Colombia's indigenous people find little to celebrate on key day (fwd)

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Colombia's indigenous people find little to celebrate on key day
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/LSGZ-75WHP3?OpenDocument

COLOMBIA, 9 August (UNHCR) – Rising 6,000 feet above sea-level, the peaks of
the Sierra Nevada tower above Colombia's Caribbean Coast in the north of the
country. The Kogi Indians are the guardians of the mountain, which they
believe to be a magical place, the Heart of the World, linked by invisible
black lines to other sacred sites in Colombia.

The Kogis call themselves the Elder Brothers of Humanity and until recently
had avoided all contact with the outside world. The lower slopes of the
Sierra Nevada are populated by three other groups, the Arhuaco, the Wiwa
and the Kankuamo, whose role it is to protect the Guardians at the top.

But in the past decade, Colombia's armed conflict has erupted into their
sacred world, with irregular armed groups fighting for territory, selective
killings, threats and violence. Today, as the Kogis watch from their
snow-capped mountaintop, the black lines have turned into a trail of blood
for many of their indigenous brothers.

"As we prepare to mark World Indigenous Day, our people continue to live in
the midst of violence, general impunity and lack of state protection," said
Luis Evelis Andrade Casama, President of Colombia's National Indigenous
Organisation (ONIC) during a news conference in Bogota on Wednesday.

According to ONIC, some 17,000 indigenous people suffered from direct human
rights – or International Humanitarian Law – violations in the first seven
months of this year. This represents an average of 80 people a day, who
have been victims of crimes ranging from forced displacement to targeted
killings or threats against their lives.

ONIC added that some 12% of the total indigenous population is currently at
risk because of the conflict, suffering from violence, intimidation, and
reduced access to economic resources. As a result, the malnutrition rate
among children of the Embera and Wounaan groups is as high as 75% in the
Pacific Coast region of Choco.

On the other side of the country, in southern Putumayo, the Cofan Indians
are also facing starvation, as the conflict impedes their freedom of
movement and limits their possibilities to fish, hunt and grow their
traditional crops.

"We are not so many, there are only about 1,200 of us Cofans," Ivan Queta
explained for the group. "We are trying to hang onto our culture, to teach
our children to speak our language. But how can our children go to school,
when they are dying of starvation and we have to move from one place to the
next in search of peace?"

Under Colombian and international law, the State has a duty to pay special
attention to the protection of ethnic minorities and their culture in the
midst of the armed conflict. Forced displacement affects indigenous people
in a devastating way, not only as individual but as cultural groups with
their own traditions and organizations.

UNHCR works with the State to help it fulfill this duty of protection, and
with indigenous organizations all over the country. It has also been
campaigning to raise awareness of the magnitude of a crisis that goes on
year after year.

"We have to ask ourselves what we are doing to overcome this situation,"
said UNHCR Representative in Colombia Roberto Meier during the news
conference. "Last year, we denounced the killings of five displaced Awa
indigenous people on World Indigenous Day. A year on, we have the sad news
that five Awa have died in a landmine accident on their own lands."

He added that some 1,300 Awa are confined in their territories in Nariño,
also in southern Colombia, unable to flee combat because their lands are
ridden with mines. Some 600 of them have taken refuge in five schools
inside Awa territory. Hundreds more have been forced to displace again this
year, some across the border to Ecuador.

Other indigenous people have fled to Brazil, Venezuela and Panama in search
of safety. In order to address the regional dimensions of the crisis, UNHCR
is developing a joint strategy based on local resources and needs on both
sides of Colombia's borders, starting with Ecuador and Venezuela.

Speaking on behalf of the four tribes of the Sierra Nevada, Leonor Zabaleta,
who received a Human Rights Prize this year from the Swedish government,
said all the laws and humanitarian assistance in the world cannot alone
stop the tragedy. "There is a law in Colombia to help the victims of forced
displacement, but there is nothing concrete in place to guarantee that we do
not have to displace. Yet if we have to leave our land, everything is lost,"
she said.

And while Colombia's armed conflict goes on, fear will remain for the
cultural survival of the 80 indigenous groups who together make up around
3% of the country's total population and represent one of the richest and
most varied indigenous heritage in the world.

By Marie-Hélène Verney and Gustavo Valdivieso
in Bogota, Colombia