The Mission was able to evaluate the moral damages and physical harm suffered by the Nonam community, as well as the current situation of security, protection and comprehensive humanitarian aid. The Mission examined current conditions for the free and voluntary RETURN to their homes that the community has demanded of the Colombian government as part of their rights as indigenous displaced persons.
The Nonam indigenous community, made up of 98 people, including children, young people, adults and pregnant women, has had to resist over the past nine months without the comprehensive and differential support that as indigenous people they have the right to.
Conclusions and demands
• Paramilitary actions continue in the San Juan and Bajo Calima river regions and in neighbourhoods of Buenaventura. The Nonam community was threatened by paramilitaries that if they returned to their territory they would suffer the forced disappearance or murder of some of their leaders. Furthermore, on Friday, May 6, in retribution for denouncing the incidents of 2010, they were again threatened by some of the paramilitary structures that control the area where their temporary shelter is located in Buenaventura. There has also been confirmation of a new threatening situation by paramilitary structures that have been continually present since Good Friday in the San Juan and Bajo Calima regions, and of the departure or change in location of River Battalion 80, which had been present at the mouth of the Calima River.
• (…) We repeat the requests presented by the Nonam community in their list of demands to the national government. In application of human rights policy, the paramilitary structures present in Buenaventura and the Bajo Calima region should be effectively combated and dismantled. The government should take control of the perimeter around the area, recognizing and respecting the declaration of a Humanitarian and Biodiverse Reservation, as a mechanism for protecting life and territory in the midst of the internal armed conflict and as a place exclusively for the civilian population.
• The indigenous Nonam community has been in a situation of forced displacement for nine months, in conditions of overcrowding, sanitation problems, lack of medical attention and malnutrition, with cases of tuberculosis and intestinal infections. Five cases of tuberculosis and one case of meningitis have been confirmed. While we were completing this report, confirmed reports arrived of the tragic death of an eleven-month old girl. The girl died as a result of the precarious situation in which the community is resisting as internally displaced persons and due to the lack of immediate care in the Buenaventura departmental hospital.
• We request that comprehensive and differential support be immediately guaranteed for the Nonam indigenous community of Santa Rosa de Guayacán, as mandated by the constitution and the law. This was also ordered by the sentence issued on April 7 by the second Cali Labour Court, in response to a legal action for constitutional rights (tutela) filed against violations of the Nonam community’s fundamental rights.
• In terms of guarantees for their return, the food situation in the Bajo Calima basin is extremely serious, given the situation regarding the community’s protection and the prolonged rainy season. It is therefore urgent that seed recovery be reactivated to guarantee dignified food sovereignty conditions for their return home. We request an immediate response to demands for seeds, tools, food and transportation, to allow progress in the recovery of subsistence agriculture that will ensure economic reactivation upon their return.
• In housing infrastructure and community spaces, the deterioration, damages and losses are obvious. We request that the national government, acting through Social Action, immediately coordinate and take responsibility for the physical reconstruction of those spaces needed for the return of the Nonam community of Santa Rosa de Guayacán.
• The Mission was able to see first-hand the construction projects being carried out in the Bajo Calima collective territory in order to guarantee road and port infrastructure projects. In the face of the ecological and social damage generated by multinational companies, we demand respect and support for indigenous and Afro-descendant communities’ life projects, the effective application of ILO Convention 169, and application of the provisions of national and international norms regarding life and territory.
• During the verification mission, we witnessed the impunity reigning in terms of the human rights violations that indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of the Bajo Calima region have suffered. Up to the present, the communities are unaware of any progress made in investigations into harm caused to the territory by: logging; infrastructure projects implemented by logging and port companies; and above all the serious incidents involving paramilitary actions in which the community has suffered murders, forced displacement and threats. We request results in truth, justice and comprehensive reparations, as a guarantee of non-repetition of these crimes.
In memory of Heidy Membache, 11-month old baby, victim of forced displacement, victim of the failure to provide the comprehensive and differential support that the displaced indigenous population has a right to. Heidy was not able to bear the difficult conditions in which the community is resisting in the temporary shelter, and died of a respiratory illness in the Buenaventura departmental hospital.
RSS 2.0