Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Sep 21 2006 (IPS) – Decimated by a flu epidemic and driven from their territory by the civil war, Colombia s Nukak indigenous people are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Decimated by a flu epidemic and driven from their territory by the civil war, Colombia s Nukak indigenous people are teetering on the brink of extinction.
It is absolutely essential for the Colombian government to find a way to let the Nukak return to their own land, otherwise they will not survive in the long term, Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, warned Wednesday. The London-based non-governmental organisation works to support the self-determination of tribal people.
Fewer than 500 Nukak have survived, their numbers cut in half since their first contact with outsiders in 1988. They live in the Amazon jungle, and are considered one of the world s most mobile nomadic people. Their introduction to Western culture was less an encounter than a head-on collision.
Until fairly recently they roamed throughout an expansive territory between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers in the country s eastern region, where the State set up a 900,000-hectare reserve for their protection.
But the Guaviare region has been taken over by a wave of settlers, most of them seeking land to grow coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine. Colombia is now the world s largest producer of cocaine, and coca crops in the country are regularly sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate in U.S.-backed eradication initiatives.
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The cocaine industry also fuels the long-running Colombian war, in which leftist guerrillas, who took up arms in 1964, battle the army and the ultra-rightwing paramilitary groups, led by drug-lord commanders, that emerged in the 1980s.
Aerial spraying in Guaviare, like other places in the country, has pushed the cocaleros, or coca growers, to find new land some of which is in the Nukak reserve. No longer able to feel safe in their traditional territory, close to half of the nomads have moved to towns in the area.
But contact with mainstream society has both entranced and, literally, sickened, the Nukak people.
They are fascinated by tools, such as the machete, fish hooks and flashlights. As far as it can be said that Western culture discovered the Nukak, they in turn have discovered such marvels as a device that plays music. They have discovered compact disks..
But this contact is also deadly. A simple flu is a dangerous killer when brought in by a colonist, blindsiding their immune systems and traditional medicine with a previously unknown contagion. In fact, disease is the main cause of the reduction of the Nukak population.
A new flu epidemic is exactly what Survival International activist David Hill found on a recent visit to the Nukak. He sounded the alarm upon his return to London: about a hundred Nukak are infected, and three had to be hospitalised between Sep. 1 and 4.
The first group left their jungle home three years ago, escaping the fighting between two rival paramilitary factions. The second wave set out two years ago, because of another confrontation between the same militias and the country s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
A third group held out until a year ago, when they fled in the wake of FARC death threats against Monikaro, a member of the community. The exodus began in November; some 70 Nukak arrived at San José del Guaviare, capital of the southeastern province of Guaviare, and close to 90 struck out for Tomachipán, a jungle village on the Inírida River, west of their reserve.
But other displaced Nukak were already settled in Tomachipán. There wasn t enough food for everyone in the jungle, so they headed to San José in March, Héctor Mondragón, an economist who is an advisor to the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC), told IPS. Sixteen years ago he became one of the first non-natives to learn the Nukak language.
When the news of the displacement reached Bogotá, the government took action. Following several weeks of deliberations, it moved 215 indigenous people to Puerto Ospina, between San José and the Nukak reserve, although still quite far from the region the largest group of displaced people once called home.
Puerto Ospina, a relatively small forest area surrounded by farms, part of which are owned by long-time settlers who raise livestock and cacao, is part of the Campesino Reserve Area of Guaviare. The system, implemented by past governments to slow agricultural encroachment, relies on farmers themselves to ensure that their properties remain the last line of development before the jungle.
The government settled the Nukak in two camps here. In one, they placed the recent arrivals and those who previously had been displaced to San José. All others went to the second.
Health experts had warned that settling 200 Nukak in one place was likely to lead to outbreaks of disease, according to Survival International, since traditionally the Nukak live in small, nomadic groups made up of a couple, their children and unmarried siblings.
The epidemic hit the least traditional group the hardest the one that agreed in principle to give up their nomadic way of life and settle in the encampment, said Mondragón.
The criticism is that they have not used a good resettlement model. The government took the people and piled them all into one place. They are overcrowded, added the indigenous expert.
However, on Thursday it was reported that the Nukak had left the two camps, and just 15 people stayed behind.
Armed with an intimate knowledge of the jungle, the Nukak know when and where different fruit ripens and when and where there is good fishing and hunting; this all entails moving around vast areas.
However, their new camp is just two percent of the size of their own territory.
Thus, The Nukak s wild food is in short supply at their new camp; the forest there does not contain any of the trees necessary to make the blowpipes and poison that they need to hunt meat, and there are few fish in the rivers, explained Survival International. Their own territory contains abundant natural resources.
A diet change is no small matter in the jungle, as food is the secret weapon of the native peoples against tropical diseases, such as malaria, which has also devastated the Nukak.
The worst problem is that there s a move on make the Nukak seem as though they would rather have a crate of Coca-Cola instead of their 900,000 hectares. It s exactly what the Spanish did, when they traded mirrors for the indigenous gold, warned Mondragón.
But what can be done? The bottom line is that a humanitarian agreement needs to be signed by all parties in the conflict, including the cocaleros and the governmentàin which they pledge to respect the Nukak and their territory, he said.
It is important to let them live peacefully where they have always lived, and to be aware that, for them, the forest holds a trove of riches.
Second, the Nukak s wishes must be addressed. They should be given certain objects of ours that they now need, and, above all, they should receive health care, he added.
Starting this week, and continuing to the end of the month, an ONIC-sponsored International Verification Mission will be touring various areas in Colombia to evaluate the serious humanitarian and human rights plight of indigenous peoples in this Andean country.
The mission is made up of envoys from Europe, the United States and Latin America, including indigenous legislators, advisors to U.S. Congresspersons, delegates from non-governmental organisations, diplomats and observers from United Nations agencies in Colombia.
On Wednesday, the delegation began reviewing information that had led the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. special rapporteur for indigenous peoples to make specific recommendations to Colombia in 2004 and 2005.
The group had planned to visit just four regions to observe the struggles of other native peoples. However, in light of the emergency situation, it planned to send a mission to the Nukak camps on Sep. 27 plans that are now cast into doubt by the report that almost all of the indigenous people had left the camps.
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