PublicationsCatalogueLibertasAnnual Reports

Volume 11, Number 1
Summer 2001

pdf icon Download PDF
« previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | next »

The Kidnapping of Colombian Activist Kimy PernÌa Domicó

Kimy Pernia Domico

When native leader Kimy PernÌa Domicó spoke with the Rights & Democracy/Assembly of First Nations Mission to Colombia of the crisis situation facing the Embera-KatÌo people, he had surely not imagined that the horror of his own kidnapping and disappearance two days later would spark an international outcry. Warren Allmand, president of Rights & Democracy, Ghislain Picard, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Lydia Hwitsum, Chief of the Cowichan Tribes, and Beth Phinney, Chair of the Parliamentary sub-Committee on Human Rights, had met with PernÌa in the Colombian city of MedellÌn, at a meeting organized by the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia.




Photo: Kathy Price, ICCHRLA.

At dusk on June 2, PernÌa Domicó was grabbed from the streets of Tierralta, Cordoba, at gunpoint by heavily armed men believed to be far-right paramilitaries. He had previously received numerous threats. This tragic case provides some illustration of the situation facing Colombiaís 84 indigenous nations, who have been reduced to 800,000 natives ó a mere 2% of the population. The survival of Kimy PernÌa Domicóís Embera-KatÌo people had been threatened by the part Canadian-financed Urr· hydroelectric dam mega-project, a project that dried up their staple diet of fish, and brought environmental destruc-tion and malaria to the community of 2,000. When the Embera organized and demanded their constitutionally protected rights, the paramilitary groups accused them of collaborating with the guerrillas of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC). In turn, the FARC forcibly conscripted some natives, and accused the civilian community of aiding the paramilitaries. The toll on the Embera has been heavy: 11 leaders dead since 1994, and now the disappearance of Kimy PernÌa Domicó.

Floro Tunubal·, Colombiaís only indigenous elected governor, reported a similar situation from the western department of Cauca, where he came to power last October after a landslide win. "I received an anonymous call telling me I had been brought to power by the armed left, and I was thus a military target," Tunubal· told the mission when they visited his offices in the regional capital of Popay·n. "The next day, another anonymous caller said I had been supported by the paramilitaries, and I was thus considered a military target of the guerrillas." Tunubal· spoke of the harmful effects of US aerial fumigation of illicit crops and of his own economic development plan for the department. Yet as long as the war continues, it is impossible to implement this plan as the various armed actors vie for territorial control, each extorting money from civilians caught in the midst of the violence. For Colombiaís indigenous peoples, any effort to promote peace must address root issues of the conflict. And one of those root issues is clearly the Stateís failure to adequately protect aboriginal lands, essential to the survival of these peoples. "Our concerns as indigenous peoples must be addressed in the peace process ó otherwise, there will be no real and lasting solution to the conflict," the joint mission heard. "We ask you, Canadians, to be messengers to the Colombian government and to the outside world, of our concerns."

« previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | next »