Before and after civilization
I’m going to tell how it was before civilization and after civilization. The problem for the grandfather chiefs started before civilization with the conquista (Spanish conquest) when they civilized us; we’ve had a lot of problems since. I see civilization as very bad; for us, the Indian race is much better. I remember the grandfathers would say to us that we had to take care of the territories, that that was our future, that when the children were born and married, they would stay on our land. (1) But today, it’s the opposite; the whites want money and, in wanting money, cheat the Indian. The problem is very difficult, very difficult for me.
The problem is that civilization is very bad for us, but, at the same time, it’s good. In what way is it good? Because we learn to respect people and get to know them. The way I see it is that first they teach you the good things, then they show you the bad ones. Why do I say that they show you the bad things? The problem is that they force us to sign a bunch of papers – one’s you don’t know anything about – and then, when we sign, they trick us and we cry, because we ask who it is that’s violating our territory. Who? Because it’s the government itself that has cheated us. Is it not?
Back to topWe can't be happy
The government, for me, is not good. A government that backs our territory, a government that leaves us alone, that’s a good government; but if it doesn’t show respect, as it doesn’t today – problems: it has put an end to us, killed us. The state itself has pursued us -- I don’t know why? – the state itself has struck at the Indians, and then it say’s that it didn’t.
The law says we’re going to protect the Indians. Lies. Protect isn’t the word, pardon me, it’s screw. The truth, as I see it, is that they screwed us and they’re screwing us still and later on they will end up killing us. The government itself has killed us and kills us because it is the state itself that sends the violence (2). Just like the violence of the chulavitas(3) who killed for colour (4). So I see that the government’s policy is to fight; the government fights for the territory that is ours; it wants to finish us off.
Now, Alamo 1 (5), we know. Because they say it was the coca, but the violence wasn’t because of the coca. Violence happens where there’s oil land. That’s what they want: that’s why they kill people, kill Indians, and take control of the land. Yea, for oil. It’s not the coca, because they consume coca and they can’t finish it off. That’s the thing.
Tibú belonged to the Indians. The government knows that we moved from Cúcuta to here; I wasn’t born yet, but the grandfathers tell how it was. They took our territory; we let them. We thought that when we crossed the Catatumbo they were going to respect that territory as belonging to the Indians, that no one was going to step foot in our territory. Lies, they trampled on us; now we don’t have either territory or anything else. So what can we do?
So I open my mind, and I begin to reflect, and I say: what are we doing, we who left the wilderness to become civilized and left without weapons to be killed? Yes, unarmed, because we don’t have arrows to shoot anymore; we don’t have anything. In the wilderness, we were respected as Indians; we killed whites because we were defending our territory. And now the governments produce laws and, at the same time, are involved in violence. I don’t understand. What I understand is respect: that they respect us and we respect them, that we say: “this is our territory and don’t meddle with us here.” That’s what I want, that they respect us through dialogue.
For us, there are no borders in Colombia. Supposedly, we should be able to go wherever we want. Before we were like that, but today we see that there is a law and we don’t know what is happening. They, the government, have to make way. For us, there are no borders. Yes, sir, we don’t have borders. Here, we are real Colombians. And why do I say real Colombians? Because we have Colombian identification cards. But we can’t go where we want happily, because the authorities themselves tell us that we can’t go to certain zones. We don’t understand that. The only place that we like to journey to now is Venezuela, the neighbouring country. There we don’t have limits, we don’t have papers: Here we are identified; we are motilones.
Before they were afraid of us. But not anymore, because now everything is friendship, everything is “buddy,” everything is normal. And he who is killed, dead remains. And that’s what they have done to us.
Back to topWhen the violence arrived
The violence arrived. But since I wanted to learn more, I did less. I joined a political party, the Unión Patriótica (the Patriotic Union); they told me to run for office so I could serve the community, and since I saw that it was easy for me to do so, I did it. I thought that the Unión Patriótica was the best place to be a politician within the government; I thought it was the best. Why? On one hand, I lacked experience. I thought that if you didn’t do harm to anyone, that was good. I had affection for the municipality. I thought that, as a councilman, I could teach the community and learn with them, work with them. But it was a lie. It turned out to be the opposite. As people say: “the gun backfired.”
And when the violence arrived, they looked for me so they could kill me because I was going to run for councilman of Tibú. But I didn’t do anything for myself (to help myself) because I’m easy going and I don’t have problems with anyone. That’s why they created problems for me and sought to kill me. Those problems are still killing me, the same ones.
Back to topI fled; I went to another community
Then the violence reached out for me; it sought me out to kill me because I was a guerrilla, an accomplice. They said that because I belonged to the Unión Patriótica, I was a guerrilla. But I didn’t carry a weapon. I was just involved in politics, just like the government is now. That’s what I wanted to be. I’ve never worn a uniform, never in my life. I’m simply a pure Indian motilón, of pure blood. I respect civilization, but they don’t respect me.
So I escaped. I went to another community and stayed there a year. I left the kids behind. I would send messages and people would tell me: “they are doing fine, the motilón Indians, but the violence has taken over your lands, because they say you are a guerrilla.”
I went with another old Indian, someone who lived with me in my house. But being away, he died. He saw that the violence was looking for me and he got sick of it and he died for my sake. He accompanied me – for what!. We arrived at the community of Shubacbarina -- the two of us alone. Our territory had to be protected, and that’s why we went alone. It was better that the rest of the family stay behind and protect the territory.
We arrived at the Río de Oro (Gold River). The old man and I stayed with the Indians there for a month. And he told me that those people (the paramilitaries) were bad, that they would kill me. And I said no, that we were peaceful people, that they wouldn’t kill us. We were Indians who had opened ourselves to civilization and that they should respect us because the law said that they had to respect us. And when the old man had told me all this, he died.
The problem was that I stayed alone with the Indians, with the community. With the community, I was fine. But it’s not the same as having your family by your side. On one hand, I had good health, but my life was bad: all day I would be thinking, thinking of my children: because I have nine children. I knew that they were suffering for me, as I suffered, as everyone in the family suffered and we are still suffering. They (the Indians) protected me a lot. Why! But they protected me. For me, the only important thing was that they kept quiet. Their solidarity was in not saying who I was. Everyone kept quiet. If they (the paramilitaries) asked where I was, the answer that they gave was that “I went to another community, “he’s far away working with another community.” That’s how it was.
Back to topI didn't return out of fear
I stayed in the community. I didn’t return out fear, out of fear for what I had seen: near where I was staying, they killed around 30. So I felt nervous, and I still feel nervous. I was in La Gabarra (on May 29th, the day of the massacre). And for me it was incredibly ugly! My cousin transported people by canoe and was going to collect boat fare. When they docked, the passengers got off and said “motilones, we will pay you later on, when we get home.” But the enemies were watching, and when the passengers arrived at the tank, they killed them; they killed those peasant farmers.
In La Gabarra, they took my cousin away; four of them forced him into a white van, pushing him. He didn’t last two days; they killed him fast. With one more day, my brother would have saved him; the Indian cacique would have saved him. But when my brother went, my cousin was already dead. They had cut him into 10 pieces.
I had to speak out, search out the caciques and speak with the monsignor, the priest. Everyone spoke out on the radio, everyone sharing their opinion, because he wasn’t a soldier; he travelled in the canoe, picking people up, transporting them, and collecting the fare. He worked for his sugarloaf, for his food. The family told them to return him alive or dead and so they returned him dead, in a bag. We said that it was the paramilitaries, and we formed a big group to go and talk with them, so they would hand his body back. So we brought him back and buried him in the community. The bones are there.
Back to topFour years without leaving!
I was there for a year when I decided that I had to go talk with the paramilitary commander so they didn’t kill me. I had been there for a year, lying about in a house. And the violence said: “you can come home, but under no conditions can you leave the house to go walking about the territory.” They said that otherwise they would kill me: the only way I could go back without having any problem is if I stayed in the house quietly, as a prisoner, a prisoner for four years in my own house. Only two years ago did I begin to leave the house. I had spent four years without going out!
So when I arrived, I didn’t arrive alone. At the roadblock, there were lots of paramilitaries so I arrived from a different route and didn’t run into them. I arrived with a young man who accompanied me from the other community.
So, the problem is this: I arrived and when I arrived, my wife appeared; I sent her to say that everyone should go to the house and wait for me there. And I told her that if the violence were there, she should tell the family to leave. At that moment, I was confioso (6) in God – the God who the grandfathers say protects us in every moment of the day – I myself spoke with the paramilitaries and a short while afterwards, they abandoned the house. I entered and felt great joy that they had left us alone. The kids and brothers-in-law were there. They threw themselves on me with joy and I said “Here, there is no violence anymore. (Untrue, the violence continues. And if not how are they exploiting the mine (7)?)
I had to change my name. Fine! I changed my name. But everyone still called me by my old name. The only thing is that they advised me not to leave the house, not to go to any other place. That we can’t do; it’s not right. The violence was very hard on me; it killed me live, spiritually. I didn’t even work for the community. Nor did I work for my keep. Only the kids went out to work, to earn our food.
They told me to stay put, not to go anywhere. And the chief here also told me to stay put. I was here and then I was in the community at Caricachaboquira where I stayed for around four months. They told me to keep still, otherwise they would kill me.
Back to topThere were only problems
When I was displaced in the other community, my kids stayed behind. The violence almost killed two of them: one of them was shot in the leg. The kids went down to shell a bit of rice and the paramilitaries opened fire. There were three wounded: a white man, my daughter and my son. A report of the incident was made to the authorities in Cúcuta. But I don’t know how long the complaint has been there and no action taken! What happened to my daughter, it almost killed me.
And the violence entered my house. I lost animals: they killed two dogs and my mare. When I arrived there was lots of problems: I left behind my animals and the paramilitaries ate them. When I left, I had 80 cows; when I arrived, I only had 15 left. My family told me that the paramilitaries had ruined everything: “they are telling us that you are a guerrilla and, as we are all a family, we are all guerrillas.”
The paramilitaries were there every day until they left. Sometimes they were there for eight days; sometimes a month. They came and went, mixing themselves with the motilones. And the motilones didn’t say anything, because if you told them to leave, then they killed you. You couldn’t say anything because the threats were really serious.
When I was little, when I was in the jungle, I was really happy. We had races (8), marathons. We’ve always done that: we always get together, 200 Indians, and spend around four hours racing. That’s our joy: to run. That what I learned to do and that’s our way of expressing ourselves.
So that’s what I want: that we continue doing what we are doing. The race, the marathon: we never stop doing what our ancestors, the old ones, handed down to us. With the same joy.
(1) For the Barí, the territory –Ishtana—has a sacred and spiritual significance very linked to their existence as a people: “Without Territory there are no Bari, without the Barí, the Territory is not conserved.”
(2) When the interviewee speaks of ‘the violence’ he refers to the paramilitaries
(3) Hired assassins of conservative affiliation during the period of the Violence; originally, police
(4) Refers to the political violence that gripped the country between 1946 and 1947. Each party was recognized by its distinctive colour: red, liberal and blue, conservative
(5) The state oil company Ecopetrol entered Barí Territory without the authorization of either the traditional authorities or the Colombian environmental authorities. In the zone, it only drilled a single well (Álamo 1) of 30 foreseen wells before the Constitutional Court ordered a suspension for violation of the fundamental rights of the Barí people. The sentence was announced on February 5, 2007.
(6) Trusting
(7) Refers to petroleum exploration
(8) For the Barís, “the marathons are events in which [...] the community enters into live contact with their territory and reaffirms the qualities and virtues of the speed of some members [...], deserving of respect and recognition.” (www.prensaindigena.org.mx).
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