WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #335 - Colombia: "What if every corner of the planet became a point of liberation?» ---- Words of the Liberation process of Mother Earth (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We publish this text in solidarity with the struggle led by an
indigenous community -nasa- of Colombia. A struggle that resonates and
echoes the struggles that we are also waging, territorial struggles,
against the state, against Capital... ---- We are families of the NASA
community, a people among the 110 indigenous peoples who exist in the
territory now called Colombia. Nasa means "people" in Nasayuwe, our
language. We are going to tell you about our struggle, which we call the
Liberation of Mother Earth, and whose roots go back to 1538, when our
people, led by the great warrior La Gaitana, decided to declare war on
the Spanish invaders.

After 120 years of resistance, the invaders seized our lands and pushed
us back towards the mountains. Over time, they made dispossession a way
of life, the foundation of their civilization. Their descendants now
hold the most fertile land and have documents proving their ownership.
They constitute an organized power that pulls the strings of Colombian
politics, economy, justice and media. This allows them to keep the
documents up to date and to exploit Mother Earth even more. And this is
what they call progress, development.
In our region, the north of Cauca, an immense valley which was once a
tropical dry forest, the invader destroyed everything. Today, this
valley is covered with 330,000 hectares of industrial sugar cane
monoculture. Monoculture that belongs to a single company, Incauca, the
largest sugar and agrofuel production industry in Latin America.
Throughout history, communities inhabiting these lands have been
dispossessed and displaced by sugar cane. Afro-descendant communities
have been crowded into small towns, most of whom now make a living from
daily work in the cane fields. We, the Nasa communities, have been
driven into the mountains, where the need to protect water reserves and
forests prevents us from cultivating the land to survive.
In other regions, invaders have planted oil palms on thousands and
thousands of hectares; in still other regions, they have displaced
communities to build dams, or to extract gold or oil. And so, every
corner of this country is made up of disjointed pieces of development
projects, installed where war has displaced entire communities, where
forests, páramos, mountains and plains have been - and still are -
ravaged so that a few people can enjoy the delights of development. Just
for information, in this country, 0.4% of landowners own 41% of the
land; 25 million hectares are used for mining; glaciers have lost 85% of
their ice; the tropical dry forest, the Andean forest and the high
Andean forest are on the verge of extinction.
The struggle we are waging here is a form of rebellion against this
system. This is not a fight by NASA for NASA, but a fight by NASA for
the whole planet. Because the water that is born here and the oxygen
that the trees that grow here generate go around the world. For us, Uma
Kiwe, Mother Earth, is a living being, a superorganism, a matrix of
life. We human beings are barely a stitch in this great weave. We exist
because other beings exist. And yet other beings cease to exist so that
we can exist. Here, in the Cauca River valley, a green desert stretches
as far as the eye can see. The cane replaced the forest, so the animals
also had to leave. 330     000 hectares of cane, which use 25 million
liters of water per second. Water that is born in the mountains, and
that our communities work to protect.
This is why we say: Our Mother Earth is not free; it will be when it
once again becomes the common ground and home of the communities who
care for it, respect it, and live with it. We human beings, just like
animals and beings of life, cannot be free until we achieve the freedom
of Mother Earth.

In 2005, then again in 2014, we entered the sugar industry properties
and settled there. We built our cabins. We cut down the sugar cane with
our machetes, then we started growing food: plantains, cassava, corn,
beans. And on the rest of the land, we let the forest grow.  Then we saw
the animals of the woods, the bees, return; splash the water; and even
return the spirits of Mother Earth, who were also displaced by the cane.
Today, we are installed on 27 properties. We call these occupied
properties release points, and we live there happily, with cats, dogs,
chickens, ducks, cows. On 330,000 hectares, we managed to eradicate
sugar cane on 12,500 hectares in nine years.
We live here and we celebrate. We celebrate. And when we have to mourn
the dead, we mourn them. Since 2005, 16 comrades have been murdered by
the Colombian state, during expulsion attempts or targeted persecution.
But that did not stop us in our fight. In nine years, there have been
nearly 400 eviction attempts, during which the riot police and the army
come and fire tear gas, grenades, bullets. They arrive with tractors and
machines to destroy our crops, just before harvest. There were nearly
600 injuries, 200 arrest notices and legal proceedings, 16 death threats
from paramilitary groups, and dozens of detentions, but they never
succeeded in dislodging us from our ancestral lands.
The confrontation with the State occupies a large part of our time,
because we must be constantly on the alert, so as not to let tractors,
paramilitaries, or even private security from industry enter. It takes
us a lot of time to protect ourselves and these 12,500 freed hectares.
Nevertheless, we found time to organize three International Meetings, in
2017, 2018 and 2019, with people from all over Colombia and other
countries, from 80 struggle movements, and who shared with us their
actions, their sufferings, their joys and their horizons. We also
carried out five Marchas de la comida (Food Marches), between 2018 and
2021, which consist of loading chivas (truck buses) with fruits and
vegetables harvested in liberated lands to share with struggling
communities in working class neighborhoods of cities. It's another way
of showing that we are fighting for everyone.

The conclusion we reached is that the institutional route, that is to
say asking the State to cede the land to us, will not work. The hundreds
of agreements made with the State regarding land restitution have never
been respected. Today, Petro's progressive government is talking about
land reform. But we know that restoring balance to Uma Kiwe, our Mother
Earth, goes well beyond simple land reform. And last year, when he had
just come to power, the Petro government accused us of being invaders
and gave us 48 hours to leave these lands where we live and fight. He
also reactivated all the arrest warrants against the liberators of
Mother Earth.
So, this idea of going and claiming our land from the State, as if it
was providing us a service, as if it were the owner of Mother Earth, we
consider that this is not the path to follow. This is why we enter
directly on the properties to liberate Mother Earth, without asking
permission. And we will stay here until the government takes the
necessary steps to hand over the documents to our indigenous
representatives, either through land reform or a faster route. And if
not, we will stay here.

We are not an armed group, nor a violent group, but we are forced to
carry out our struggle without the support of Colombian law. We rely on
an ancestral law which says: "The Earth is our mother.»And if we do
nothing to keep the exploitation of Mother Earth through this economic
system, soon this common home, where we live with all the other species,
the spirits and all the elements that compose it will no longer exist.
Some experts say we have ten years before global warming reaches the
point of no return. Others say twelve years, or thirty. In any case, we
are close to a time when the damage to Mother Earth will be so great
that it will become difficult to contain. But if every corner of the
planet became a point of liberation, if we managed to liberate all the
regions that capitalism exploits, then it would no longer be 12,500
hectares but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hectares that would
be liberated. So, by moving forward together, we could perhaps go a
little faster to stop global warming and live free, in harmony with all
beings, what we call here wët wët fxi'nzenxi, the tasty life.

Liberation Process of Mother Earth
NASA people, northern Cauca, Colombia

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4022
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca