors,” Berito told IC. “It has been exploited, violated, distributed, but still even now we must always protect the water, the animals, and the forests.”
It was during ‘la Violencia’ — a dark period in Colombian history that began in 1948 — when the borders of the U’wa Nation’s territory were first reduced as thousands of refugees fleeing conflict from other parts of the country settled on the fertile banks of the Arauca. Instead of seeing enemies that needed to be vanquished, the U’wa saw victims worthy of compassion and retreated further into the mountains. Over the next 10 years, 200,000 people were killed as the civil war engulfed the country. La Violencia was eventually resolved by a power-sharing agreement in 1958 that turned Colombia into a dictatorship and consequently set the stage for a Marxist guerrilla insurgency against the central government.
Since 1964, another 260,000 people have been killed in the current incarnation of the Colombian armed conflict, and the war-torn provinces of Arauca, Casanare, Norte de Santander and Boyacá that overlap U’wa territory have become some of the most violent and militarized states in the country. In the north of U’wa territory in Norte de Santander, when word spreads of the Colombian army’s proximity, U’wa men race back from the fields to their families so the women are not alone in their homes.
To the south of the Cocuy National Park in Boyacá province, land that once belonged to the U’wa and is still considered sacred by their people has been violated by turning it into a permanent military base to defend nearby petroleum wells from five divisions of the FARC’s formidable Eastern Block and the heavy concentration of ELN fighters in Arauca and Casanare.
Although U’wa territory falling within the borders of the national park is protected from mining under the constitution, the proximity of these intense large-scale petroleum and gas exploitation projects has greatly affected the region’s fragile and delicately interconnected ecosystems. The Andean paramos that make up much of the terrain in the south and west of U’wa territory as well as the national park absorb water like giant sponges before releasing it into the rivers that nourish all life in the cloud forests on the eastern edge of the cordillera and the vast wetland Savana called Los Llanos that stretches thousands of miles into Venezuela.
An U’wa bi-lingual teacher named Jose Cobaria sharpens his machete in the unusually dry Cobaria river. “The government invests all of its money in guns and war not education and health.” Photo: Jake Ling
These rivers are symbols of spiritual purity in U’wa cosmology, but a severe drought engulfing the region caused by overzealous mining in the Andean paramos, climate change and El Niño has turned these once mighty tributaries flowing through the U’wa ancestral lands into stony creek beds. To make matters worse, the once crystalline waters they carried from the snow-capped peaks and glaciers of the Sierra Cocuy and Güicán have been infected with a parasitic worm that stunts the indigenous children’s growth and swells their bellies, leaving them malnourished and lethargic while depleting their immune systems.
A dose of antibiotics from Cubará hospital can control the worm, but many indigenous families cannot afford the journey down the mountain to the town for a doctor’s prescription. Those that can make the trip to purge their children’s stomachs find out that after drinking one glass of water the worm is back. “We have to defend our health,” Berito told IC, “and this means examining the exploitation and contamination of the water which has cast a shadow over the rivers.”
“U’wa locals say the drinking water didn’t used to make them sick and that the parasitic worm which has recently contaminated the water supply severely affects indigenous children, swelling their stomachs and leaving them malnourished.”
Further up the mountain, 50-year-old Kuiuru Kobeua has worked 8 hours a day for the last 14 days planting seeds on a small plot carved out of the forest to make sure his wife and three children do not go hungry come harvest. Two months ago, when his test for tuberculosis in Cubará hospital turned out negative, he was sent home with a packet of Ibuprofen. Two months later, he has trouble talking between violent coughs and the constant need to clear his phlegm-filled throat and lungs. He can barely afford another trip to Cubará and fears being turned back home again with nothing but another packet of painkillers. Meanwhile, the cough is not going away and he feels increasingly weak.
Until the Colombian government establishes a Tuberculosis Clinic in Cubará, the town’s under-resourced health clinic is unable to properly identify or treat the disease such as in the case of Kuiuru Kobeua, who was sent home from the hospital with nothing but painkillers. Photo: Jake Ling
“To prevent such cases of tuberculosis,” Yimy Aguablanca said, “we need to recognize and tell the world that the actual health policies of this government do not guarantee that our U’wa brothers are protected from the disease.”
On the other side of the U’wa’s ancestral territory the Earth First Journal reports that there are not enough seats for the patients in the tin-roofed off-the-grid medical clinic in Chuscal and that some of the sick are sprawled on the cracked floor tiles. Diseases such as tuberculosis, dysentery and leishmaniasis, a parasite spread by sandflies that attacks people’s internal organs, are rife. “We’re short of everything,” Eusebio Carceres, the head nurse at the isolated healthcare outpost, told Earth First. “Antibiotics, vaccines, lab equipment – we’re even short of clean drinking water because the oil spills have poisoned so many sources around here.”
Although the Colombian government routinely sends mining engineers into and around U’wa territory through state-run petroleum companies, the government’s failure to provide the region with uncontaminated drinking water or medical specialists to heal the community’s sick is striking.
The problems facing the U’wa are compounded by the limited arable land allotted to them in the constitution. It has forced them to change their agricultural practices. In decades past, the U’wa rotated crops to conserve soil quality and left areas to regenerate for up to 12 years before returning to ensure a bountiful harvest. Now the quality of soil is declining along with the quantity of their yields; sufficient food to feed the entire community is becoming increasingly scarce. Given the choice of clearing more of their sacred forests for agriculture or starving, however, the U’wa choose to fast. Amazon Watch neatly summed up the situation: although the U’was are pacifists who are unwilling to kill anyone for their beliefs, they are willing to die for them.
On the western paramos surrounding the sacred Zizuma, Yimy Aguablanca and a hundred other rural and U’wa protesters are standing firm despite the threats sent to the Indigenous Guard. On March 25, they received a cryptic photo of a sheep, grazing below the sacred mountain, dressed in guerilla military fatigues and carrying an assault rifle. The not-so-subtle threat means the U’wa have been categorized as an armed rebel group — and therefore a military target.
“When your protests disrupt an economic activity, you become a target of armed actors who operate on behalf of those interests,” said Andrew Miller, Director of Advocacy at Amazon Watch. He added that local politicians with ties to the tourism industry have been affected economically by the U’wa’s biocultural conservation efforts. Along with the threatening photo, Miller said that rumors are now circulating about the U’wa receiving bribes from the FARC to help them re-establish contraband shipment routes through the national park.
“These are very serious accusations providing a political rationale for a violent paramilitary repression against the U’wa,” Miller told IC. “The notion that the U’wa are associated with an armed group is absurd. They are actually radical pacifists by culture.”
The third installment in this series turns to recent history centered on Berito Cobaria, catholic missionaries and the international movement against Occidental Petroleum. It will be available soon on Intercontinental Cry.
