Truth Commission: the key points of the ethnic chapter of the Final Report

Colonial treatment and structural racism. Those are two of the crucial concepts that the Truth Commission in his investigation to reveal the clarifications of the effects suffered by ethnic peoples (indigenous, Roma, black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero) in the context of the armed conflict, and which were recorded in the 663 pages of the volume ‘Resisting is not enduring’ of the entity’s Final Report, which came to light on August 2.

In context: Final Report: an appetizer to the ethnic truth and its recommendations

The main finding, the document points out, is that “Colombia has been built on relations based on colonial treatment and structural racism that seek to justify the dispossession, extermination and denial of the existence of ethnic peoples as a collective and as peoples”.

For the Commission, ethnic peoples have suffered a continuum of violence that not only remains in acts such as homicides, massacres, torture, forced disappearances, recruitment of minors, displacement or extermination, but also transcends their territories, nature, its cultural integrity, its authorities, autonomy and its own governments, causing multiple damages.

Read the ethnic volume here:

What did the Commission conclude?

However, according to the entity, it is not about events exclusively within the framework of the armed conflict, but rather that it “configures the most recent expression of the historical violence against the ethnic peoples of Colombia.”

In fact, the Truth Commission concluded that the different models of government that existed during the construction of the Republic of Colombia “prolonged colonial treatment and institutional racism, and reproduced multiple forms of violence and exclusion that survive today. These exclusions dehumanized ethnic peoples, normalized the atrocious practices of the armed conflict, and aggravated its impacts.”.

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In the ethnic volume it is also highlighted that the way in which the Colombian State establishes relations with the territories and ethnic peoples has fostered environments for the consolidation and degradation of the conflict, since it has prevailed a lack of protection of these populations and an omission of the duty to prevent human rights violations, to which is added the breaches of the policy of reparation of victims and restitution of their territorial rights.

Regarding the actions of the armed groups that violated the indigenous, black and Roma peoples, the Commission highlights that the guerrillas incorporated racist patterns into their ways of being present in the territories. “From their reductionist conceptual framework blind to identities, they never understood or respected the worldviews of ethnic peoples; nor the scope of their collective rights, and they used the territories as scenarios for military dispute and control of the economies of the war, which caused collective damage that has affected the existence of these peoples”, says the volume.

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As for the groups paramilitariesthe Commission asserts that they adopted the ‘counter-insurgency war’ approach promoted by the Colombian State “and, consequently, they considered that the territories of the ethnic communities should be subjected to two complementary and simultaneous dynamics: to weaken and remove the guerrilla from the territories, involving the ethnic peoples as their social base, and establish total control of illegal economies such as drug trafficking, forest exploitation and oil smuggling, and of legal economies such as agribusiness and extractivism, adding the territories to the logic of accumulation by dispossession.

Regarding the Public Force, the ethnic chapter assures that it developed civil-military strategies in the territories, where it involved the members of the communities in actions of a military nature during the armed confrontation, “exposing them and their communities to a spiral of reprisals and growing violence. But the Commission goes further, and ensures that “the Colombian State is responsible as a direct aggressor, when it has acted against ethnic peoples and the guarantee of their fundamental and ethnic rights.”

For example, the document emphasizes the role of some State agents acting in collusion or complicity with paramilitary groups and economic actors involved in promoting land dispossession and the displacement of ethnic peoples from their territories.

On the other hand, the volume concludes that despite the recognition of these populations in the 1991 Constitution, this did not guarantee the protection of their communities. “In fact, tragically, the stage of constitutional opening and consolidation, which meant reforms in terms of recognition of rights, had a violent response from guerrillas and paramilitary groups, and was experienced by the people as a resurgence of the armed conflict with the constant dispute between armed groups to appropriate ethnic territories and their ecosystems,” the Commission maintains.

Even after identifying the 17 most affected ethnic territories, the entity determined that in several cases there is a link between these areas and where the concessions are for the exploration and exploitation of gold, oil and coltan, for agro-industrial projects, and for coca crops. . “War and the extractive economic model are thus the two faces of the destructive process that ethnic communities have experienced, which includes the humanitarian crisis, the devastation of life, the humiliation of their knowledge and cultures, as well as the desecration of their territories,” concludes the Truth Commission.

Can read: These are the chapters of the Final Report of the Truth Commission

Cultural violence must be added to these environmental damages, with acts such as the prohibition of speaking one’s own languages, of developing spirituality and culture, and the denial of their humanity.

The resistance of the communities

Although the ethnic chapter delves into all these affectations, it also recognizes the resistance of the indigenous, black and gypsy peoples, which goes back even to the Colony.

During the armed conflict, the document reads, the communities developed actions to defend themselves against attacks, to propose negotiated solutions, to demand protection, to undertake humanitarian actions. And for daring to do so, several armed actors were vicious with the ethnic authorities and the leaderships.

Although the report acknowledges that some members of these communities have been part of the armed groups (legal and illegal) that have played a role in the conflict, it makes it clear that this participation is not linked to a collective decision of the peoples or their organizational structures.

Furthermore, the Commission stresses that ethnic peoples have developed mechanisms such as the Indigenous Guard or the Maroon Guard for the self-government and self-protection of the communities, and highlights that the ethnic communities have proposed and developed actions of resistance and for the defense of life and rejection of armed action.

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The four axes of the recommendations

For the Truth Commission, it is necessary to work, above all, along four lines to achieve non-repetition of the conflict in ethnic peoples: peacebuilding, victims, political regime, and socioeconomic and cultural transformations.

On the first, the entity highlights the need to comply with the Peace Agreement, advancing in the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PEDT) and with the participation of the High-Level Special Instance with Ethnic Peoples (Ieanpe) and the Special Women’s Instance for the Gender Approach in Peace. Also, take steps in the programs of settlement, return, return and restitution of indigenous and Afro territories, as well as in humanitarian demining, among other initiatives.

Regarding the point of victims, although the Commission recognizes that there have been significant advances in the processes of reparation, memory and recognition, it calls for the State to commit greater efforts and resources for a “collective, comprehensive and transformative” reparation, not only of an economic nature. The entity also recommends the creation of an information system to unify data on the victimized ethnic population, deepen investigations into gender-based violence and sexual crimes committed against women, men and LGBTIQ+ people from ethnic peoples, as well as ensure effective protection of their territories.

Regarding the political regime and participation, the Commission ensures that almost a dozen articles of the 1991 Constitution have to be developed involving ethnic communities, as well as launching the constitutional bloc and the Ethnic Chapter of the Final Peace Agreement.

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And on socioeconomic and cultural transformations, the entity made suggestions that seek to “modify negative forms of relationships, such as gender violence, colonial treatment, racism, discrimination, revenge, hatred and stigmatization.” Among the recommendations is expanding the access of ethnic peoples to social and economic opportunities related to education and employment, generating and implementing policies and measures that contribute to the effective enjoyment of rights by women of ethnic peoples. They also recommend the creation, by the Colombian State, of a Historical Truth Commission for the indigenous, black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, Palenquero and Roma peoples, which recovers the oral and historical memory of the country’s ethnic peoples.