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/CORRECTION*/COLOMBIA:
Caught in the
Crossfire, Nasa Indians Take
Shelter in Health Post
Constanza
Vieira
NATALA, Colombia, (IPS) -
Hundreds of Nasa Indians in this
rural area of southwestern
Colombia have taken shelter in
their local health post, perched
on a hilltop with a breathtaking
view of the Andes mountains, as
the gunfire between leftist
guerrillas and the army rages
below.
The building, where more than
500 indigenous people from the
San Francisco reserve, including
150 children, have been holed up
for a week, is surrounded by
white flags made of sheets,
plastic sacks and even a
polka-dot scarf, flapping in the
wind on tall poles.
At the bottom of the slope,
members of the leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) exchanged fire
Monday with army troops located
on a hill across the valley. The
gunfire continued all day long
and into the night.
The health post in the village
of Natalá only has two
bathrooms. The ”kitchen”, an
improvised shed thrown up on one
side of the building, offered
potato soup and noodles for
lunch when IPS visited.
Milciades Musicué, governor of
the San Francisco indigenous
reserve, in the department
(province) of Cauca, told IPS
that some of the refugees sleep
inside the health post, ”and
others outside, and although a
few mattresses and blankets have
arrived, there aren't enough to
go around.”
He said the most recent arrivals
have come just to spend the
night, ”because in our fear,
being accompanied here gives us
courage and strength.”
”This isn't the whole community.
There are 1,200 people in Natalá,”
said Musicué, while the
population of the entire reserve
is 6,500.
Saturday evening ”we were really
scared because at around 5:00
the army opened fire in this
direction, and a bullet even hit
the health post,” he added.
Things calmed down on Sunday,
but on Monday the gunfire began
again, forcing part of the
community to seek refuge
elsewhere, because there was no
more room in the health post.
By then one child had already
fallen ill with hepatitis A, and
the staff at the Nasa health
post was hard-pressed to keep
him isolated in the overcrowded
building. On Monday, chickenpox
broke out as well.
The rebels have dug themselves
in at the bottom of the hill,
and their position gives them
control over one stretch of the
road leading to the nearby city
of Toribío.
They have thus made it
impossible for the army troops
and their tanks to cover the 20
kilometres separating the
village of Tierrero, located on
the mountain across from Natalá,
from Toribío.
The troops have thus been stuck
in Tierrero for several days,
although official statements
claim that the tanks have been
making slow progress towards
Toribío, which they were
supposed to have reached on
Wednesday, Apr. 20.
Toribío, a town of 3,000 that is
surrounded by Nasa Indian
reserves, was taken by storm
between Apr. 14-16 by FARC,
Colombia's largest insurgent
group, which has been fighting
the army and right-wing
paramilitary militias for four
decades.
On Saturday, Tierrero, which the
tanks and troops were unable to
leave, was hit by FARC's
homemade gas cylinder bombs
roughly every 10 minutes.
Despite the dangers involved in
stopping there, the soldiers
stopped and searched all passing
vehicles.
That included the SUV in which
this IPS correspondent and
Nicole Karsin, a freelance
reporter from the United States
sent by the San Francisco
Chronicle, were travelling,
accompanied by five Nasa
indigenous guards armed only
with decorated staffs
representing their authority.
A bus full of passengers was
also stopped and searched, as
was an ambulance carrying a
dozen volunteer paramedics and
doctors from the Salamandra
Foundation, on their way to
providing assistance to the
indigenous community.
An officer told Karsin not to
take pictures, and threatened to
take ”the roll” out of her
digital camera.
As Karsin was protesting the
attempt to obstruct her work as
a journalist, a cylinder bomb
hit a nearby gully, just below
the military post and tanks,
causing the civilians in the
area to panic and run.
FARC's homemade bombs, which can
smash an armoured vehicle, have
completely destroyed 18 houses
in Tierrero and damaged 206
others, most of which will have
to be demolished later.
Both the government of
right-wing President Alvaro
Uribe and FARC have said they
will not back down in their
struggle for control over this
indigenous area, where the
current fighting has dragged on
for two weeks.
”In the rural area, I think
things are going to continue
like this for 15 more days, or a
month,” said Arquimedes Vitonás,
the mayor of Toribío.
Vitonás, a Nasa Indian activist,
said he was worried because
”people depend on their day's
wage, and this week they were
unable to go to work...they have
no money to buy things in the
market. And the coffee beans are
starting to fall off the bushes,
because it's harvest time.”
The mayor said that if the
fighting goes on for another
month, the 3,000 residents of
Toribío will find themselves in
dire financial straits.
With his ”democratic security”
policy, Uribe is attempting to
retake the parts of Colombia
that are under insurgent
control, while denying that the
country is in the midst of a
civil war.
Rather than acknowledging that
there is an armed conflict, the
president merely talks about the
”terrorist threat” posed by the
leftist rebel groups.
As part of its effort to regain
control, the government reopened
police stations in Toribío and
15 other villages and towns in
the region in late 2003.
The current fighting broke out
when FARC launched an attack on
the police post in Toribío.
The government is putting an
emphasis on fighting what it
considers the FARC rearguard, in
southern Colombia, through the
U.S.-financed Plan Patriot, to
which the U.S. armed forces have
assigned a number of advisers.
Security analyst Alfredo Rangel
commented to IPS that the
government has dedicated 20
percent of the military forces
to Plan Patriot in the southern
Amazon jungle. Meanwhile, troops
are stretched thin in regions
like Cauca, where he said the
rebels are growing quickly in
strength.
Rangel said the battle of
Toribío, which has already
extended to other towns and
villages, ”is the most important
test of military strength
between FARC and Uribe.”
The president declared Tuesday
in Bogota that he would ”kick
FARC out of Cauca,” and that it
is necessary to ”persist.”
Governor Musicué said ”If there
were (peace) talks (with the
guerrillas), we would not be in
the middle of this.”
The peace talks with FARC
collapsed in 2002, under then
president Andrés Pastrana
(1998-2002).
”The national government says it
has the area under control and
that there is no combat, but you
yourselves can see that the
fighting continues,” said
Musicué. ”It is one thing for (Uribe)
to talk, sitting there
comfortably and getting a good
night's sleep, but it's another
thing to be here in the middle
of all these people, it's really
hard.”
He also said there is a big
difference between giving the
army orders from afar and seeing
how complicated the situation is
on the ground, in such a rugged
mountainous area.
”The Nasa people were on red
alert because of the violence
that lay ahead. We as
authorities had to warn the
people, in our community
meetings,” said the governor.
”Right now, while we're all
crammed in here together, what
we are saying is that we have to
be patient, because where could
we run to? We can't abandon our
land, because this is where we
live, and this is where we'll
die.
”We know that if we went to the
cities we would only suffer
greater hunger, needs and
poverty. We don't want to go to
urban areas. Here we have our
fields of yucca, beans and corn,
and we know that when the
fighting lets up a little, we
can go out and harvest some
food,” said Musicué.
* Corrects population of Toribío.
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