It’s Canada’s duty to help save Colombia’s indigenous peoples

When will Canada address the emergency for indigenous peoples at risk of extinction in Colombia?

Chilling testimony recently heard by one of the highest human rights bodies in our hemisphere captured little attention in Canadá. 

It should have, given the humanitarian catastrophe it revealed.

At a special hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in March, Angélica Ortiz appealed for the very survival of her people, the Wayu Indigenous Nation in Colombia’s Guajira peninsula. 

The appeal came during a special hearing to investigate the human rights impacts of mining. 

Large-scale coal mining has had disastrous impacts on indigenous communities in La Guajira, testified the Wayu leader, who described environmental contamination, the loss of valued plants and food crops, as well as an increase in cancer and other diseases.

Equally devastating, Ortiz testified, is the militarization that has come with mining development, the escalation of armed conflict and grave human rights abuses, including killings and sexual violence against indigenous women. 

“Many people have felt compelled to flee but displacement is a huge threat to our survival,” says Ortiz. 

“We fear the Wayu will become completely extinct.”

This is no empty rhetoric. 

In 2.009, the Constitutional Court of Colombia determined 34 indigenous nations,including the Wayu, to be in imminent danger of physical or cultural extermination due to the impact of armed conflict and forced displacement. 

The court called the situation “an emergency which is as serious as it is invisible.”

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people concurs. 

In his 2.010 report on Colombia, he called for a visit to Colombia by the UN special adviser on prevention of genocide.

It goes without saying that the extinction of indigenous peoples in any part of the world  and with them their culture, spirituality, language, ancestral knowledge and traditional practices  should be cause for concern and action by citizens everywhere.

But there are urgent imperatives why the emergency situation facing indigenous peoples in Colombia belongs squarely on Canada’s political agenda, not the least of which is a free-trade agreement with Colombia and vigorous promotion by the government of Canadá of investment in resource extraction projects on Colombian soil.

Colombia remains a country in the midst of a vicious armed conflict between insurgent groups, government forces and army-backed paramilitaries. 

The conflict has been marked by human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law by all of the warring parties, with civilians by far the principal victims. 

The conflict has also frequently been used as a cover for acquiring control over land of strategic value or mineral wealth, including land inhabited by and crucial to the survival of indigenous peoples.

In a 2.010 report, Amnesty International documented an intensification of threats and attacks on indigenous communities and their leaders. 

Amid widespread denial of the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent about development projects that will affect them, those who raise their voices in opposition to such projects continue to be targeted with threats and killings.

The terror generated can prompt mass forced displacement. 

Between 2.002 and 2.009 alone, at least 70,000 indigenous inhabitants were forced to flee their territories, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, and the number keeps climbing.

It is obvious that engaging in resource development in a context in which people are violently driven from their lands inevitably carries a high risk of inadvertently fuelling and contributing to these grave human rights violations.

In 2.001, Embera Katío indigenous leader Kimy Pernía Domicó was “disappeared” after he came to Canada to speak out about the impacts on his people of a hydroelectric project partially financed by a Canadian Crown corporation. 

Today, the Embera Katío are on the Constitutional Court’s list of 34 indigenous nations on the brink of physical or cultural extinction.

May 15 is the deadline for a report by the Canadian government on the human rights impacts of the free-trade agreement, a report required by law but which has been prepared in secrecy and without opportunities for input.

No matter what the report includes, the time is well overdue to lift the veil of silence around the emergency situation facing indigenous peoples in Colombia and ensure that Canadá is part of the solution, not the problem.