Here is video of a conversation with Jesús Emilio Tuberquia, a leader of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in northwestern Colombia, recorded during his October 2010 visit to Washington.

Biofuels Push Becomes Weapon in Colombia’s War on Narco-Traffickers

Interesting article in the Times about this current situation in Colombia TIBU, Colombia — A farmer smiles as he surveys his 25-acre palm plantation in the steamy hill country near the Venezuelan border. Government support for biodiesel has spurred a … Continue reading →

Interview: Afro-Colombian Farmers on Displacement and Resistance

Five years after the alleged demobilization of army-backed paramilitaries in Colombia, violence and human rights abuses remain widespread in the countryside, displaced Afro-Colombian farmers and community leaders Juan Sanchez and Roberto Guzman* say. Activists working on behalf of Colombia’s internally … Continue reading →

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/

All over the world, indigenous peoples and forests are suffering in the same way. A report presented to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), meeting in New York in 2008, referred to ‘increasing human rights violations, displacements and conflicts due to expropriation of ancestral lands and forests for agro-fuel plantations.’ One of the report’s authors, UNPFII chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, said that if agro-fuels expansion continues as planned, 60 million indigenous people worldwide are threatened with losing their land and livelihoods.

In Colombia, the source of the industrial expertise now being used in Chiapas, the agro-fuels industry has resulted in the deforestation of vast areas, where all the campesino and indigenous communities have been forcibly evicted from their lands to make way for oil palm and other agro-fuel crops.

The Embera Struggle to Save a Sacred Mountain

As legend has it, a revered shaman, or Jaibana, that once lived in the mountain practicing traditional medicine, rose up through the mountainside in the afterlife with the face of a dog to represent the attachment humans have with earth’s creatures. Ever since, the plants and the animals that live on the mountain protect the spirits of the deceased Embera from being released.

The current Jaibana, Alberto Martiniro said, “If the mountain is exploited, all of the spirits will leave, good and bad. It will cause illness and maybe death in the nearby population. Plants which we use to cure disease will be killed, and our waters will be contaminated. After the Spanish arrived, the government allocated to us only a small amount of land for the indigenous, and now they want to destroy what we have left.”

This shows how important land is to ingeniousness people in Colombia. If their land is taken away they have nothing.  As Europeans, when we first came over to the US, we wiped out hundreds of tribes. And the lasting effects that our actions have on Native American Groups is devastating. We need to learn from our past, not repeat it.

Colombia: Attempted forced entry at the home of human rights defender Ms Zoraida Hernández Pedraza

Posted on 2011/04/20 On 14 April 2011 the home of human rights lawyer and land rights activist, Ms Zoraida Hernández Pedraza, was subjected to an attempted break-in by two unidentified men while her and her family were present. Zoraida Hernández … Continue reading →

La situación de las 123 familias desplazadas de la hacienda Las Pavas, en el sur de Bolivar que se encuentran en actualmente en el corregimiento de Buenos Aires. Desesperados por la precaria situación en la que se encuentran, han decidido retornar a su tierra para poder cultivar sus alimentos.