[Translation from Spanish]
Good day. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to describe the reality in which our communities in Colombia exist.
Our organization has been working for the rights of Afro-Colombians for over 15 years. Therefore, we are delighted to talk about the results of our efforts and about our relationship with indigenous peoples, with whom we share certain territories.
In Colombia, the rights of Afro-Colombians have been recognized by the national constitution since 1991, under Law 70 of 1993, and under ILO Convention 169, ratified in Colombia in 1991 by Law 21. Generally speaking, our rights are in regard to land, identity, political participation, and development, and they are supposed to guarantee free, prior, and informed consultation and consent of communities pursuant to articles 6, 7, and 15 of ILO Convention 169.
Our experience shows that in the process that is currently being implemented by the Canada Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the right to prior consultation of our communities, which, as I have said, is guaranteed under ILO Convention 169, is neither considered nor respected.
In addition, in 2001 the process of amending the Colombian mining code was completed, and it culminated in the adoption of a law that is still being enforced. The amendment was made with economic and, we believe, technical support from the Canadian International Development Agency. Under this law, which was amended and has been in force since 2001, in a region such as northern Cauca, where we have worked and where mostly black and indigenous populations are living, 30 mineral titles were recently granted. All of these titles were granted without free, prior, and informed consultation and without the consent of our communities. I am talking about the municipalities of Suárez, Morales, and Buenos Aires, which are located southwest of Bogota, Colombia’s capital.
On October 22, 2009, the new generation of the Black Eagles sent a document to the Unified Workers Confederation of Valle del Cauca in which they threaten a number of organizations and prominent figures in the northern Cauca region. They justify their warnings as follows: first, they are against policies proposed by the president of the republic; second, they oppose the movement of companies into the northern Cauca region.
On November 13, 2009, that is, two weeks after the threats were made, the body of a murdered indigenous person and several injured members of the municipal council of Cerro Tijeras were discovered on a road in the municipalities of Morales and Suárez. The victim had been the target of threats, as I mentioned earlier. The indigenous person lived in the Damián sector. Cerro Damián is one of the places that, according to local settlers, falls under the mining title granted to Cosigo, a Canadian company. This is proof that threats made by the paramilitary group may be carried out, resulting not only in death but also in the displacement of our communities.
With regard to forced displacements, since indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians are granted special rights and have also had more internal armed conflicts than any other ethnic group, in 2009, the constitutional court provided the government with a set of orders for protecting the rights of Afro-Colombians. The orders are related to plans for protecting collective territories, to management plans for helping displaced populations, and to the creation of an ethnic structure for protecting the territorial and heritage property of Afro-Colombians. They are also related to the plan for qualifying the situation of various territories belonging to our population, regardless of these territories’ legal status.
For the first time ever in Colombia, Order 005 has enabled us to realize that the implementation of agro-industrial and mining projects is one of the reasons for the displacement of communities within the country.
Until now, the Colombian government has not respected the recommendations or the decisions of the constitutional court regarding the issue at hand.
We know that thus far our rights are not sufficiently guaranteed in the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, in particular because the right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent of communities has not been properly exercised.
Consequently, since our talks with Canada are said to be extremely successful and have produced a set of recommendations, of which a number seem innovative, we are asking you to suspend the process of approving and implementing the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the recommendations made by Canada are carried out, especially with regard to the assessment and the implementation of the findings of an impact study on human rights.
In addition, we believe the process should be suspended until the Canadian Parliament and government have made sure that, first, Colombia is respecting rights, and second, our right to free, prior, and informed consultation and consent is duly protected . When I say “our right”, I mean that of black communities’ indigenous peoples. Measures must also be taken to protect the economic, social, political, and cultural rights of our population.
In conclusion, I believe this committee could invite other representatives of indigenous and rural Afro-Colombian communities, as well as union leaders, to come here and voice, in their own words, all of their concerns and describe the reality of their situation. They could also explain how they would be affected by the completion and the implementation of an agreement such as the one currently under review.
Thank you.