Wounaan Indians face exile and extinction due to cocaine

May 19, 2007

Exile and extinction face a tribe that lost everything to cocaine

The Wounaan Indians have been driven out by rebels, militias and a craving for drugs in the rich world

Catherine Philp in Chocó, Colombia

The Wounaan Indians are used to newcomers. Over the past 500 years the Spanish conquis-tadors, freed African slaves and Marxist guerrillas have all tried to encroach on their ancestral land. But the Wounaan, one of the oldest indigenous peoples in the region, have held firm. And then came the coca leaf.

Living in small villages of wooden houses on stilts in riverside clearings in the jungles of Chocó, the Wounaan had largely succeeded in keeping out of Colombia’s bloody conflicts. They hunted, fished and farmed along the banks of the San Juan River, left alone by the battling rebels, paramilitaries and government troops.

Then, three years ago, the guerrillas came with an order at gunpoint. “They said we had to grow coca or else leave,�? Fernando, a Wounaan leader, said. “And so we began planting it on our lands.�?

The arrival of coca cultivation set in motion a chain of events that has left the Wounaan divided, displaced and at risk of extinction.

With cocaine increasingly the drug of choice in Europe – 1.2 million Britons are regular users – the plight of the Wounaan, and of Colombia’s three million other displaced, are prompting a major rethink in how to police the world’s most important drugs war.

It is more than four decades since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, began their armed struggle to install a Marxist regime. In the 1990s, with added pressure from right-wing paramilitaries, the guerrillas became increasingly dependent on cocaine to finance their campaign, to the point where it has superseded the Utopian vision.

Since 2000 the US – where more than 75 per cent of Colombia’s cocaine exports end up – has spent $700 million (£350 million) a year to help to root out drug traffickers and eliminate coca crops. Plan Colombia, which began as a mixture of social programmes, crop eradication and military action, quickly lost sight of its social elements.

Chocó, an extravagantly fertile eco-region along Colombia’s Pacific Coast, was never traditionally an area for coca cultivation. Although coca has grown wild in Colombia since time immemorial, and was chewed by indigenous people as a mild stimulant, like coffee, it did not naturally take root in Chocó.

As spraying began in provinces such as Caquetá and Putu-mayo to the east and south, the rebels who supervised the growing of the coca crops started moving into areas farther afield, like the rainforests of Chocó.

Under threat of death or expulsion, the Wounaan began planting coca, which the guerrillas then bought from them. The crop was lucrative: a three inch cube of pressed coca would fetch them 1.8 million pesos ($900). The rice they had grown before fetched only 4,000 pesos a small sack.

Not everyone liked what else the coca brought. “At the beginning there was money,�? Fernando said. “But then it started to destroy the culture. Drinking and prostitution, all these things begin when the money comes.�?

In March last year leaders in Union-Wounaan, the largest settlement, sent word to the guerrillas that their coca-grow-ing days were over. A day later guerrillas seized a teacher from his classroom. His mutilated body was found hours later. The next day a tribal leader was seized and beaten to death.

The killings caused panic in the community. More than 1,000 of the area’s 3,500 Wounaan fled upriver to the town of Istmina, with hundreds more fleeing elsewhere into the jungle. Hundreds more wanted to leave but those arriving in Istmina said that there were no boats to bring them and they remained trapped upriver.

The displaced tribespeople took shelter in a house by the river, crammed 30 to a room. Exile proved too hard for many and some climbed into boats and travelled back. Those who had opposed the guerrillas had no choice but to stay – 47 of them were given asylum in Panama and more than 70 remain in Istmina.

In recent weeks right-wing paramilitaries who have refused to disarm under a government programme have started to move onto Wounaan land, seeking control of the coca crops themselves.

José Llanos, a tribal leader who has been speaking out against coca cultivation, arrived in Istmina with his family last month after receiving death threats from the paramilitaries. He told of a community caught between two illegal armies.

“We cannot be neutral,�? he said. “Wherever we live, the other group thinks we are with that group. And both groups want the coca.�?

The Wounaan join a human tide of migration across Colombia. More than three million people have been forcibly displaced across the country, second only to Sudan. Every day, 850 more people are driven from their homes. Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s President, has received plaudits for improving security, though many blame his policies for the new crises in far-flung corners of the country previously little touched by the war.

“It is true that the violence is no longer affecting the governing classes as much,�? Marie-Helene Verney, spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency in Colombia, said. “But the situation is very different in the countryside where voiceless minorities are coming under threat.�?

In Condoto, a riverside cathedral town, hundreds of the displaced inhabit rundown slums that they built after fleeing their villages. Afro-Colombi-ans, the marginalised descendants of former slaves, have been here as long as five years. “I don’t believe we will ever go back,�? Maria Cesario, a heavily pregnant mother of six, says. She is probably right. The vast majority of displaced Colombians never return home.

For the Government, there is little political capital to be won from helping the displaced. An average displaced family receives just one quarter of the subsidy given to the family of an illegal militiaman who turns in his guns. But for the Wounaan, there is more at stake than for most.

“The conflict has put their way of life at risk,�? Ms Verney said. “They have been forced to leave their ancestral lands and now they find themselves at risk of extinction.�?

Many more of Colombia’s one million indigenous people are also under such a threat. A year ago, 80 members of the hunter-gatherer Nukak tribe walked out of the jungle after months on the run from armed groups who ordered them off their land to grow coca. Only 500 remain in the jungle and fears are growing for their survival. For the Wounaan, the future looks bleak. In Istmina, they live in their own small community by the river, surrounded by an alien Afro-Colombian culture of hard drinking and casual sex. An air of tragedy hangs over them. All have taken Spanish names, the ones used here, to hide the Wounaan names that appeared on the guerrillas’ hit lists.

With their teachers dead, they struggle to teach their children to read and write their own language. At school they are taught in Spanish, which few Wounaan can speak.

At night, they try to perform traditional dances to preserve their culture but they find little to celebrate. They live as close to the river as they can. “The river is like our blood. Just like somebody without blood cannot live, we cannot live without the river,�? said Fernando.

But their ancestral lands are far away and they have no prospect of return. “The land is like our mother. To lose it is very hard.�?

Plan Colombia, the programme that drove the coca crops deep into their forests, is nearly over. While the acreage of coca has shrunk, the yield has increased, so the amount of cocaine produced has not changed.

That fact, and revelations about links between the Government and illegal paramilitaries, have led to a suspension in the US aid money that funds it.

A new scheme, Plan Colombia II, has been hatched with less emphasis on military action and more on social programmes. But sceptics say they have seen this scheme before, and give warning that it may go the way of the original plan.

For the Wounaan, such geo-political manoeuvring is mean-ingless. But one thing they do know. If no one wanted the little green leaf, no one would plant it. As Colombia gears up for the next chapter in the war on drugs, a dying tribe has this plea for the outside world.

“If nobody bought the drug, it wouldn’t be produced,�? José Llanos says. “To those who buy it, it’s just merchandise. For us, it is disaster. They have our blood on their hands.�?

Trading in misery

80% of the world’s cocaine is produced in Colombia

$400bn - value of the global trade in the drug

500 hectares of rainforest cleared each year for new coca cultivation in Chocó province alone

3,000 people killed each year in Colombia’s cocaine-fuelled conflict

3m people displaced in what the UN describes as the worst humanitarian crisis outside Africa

60% of the world’s cocaine is consumed in the US

6.8% of Britons have tried the drug

5% of British banknotes have significant traces of cocaine indicating that they have been used to snort the drug

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1811156.ece

By juancegomez on May 18, 2007, 15:01 in Politics & the war.

greg says on May 24, 2007, 19:59:

Depressing Every time i read one of these stories it just makes me sick. In my opinion legalization is the only answer but i can`t see that ever happening here in the U.S.

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elreydelostrolls says on May 24, 2007, 21:36:

Why is it the US always has leaders who are stupider than its own people? A majority of Americans favor legalization except for our worthless leaders. I guess they're getting too much money in the way of payoffs keeping it illegal.

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Cali2005 says on May 26, 2007, 07:26:

EASY SOLUTION - LEGALIZE DRUGS = END VIOLENCE If you have been watching the news then you notice the borders and pueblos are still full of violence. However most of it remains outside the view of RCN, CNN, etc...

Just think why this war goes on? It is because of the money. If there is no money to be made then 10s of thousands of lives will be saved immediately. Just look at mexico now and the mass graves in Colombia. The mafia and traffickers wont be paying dirty politicians. There wont be para political scandals because of drugs. With no money mafias wont be able to buy the latest rifles with night vision scopes and laser pointers!

For example latest news out of Arizona, United States reports unlicensed gun dealers selling automatic special forces grade weapons in the thousands to mexican mafia. If you dont know in the last 2 years or so the Mexican mafias /cartels have now taken over Mexico. Mexico is what Colombia was 5 years ago. The murder rate is uncontrollable. WHY? MONEY FOR DRUGS.

Mexico now gets 60% of the money from every kilo of cocaine, not to mention meth anphedamines, and marijuana. The other problem with mexico is that the guns run right across the border, so it is really easy for the mexican cartels and mafias to purchase sophisticated arms.

Like i tell my gringo friends and family look at Colombia, cocaine costs almost nothing here, but you dont have the whole country addicted to the drug because it is cheap. People in the United States are scared of legalizing it, because they think the whole country will be addicted. Actually the war on drugs seems to be a good idea, but its time to realize it was another bad idea like the War in Iraq. Well obviously low prices does not mean that everyone will become drug addicts. Those who want to do it will do it, and from legalizing it, it will be controlled. Treatment of addicts can be the focus.

Wow think of all the money they would save from not having 1 million people in jail for selling cocaine or marijuana in the usa. If you didnt know the usa puts people in jail for 4-10 times as long as colombia. Drug addicts need treatment not jail, jail does nothing but label them with criminal records and insure they cant get a good job if they do straighten out.

Paramilitary wars killed over 10,000 people in a short time, and like wise in mexico an average of 2,000 people are killed every year in the drug war, that we know about. Ok cigarretes kill 10 times that every year but they are legal. Hmmmmm, how do politics work? What politicians do makes no sense to me. The list of pueblos / villages between Colombia, Peru and the US border is 1,000 lines long. Everyone of them has been influenced by the drug trade. It is a sad and true story. A potential to explode into violence at any second.

Politicians only act on what the news tells them to do. The news is controlled by the big corporations, and henceforth the big corporations of the world control the media and the politicians. Democrats and Republicans are not that different on many levels. The fight over somethings, but many of them in the middle share one side of the brain with the other.

GLOBAL WARMING WILL FINISH THIS DISCUSSION:
IT COULD BE THE REAL THING THAT KILLS COCA AND ENDS THE DRUG TRADE, KILLS UN DISCOVERED SPECIES, WIPES OUT INDIGENOUS CULTURES, AND SNOW TOPED MOUNTAINS.

THEN YOU WILL HAVE SYNTHETIC DRUGS LEADING THE MARKET

The only good thing to come out of this is that those lovely condos on beachfronts in Miami will make nice island reefs in 40 years. LOL

Viva Colombia Naturaleza!

Medellin Apartments and Tours http://www.MedellinApartments.INFO

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JMCana says on May 30, 2007, 09:18:

Tribe gets refuge in Panama Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Date: 30 May 2007
Colombian indigenous culture flourishes again in Panama

VISTA ALLEGRE, Panama, May 30 (UNHCR) – A year after they fled Colombia, 11 families of the Wounaan indigenous group are beginning to feel safe again in Panama.

After months of wandering, the 47 individuals last December became the first indigenous group to be granted refugee status in Panama. They have found a home in the small Vista Allegre river settlement in the Darien Gap – a large swath of undeveloped swampland and jungle separating Panama and Colombia.

"We will always remember the day we arrived in Vista Allegre. It was half–past seven in the evening and everyone was waiting for us by the river. They had prepared a welcome feast for us," says Jose*, one of seven Wounaan leaders who had received death threats in Colombia.

Reachable only by small boats, Vista Allegre consists of a few wooden huts built on stilts, one school and a tiny shop that sells tinned food and soft drinks. Home to some 150 people before the Wounaans' arrival, the community is now going through a population boom.

There are signs of activity everywhere. The school has two new teachers, and pirogues carrying fish and bananas downriver stop frequently to sell or barter in Vista Allegre. Many of the wooden huts are shared between three or four families: local people have moved out of their own houses to make room for the newcomers.

The men are busy with building work. The UN refugee agency has trained them in carpentry skills and given them the tools and equipment to set up a workshop. The community badly needs more homes and UNHCR, along with the International Organization for Migration, is providing kits for 11 new houses, which the men will build themselves in the local style.

The refugee agency has also reached an agreement with UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, to install a water system in the community. There is water in abundance from the rivers in the Darien, but Vista Allegre – like many other settlements – lacks any sanitation or even tanks to collect rainwater.

"We are seeing in Vista Allegre how a whole community can benefit from the arrival of refugees when everyone joins forces to help," explains Jose Euceda, UNHCR's representative in Panama. "The lack of housing and the strain on basic resources are very real problems. If left unaddressed, they can create tensions and jeopardize refugee integration. Everyone stands to win if these problems are dealt with jointly and as early on as possible."

The Wounaan odyssey began in April last year, when they fled their ancestral land in Colombia after an irregular armed group killed two of the community's members. They wandered for weeks across the Darien Gap, before risking the dangerous crossing by sea to reach safety in Panama.

"We had the little ones on our shoulders during the whole trip because we were scared that the waves would carry them away," recalls 22–year–old Dana*, whose son was less than two at the time.

The 11 families reached the small Panamanian port of Jaque in May last year. But the Wounaans are river people and felt they could not thrive in a seaport. They asked to move further inside the Darien and in November the government agreed. A month later, it granted refugee status to the entire group.

"It was a landmark decision, the first time that Panama granted refugee status to an indigenous group," said Philippe Lavanchy, UNHCR's director for the Americas, who met the Wounaan group several times, both in Colombia and Panama. He added that most other Colombians in the Darien region are living under a temporary regime that imposes a number of restrictions, notably on freedom of movement.

Many of the Colombians who have sought a haven in Panama from the armed conflict in their homeland belong to indigenous groups. UNHCR has repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of forced displacement on these communities, whose culture and traditions are closely linked to the land.

In Vista Allegre, the Wounaan culture is beginning to flourish again. Dana is now selling her traditional woven handcrafts through a cooperative system UNHCR helped set up. The refugee agency has also given the community two sewing machines and runs workshops to help the women learn new skills. It is not much of an income yet for Dana, but enough to give her hope.

* Names have been changed for protection reasons

By Marie–Helene Verney
In Vista Allegre, Panama

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juancegomez says on May 30, 2007, 09:50:

I guess that's better for those that can use that option Unfortunately, not all indigenous nor all Colombians can make use of it.

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lpdiver says on Jun 4, 2007, 02:19:

illegal means that the drug cartels make more money and the generals waging the "war" on drugs keep getting their billions. It is mutually beneficial and will not go away.

t

"cook some rice!"

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lpdiver says on Jun 4, 2007, 02:24:

Actuall the war... on drugs is a good and noble war. But the battles should be fought in the schools and in homes. Not in the jungles.

t

"cook some rice!"

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Sr Tertius says on Jun 4, 2007, 18:27:

No noble war I think we should drop the whole "war" metaphor when we speak of public policy. It sounds initially like an innocent use of language indicating a high level of commitment, but eventually some people find it profitable to turn it into an actual military problem. That's happened already to the "war on terrorism" and the "war on drugs."

The "promotion of lawful behavior in teenagers" may not have the grandious epic sound of "WAR ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY," but it is more precise and positive. It does more to set an agenda than to instill fear. And, given the precedents, it'd probably prevent the militarization of convenience stores and empty white walls.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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lpdiver says on Jun 4, 2007, 22:01:

exactly... What's next? The war on poontang. Ya can't legislate morality.

t

"cook some rice!"

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cali373 says on Jun 4, 2007, 22:54:

The indian way of life does not agree with globalization and I believe in globalization. So they either must go or get with the times.

Smile if you are a thinker!

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