The bodies of some of the dead in the confusing event at Alto Mira were evacuated to La Playa, an hour by boat from where the event occurred. None of the dead or injured had wounds from shrapnel or explosion. Photo: Lorenzo Morales.
This article has been published as part of the partnership between 070 and democraciaAbierta. You can read the original article here.
The killing of six farmers who
were protesting against the process of forced coca crop eradication promoted by
the government in Tumaco, in the Alto Mira area, attests to one of the most
complex scenarios Colombia faces after the signing of the Peace Agreement with
the FARC.
In this area, which has the highest
concentration of coca crops in the country, a power struggle is under way between
the Colombian government, the communities that grow coca out of necessity and the
drug traffickers and their armed branches who take advantage of this for
business reasons. If the government loses in Alto Mira and fails to consolidate
the voluntary substitution plans set forth in the Peace Agreement and to protect
the communities that have initially welcomed them, it will face an erosion of
confidence in the Agreement in the other coca growing areas.
See: Six dead and dozens wounded in
the area of eradication of crops
Warning signs of a likely
armed clash in Tumaco had been on for at least two weeks. From September 25, 16
African descendant leaders of the Alto Mira and Border Community Council who had
accepted the government plan for voluntary eradication under the promise of
effective crop substitution received death threats and had to move out of the area.
They are currently far away under State protection. But moving them out of the
area means that the Government has lost its main allies for a much needed show
of positive results in its crop substitution initiative. This is, by the same
token, a victory for the drug traffickers who are intimidating and putting
pressure on farmers to prevent the government’s success.
The threats were made by
"Cachi", the leader of one of the armed groups that came into the
area after the FARC’s withdrawal and are operating at the service of drug
trafficking interests. According to different sources, on September 17 "Cachi"
convened a meeting with the communities which had "signed the eradication agreement
with the government" (eradication is a public policy included in the Peace
Agreement and not decided by the communities) to talk about what he called a
"work plan", and told them that they had to participate in a
mobilization against the eradication plans. Each community had to contribute at
least 30 people, he said. Almost all of the 42 African descendant communities from
the Community Council refused. "Cachi" then threatened to kill two
people in each community. His aim, as he himself explained, is to negotiate a two-year
moratorium on crop eradication with the government.
Since then, the communities have
been living under a curfew from 6 o'clock in the afternoon. According to
residents, most of those who have taken part in the protests have been forced
or intimidated to do so.
See:
Testimonies of survivors of the unclear armed attack against farmers
The Alto Mira is currently one
of the hottest conflict areas in Colombia. After the demobilization of the
FARC, the ensuing power vacuum there was quickly filled by armed groups at the drug
traffickers’ service. Apart from “Cachi’s”, groups operating there include the
one led by "Guacho", who is, according to Colombian authorities, the
leader of the FARC dissidents who do not accept the Peace Agreement. The Alto
Mira is one of the largest coca crop areas in the municipality of Tumaco, which
accounts for almost half of the reported crops in the Department of Nariño.
Tumaco is the municipality with most coca crops in Colombia.
The Mira river’s course, which
is today one of the main corridors for drug trafficking, is a strategic one,
for it crosses much of the coca-growing areas in the country. It connects
Ecuador with Colombia and flows into the Pacific Ocean, facilitating the transportation
of coca paste. According to villagers, after the guerrillas confined themselves
to the transitional areas, they enjoyed some relative peace for about six
months, which raised hopes that a lasting peace would finally be possible in the
area. But taking advantage of the absence of the State, the new armed groups
got in and started operating in the area. And the police has been quite unable
to contain them.
Some relatives who came to La Playa to get news of its people also needed medical attention for the emotional blow of what was happening. The spouse of this woman died in the attack. Photo: Lorenzo Morales.
A community split in two
The Alto
Mira communities are caught at a crossroads of interests. On the one hand, there
are the ancestral inhabitants of these lands, African descendants who have
collective property titles recognised by the Alto Mira and Border Community
Council. On the other hand, there are the Awá natives, who live in the upper
part of the river, who possess registered land rights too. And then, since the decade
of the 2000s, some of these ancestral territories came to be occupied by a wave
of settlers coming from other areas in the country – from Caquetá, Putumayo and
Meta. Many of these new settlers were driven and supported by the FARC which,
at the time, controlled the area and regulated the coca business. Almost
all of them were fleeing the army offensive and the spraying of the crops under
the Colombia Plan in their home departments. Most of them settled in the Community
Council’s territory and organized under the Asomiluma association.
Today, some
of these settlers have larger farms than those owned by the African descendants,
some of them exceeding 50 hectares, all dedicated to growing coca. The government
considers them industrial fields. The presence of these settlers has generated
conflicts related to land tenure and to the decisions taken by the leaders of
these communities. African descendant communities claim that the settlers’
Communal Action Juntas within their territory are illegal, but since 2009 many of
them have been legally endorsed by the government of the Nariño Department.
The
division between the settlers and the traditional communities practically
coincides with the split on the issue of the coca crops. While the majority of the
African descendant communities have accepted the government’s crop substitution
plans, the majority of settlers – almost all of them grouped in Asomiluma – are
opposed to them. In this context, the interests of the traffickers, which are threatened
by the voluntary or forced eradication, are aligned with those of the settlers,
who are not themselves necessarily part of any armed group.
Maximum tension
Tensions between the communities started with the
arrival of police to enforce the presidential mandate and carry out the
eradication of the crops. Last April, eleven counter-narcotics policemen were held
for 36 hours by a group opposing eradication in La Espriella sector, at the border
with Ecuador. According to several sources, the police officers came close to
being killed, but were spared by the intercession of some community members. Those
who had detained them kept their guns, though: eight rifles and six handguns.
This event is an important precedent which may explain the tension the
anti-narcotics police felt when the killing of the six farmers happened.
The climate of intimidation and anxiety, however, has
been going on for a while. According to testimonies collected by several
organizations, since 1998, seven leaders have been killed and, so far this year,
so have about 20 people from the Community Council. One of the most notorious
cases was the murder of Genaro García, who was then the legal representative of
the Community Council of Alto Mira and Border, who got killed by the FARC’s Daniel
Aldana Column on August 3, 2015, a crime
the FARC recognized in Havana.
Playa, on the Mira river, is a few kilometers away of the area of Veredal Ariel Aldana, where former Farc guerrillas are still concentrated. Some came to accompany the procession that took out the dead to via Panamericana.
The
urgency of the Government
Coca
crops have been expanding in Colombia since before the Peace Agreement with the
FARC was signed. According to monitoring by the United States and international
agencies, coca crops have increased dramatically since 2013 and reached a peak
last year: from about 80.000 hectares to 188.000 in 2016, an all-time high. On
September 13 this year, President Trump threatened to “decertify" Colombia
– which means blocking aid by the US government – because he considers that the
country does not cooperate enough in the war against drugs.
Because
of the US threat, the Colombian government is hard pressed to show results and has
intensified the forced eradication operations. The military action under way has
already affected the drug business. In the streets of Tumaco, where the output
of coca paste is being controlled, they say that the prices have dropped. This
has entailed a realignment of the armed groups, which accounts for the growing
wave of murders of young people in city neighbourhoods such as Viento Libre and
Panamá.
Among the victims there were at least two indigenous Awa community members, who live in the area of shelter in Alto Mira and coexist with colonists and afro communities.
A likely
scenario
Although
it is up to the prosecutors, counting on the survivors’ testimony and the
images that could be taken during the event, to determine where the bullets
that killed the six farmers came from, a glimpse of what happened is already
filtering through. Forced eradication involves the army, which creates a security
perimeter; the Esmad (antiriot units), which contains and removes those who
stand in the way; and the anti-narcotics police, which does the actual pulling
out of the plants. According to some versions, it is also likely that the event
happened in a mined field.
Residents who were protesting
that day – according to some versions, 300 of them, other versions say about
one thousand – were very close to the police, some even close enough to talk to
them and ask them to retreat. Considering the fact that last April a group of
policemen were taken hostage for more than one day and risked their lives, the
police knew that they could not allow protesters to approach too closely, let
alone give them the possibility of surrounding them. The tension among the
police officers ran very high. Any false step could have unleashed their
reaction. Perhaps this is what happened.
Given that the police and the
army were not in the same position, any shot (fired by the police officers
facing the protesters, for example) or any explosion (of a mine, for example)
could have triggered a crossfire which would have caught civilians in the
middle. Ballistics analyses will determine which guns fired the bullets that
killed the six farmers in Tumaco.