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December 21, 2004
The Disappeared Mayor and the Person of the Year
[From Justin again]
Since I can't fill Zeynep's shoes, let me try to offer something on Colombia. Ah, Colombia, that place of drug cartels, Marxist guerrillas, and paramilitary killers, that playground of US imperialism, where the helpless hapless population is trapped between all these vicious actors - right?
Well, no. Not quite, anyhow.
At least in this sense. Colombia's population is not helpless. Instead, it is moving. Colombia's movements are extraordinary. Considering the opposition that is arrayed against them, the amount of military hardware that the United States has set upon them, and the paramilitary savagery that has plagued them, their resilience and continuing strength has been outstanding. I have good friends who predicted in 2000 that if Plan Colombia (a plan to supply the Colombian government with billions in military aid, mostly in the form of US helicopters to protect planes to do aerial fumigation - otherwise known as chemical warfare - against peasants, called 'narcotraffickers' or 'narco-guerrillas' in common parlance. Its principal effect was to displace those peasants so that multinational corporations and big landlords could take over their lands, for speculation and for megaproject schemes and fantasies) took its course the social movements would be exterminated in 4-5 years. Here we are 4-5 years later and, while the paramilitary massacres against unionists and movement leaders have certainly been vicious, movements remain.
Among the most remarkable of these movements is Colombia's diverse indigenous movement. Colombia's constitution of 1991 is probably second only to Venezuela's 1998 constitution in its recognition of indigenous rights. Meanwhile the Colombian government and paramilitaries continue to do their best to follow the unbroken 500 year pattern of dispossession and extermination against the indigenous peoples, ignoring the decent intentions of the constitution.
But the indigenous not only resist, they have also become the ethical and political guide of the other movements in the country. In the midst of such an incredibly repressive context, they managed to organize a march of indigenous dignity with tens of thousands marching to the public square in Cali which they filled to overflowing.
Not only did they do this, organizing openly and publicly despite all the threats, but they foiled every attempt at repression against them. In the days leading up to the march, in late August, one of the most remarkable leaders of the movement, Arquimedes Vitonas, was kidnapped. I wrote about the kidnapping at the time. Another one of their leaders, Alcibiades Escue, was arrested and jailed on the most preposterous charge of 'paramilitarism' - a leader of a movement most victimized by paramilitaries accused of 'paramilitarism' by a government that arms and deploys those paramilitaries.
Well, before the march, the 'indigenous guards', trained and disciplined indigenous activists who 'guard' their communities with only their moral authority (symbolized in the batons they carry) traveled to Caguan from Northern Cauca to rescue Arquimedes Vitonas, and succeeded. After the march, a group of indigenous guards went to the prison where Alcibiades Escue was being held and brought him back to indigenous territory after the government dropped their outrageously false charges.
The march was remarkable in other ways. Instead of making demands of the government, the indigenous people put forward a political proposal for a different kind of country, moving forward from the gains of the constitution of 1991. Then they proceeded, as some other indigenous movements have done, to move that proposal forward.
In this context, the decision on the part of Colombia's national newspaper, El Tiempo, to make Arquimedes Vitonas the person of the year, might seem odd. El Tiempo is an establishment paper. Why would it make a leader of indigenous resistance its person of the year? Perhaps because Arquimedes was kidnapped and released by FARC, and El Tiempo, like the rest of the Colombian establishment, wants to use the moral authority of the indigenous against the guerrillas. But the indigenous never play that game. Even when the FARC refuse to respect their autonomy, they do not allow themselves to be used as tools of the counterinsurgency.
But the reason is not unrelated. The fact is that the indigenous movement is a fact which, by virtue of its moral and political strength, cannot be ignored. With the March (called the Minga for Life) they were on the Colombian stage, putting Colombia's corrupt president and elite to shame. Repression could easily backfire politically. But if El Tiempo's recognition of Arquimedes was an attempt at co-optation, it won't work either. Instead, like the many other awards won by the innovative development programs and experiments in local democracy championed by the indigenous, it will simply be used as another platform where this remarkable movement can make its voice heard.
I can say this for sure. They might both be establishment outlets, but El Tiempo has much better taste in person of the year than Time Magazine.
Posted by justin at December 21, 2004 11:12 PM
Comments
these colombians should open a school for western white "leftist" politicians; high fees in exchange of at least some basic notions on collective action;
and such diplomas could be made compulsory for candidates
Posted by: claudio at December 22, 2004 06:35 PM