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.
\nThis article has been published as part of the partnership between\u00a0070\u00a0and democraciaAbierta. You can read the original article\u00a0here.<\/i><\/p>\n
The killing of six farmers who
\nwere protesting against the process of forced coca crop eradication promoted by
\nthe government in Tumaco, in the Alto Mira area, attests to one of the most
\ncomplex scenarios Colombia faces after the signing of the Peace Agreement with
\nthe FARC.<\/p>\n
In this area, which has the highest
\nconcentration of coca crops in the country, a power struggle is under way between
\nthe Colombian government, the communities that grow coca out of necessity and the
\ndrug traffickers and their armed branches who take advantage of this for
\nbusiness reasons. If the government loses in Alto Mira and fails to consolidate
\nthe voluntary substitution plans set forth in the Peace Agreement and to protect
\nthe communities that have initially welcomed them, it will face an erosion of
\nconfidence in the Agreement in the other coca growing areas.<\/p>\n
See: Six dead and dozens wounded in
\nthe area of eradication of crops<\/p>\n
Warning signs of a likely
\narmed clash in Tumaco had been on for at least two weeks. From September 25, 16
\nAfrican descendant leaders of the Alto Mira and Border Community Council who had
\naccepted the government plan for voluntary eradication under the promise of
\neffective crop substitution received death threats and had to move out of the area.
\nThey are currently far away under State protection. But moving them out of the
\narea means that the Government has lost its main allies for a much needed show
\nof positive results in its crop substitution initiative. This is, by the same
\ntoken, a victory for the drug traffickers who are intimidating and putting
\npressure on farmers to prevent the government\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
The threats were made by
\n"Cachi", the leader of one of the armed groups that came into the
\narea after the FARC\u2019s withdrawal and are operating at the service of drug
\ntrafficking interests. According to different sources, on September 17 "Cachi"
\nconvened a meeting with the communities which had "signed the eradication agreement
\nwith the government" (eradication is a public policy included in the Peace
\nAgreement and not decided by the communities) to talk about what he called a
\n"work plan", and told them that they had to participate in a
\nmobilization against the eradication plans. Each community had to contribute at
\nleast 30 people, he said. Almost all of the 42 African descendant communities from
\nthe Community Council refused. "Cachi" then threatened to kill two
\npeople in each community. His aim, as he himself explained, is to negotiate a two-year
\nmoratorium on crop eradication with the government.<\/p>\n
Since then, the communities have
\nbeen living under a curfew from 6 o'clock in the afternoon. According to
\nresidents, most of those who have taken part in the protests have been forced
\nor intimidated to do so.<\/p>\n
\u00a0See:
\nTestimonies of survivors of the unclear armed attack against farmers<\/p>\n
The Alto Mira is currently one
\nof the hottest conflict areas in Colombia. After the demobilization of the
\nFARC, the ensuing power vacuum there was quickly filled by armed groups at the drug
\ntraffickers\u2019 service. Apart from \u201cCachi\u2019s\u201d, groups operating there include the
\none led by "Guacho", who is, according to Colombian authorities, the
\nleader of the FARC dissidents who do not accept the Peace Agreement. The Alto
\nMira is one of the largest coca crop areas in the municipality of Tumaco, which
\naccounts for almost half of the reported crops in the Department of Nari\u00f1o.
\nTumaco is the municipality with most coca crops in Colombia.<\/p>\n
The Mira river\u2019s course, which
\nis today one of the main corridors for drug trafficking, is a strategic one,
\nfor it crosses much of the coca-growing areas in the country. It connects
\nEcuador with Colombia and flows into the Pacific Ocean, facilitating the transportation
\nof coca paste. According to villagers, after the guerrillas confined themselves
\nto the transitional areas, they enjoyed some relative peace for about six
\nmonths, which raised hopes that a lasting peace would finally be possible in the
\narea. But taking advantage of the absence of the State, the new armed groups
\ngot in and started operating in the area. And the police has been quite unable
\nto contain them.<\/p>\n
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.<\/i><\/p>\nA community split in two<\/h2>\n
The Alto
\nMira communities are caught at a crossroads of interests. On the one hand, there
\nare the ancestral inhabitants of these lands, African descendants who have
\ncollective property titles recognised by the Alto Mira and Border Community
\nCouncil. On the other hand, there are the Aw\u00e1 natives, who live in the upper
\npart of the river, who possess registered land rights too. And then, since the decade
\nof the 2000s, some of these ancestral territories came to be occupied by a wave
\nof settlers coming from other areas in the country \u2013 from Caquet\u00e1, Putumayo and
\nMeta. Many of these new settlers were driven and supported by the FARC which,
\nat the time, controlled the area and regulated the coca business. \u00a0Almost
\nall of them were fleeing the army offensive and the spraying of the crops under
\nthe Colombia Plan in their home departments. Most of them settled in the Community
\nCouncil\u2019s territory and organized under the Asomiluma association.<\/p>\n
Today, some
\nof these settlers have larger farms than those owned by the African descendants,
\nsome of them exceeding 50 hectares, all dedicated to growing coca. The government
\nconsiders them industrial fields. The presence of these settlers has generated
\nconflicts related to land tenure and to the decisions taken by the leaders of
\nthese communities. African descendant communities claim that the settlers\u2019
\nCommunal Action Juntas within their territory are illegal, but since 2009 many of
\nthem have been legally endorsed by the government of the Nari\u00f1o Department.<\/p>\n
The
\ndivision between the settlers and the traditional communities practically
\ncoincides with the split on the issue of the coca crops. While the majority of the
\nAfrican descendant communities have accepted the government\u2019s crop substitution
\nplans, the majority of settlers – almost all of them grouped in Asomiluma – are
\nopposed to them. In this context, the interests of the traffickers, which are threatened
\nby the voluntary or forced eradication, are aligned with those of the settlers,
\nwho are not themselves necessarily part of any armed group.<\/p>\n
Tensions between the communities started with the
\narrival of police to enforce the presidential mandate and carry out the
\neradication of the crops. Last April, eleven counter-narcotics policemen were held
\nfor 36 hours by a group opposing eradication in La Espriella sector, at the border
\nwith Ecuador. According to several sources, the police officers came close to
\nbeing killed, but were spared by the intercession of some community members.\u00a0Those
\nwho had detained them kept their guns, though: eight rifles and six handguns.
\nThis event is an important precedent which may explain the tension the
\nanti-narcotics police felt when the killing of the six farmers happened.<\/p>\n
The climate of intimidation and anxiety, however, has
\nbeen going on for a while. According to testimonies collected by several
\norganizations, since 1998, seven leaders have been killed and, so far this year,
\nso have about 20 people from the Community Council. One of the most notorious
\ncases was the murder of Genaro Garc\u00eda, who was then the legal representative of
\nthe Community Council of Alto Mira and Border, who got killed by the FARC\u2019s Daniel
\nAldana Column on \u00a0August 3, 2015, a crime
\nthe FARC recognized in Havana.<\/p>\n
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.<\/i><\/p>\nThe
\nurgency of the Government<\/h2>\n
Coca
\ncrops have been expanding in Colombia since before the Peace Agreement with the
\nFARC was signed. According to monitoring by the United States and international
\nagencies, coca crops have increased dramatically since 2013 and reached a peak
\nlast year: from about 80.000 hectares to 188.000 in 2016, an all-time high. On
\nSeptember 13 this year, President Trump threatened to \u201cdecertify" Colombia
\n\u2013 which means blocking aid by the US government – because he considers that the
\ncountry does not cooperate enough in the war against drugs.<\/p>\n
Because
\nof the US threat, the Colombian government is hard pressed to show results and has
\nintensified the forced eradication operations. The military action under way has
\nalready affected the drug business. In the streets of Tumaco, where the output
\nof coca paste is being controlled, they say that the prices have dropped. This
\nhas entailed a realignment of the armed groups, which accounts for the growing
\nwave of murders of young people in city neighbourhoods such as Viento Libre and
\nPanam\u00e1.<\/p>\n
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.
\n<\/i><\/p>\nA likely
\nscenario<\/h2>\n
Although
\nit is up to the prosecutors, counting on the survivors\u2019 testimony and the
\nimages that could be taken during the event, to determine where the bullets
\nthat killed the six farmers came from, a glimpse of what happened is already
\nfiltering through. Forced eradication involves the army, which creates a security
\nperimeter; the Esmad (antiriot units), which contains and removes those who
\nstand in the way; and the anti-narcotics police, which does the actual pulling
\nout of the plants. According to some versions, it is also likely that the event
\nhappened in a mined field.<\/p>\n
Residents who were protesting
\nthat day \u2013 according to some versions, 300 of them, other versions say about
\none thousand – were very close to the police, some even close enough to talk to
\nthem and ask them to retreat. Considering the fact that last April a group of
\npolicemen were taken hostage for more than one day and risked their lives, the
\npolice knew that they could not allow protesters to approach too closely, let
\nalone give them the possibility of surrounding them. The tension among the
\npolice officers ran very high. Any false step could have unleashed their
\nreaction. Perhaps this is what happened.<\/p>\n
Given that the police and the
\narmy were not in the same position, any shot (fired by the police officers
\nfacing the protesters, for example) or any explosion (of a mine, for example)
\ncould have triggered a crossfire which would have caught civilians in the
\nmiddle. Ballistics analyses will determine which guns fired the bullets that
\nkilled the six farmers in Tumaco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0070\u00a0and democraciaAbierta….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}