Attempts to silence humanity with arrest of Indigenous Leader

Yesterday, Saturday 10^th April, Feliciano Valencia was captured by the Colombian Security Services (DAS) at Cali Airport. He is an indigenous leader and spokesperson for the Community and Social Minga of Resistance. Now he is in danger of also being yet one more Colombian political prisoner, adding to the 7500 already in Colombian prisons.

I had the joy of beginning to get to know Feliciano during the mobilisations of the Minga last October. His reflections and thoughts, shared with others in his role as spokesperson for the Minga have been hugely valued by thousands of indigenous, peasant farmers, afro-Colombians, students and displaced people. He has a special quality of being able to listen to all these different oppressed peoples and then speak across these differences, finding commonality in their different histories of oppression and struggle.

“ Solidarity, autonomy, mutuality, integrity, reciprocity, these values among others must be the essence of how together challenge this hegemonic model, this project of death. And we must learn together, from one another, at the same time as we keep walking the word in Minga.”

“The Minga is a process not an apparatus to use. The Minga has no owners, nor is anyone more important than others, there is a principle of equality.”

Feliciano speaking at a Minga event,July 2009

He has been detained by the DAS for kidnapping and personal damage for an event that happened in October 2008. Fourty thousand indigenous 40,000 indigenous marched in Minga from the south of Colombia to Bogotá, the Capital city inviting Colombians to build a new country based on equality with them. While still in indigenous territory, the indigenous guard discovered a member of the armed forces had infiltrated the march in order to gather intelligence and frame the indigenous march as having links with the guerrilla. He was detained with a rucksack containing camouflage clothes, radio equipment and explosive manuals.

The right of the indigenous people to their own law is recognised in the Colombian constitution and in international agreements. The indigenous authorities made the collective decision to give him 20 whips, which was carried out in the presence of the congregated community as well as the governments ombudsman, and human rights organisations.

Despite it being a community decision and carried out by the indigenous authorities, the Colombian government the arrest warrant was signed for both Feliciano and Aida Quilcué (another spokesperson for the Minga). This is a clear persecution against those who speak out against not just the government, but also against the neoliberal capitalist system imposed on Colombia by Europe and the USA.

“This minga was not organised to confront the government, not even to confront Uribe , he'll fall one day, the problem is the system, it is the model, here we must have clarity. The laws and policies come from the imperial countries.”

Feliciano Valencia, July 2009

Yet again the Colombian government wants to silence critical voices. And I'm sadly all too sure sure the mainstream media will be silent too. Their silence to date around the seven thousand social activists, people just like Feliciano, who are imprisoned within Colombians squalid prisons tragically highlights where their interests lie.

But yet again people refuse to be silenced. The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) has responded by calling for a permanent assembly in Popyan city centre, where Feliciano is being held, to reject this latest attack by the government against them. They plan to stay until he is released.

It is through uniting our voices and efforts that Feliciano Valencia and the thousands of other political prisoners in Colombia will be freed.

One Year Anniversary of Murder of Edwin Legarda by Colombian Army

On December 16th 2008, Edwin Legarda, the husband of Colombian indigenous leader Aida Quilcue, was killed when the Colombian army ambushed Aida´s car that he was driving that morning. Aida Quilcue at that moment was the Chief Councilor for the Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) and spokesperson for the Minga of Social and Community Resistance. The CRIC believe that the bullets were meant for her for the fierce criticism of the Uribe government.(1)

Photo: We demand justice for State Crimes.

On December 16th 2009 we traveled to the Totoro municipal, Cauca where the murder occurred to take part in an event to commemorate the anniversary of Edwin’s death.

After being repeatedly shot in 2008, Edwin managed to drive 3km´s, thus avoiding any tampering of his vehicle or person which could be then be later used to attempt to cover-up the extrajudicial killing by presenting him as a guerilla.

The Observatory of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination Group (CCEEU) a coalition of nearly 200 human rights group from Colombia, Europe and the U.S. reported 1,492 non-combat killings by the Colombian army between July 2007 and June 2008. According to the CCEEU, in the majority of cases the state is responsible, due to direct action or tolerance. (2)

Photo: Dario Toto, an indigenous leader, shows us the place where he came across the vehicle with Edwins still just alive at this point

Aida said that if her husband had not bravely driven these 3kms whilst injured, the army would have managed to successfully carry out the false positive then the government would have been able to portray the indigenous movement and the Minga of Social and Communitarian Resistance (which Aida led in social mobilisations in October 2008) as a ‘terrorist organisations’.

The event, attended by Indigenous from across Cauca and other social organizations, began with a symbolic march along these three kilometers, down a dusty unpaved road, accompanied by the sound of sweet, soothing, soul filling Andean indigenous melodies.

As I walk, I look at faces of compañeros around me, listening to their voices and laughter and imagine what Edwin was like. Even though I had shared just two hours with Aida and her daughter, their warmth and humour had been striking, I imagine Edwin must have had a great sense of humour and a great heart.

It is important that the Colombian state´s war against the poor and social organisations does not become just a list of shocking figures.

We arrive at the place where the army had fired 106 bullets at Aida´s vehicle, piercing it 17 times, not knowing she was not in the passenger seat that day. The place is now marked by a memorial, around which we gathered to share music, dance and words.

The current Chief Councilor of the CRIC, Alcibiades Escué spoke about how the event was not only important to support the family, but also to continue denouncing the murder which was a direct attack on the entire movement to both the national and international community. Legarda’s killing took place just two weeks after the Minga of Social and Community Resistance had completed its historic march from Cauca to Bogota, one of the most important acts of collective resistance that the Colombian indigenous movement has carried out.

Legard´s killing is not an isolated attack against the CRIC and the Minga. The 16^th December 2009 was also the 18^th anniversary of the Nilo massacre, where 20 indigenous people from the Huellas-Caloto community, including five women and four children, were murdered as they met to discuss a struggle over land rights in the estate of El Nilo in northern Cauca. In 1998, President Ernesto Samper acknowledged the responsibility of state actors in the massacre, and on behalf of the Colombian state apologized to the families of the victims and to the Nasa community of Northern Cauca.(3)

The night before this significant and tragic anniversary for the Cauca indigenous movement, two men laid hidden under the beds of Escue´s children waiting until they had gone to sleep. They jumped out and tied up the two children, announced themselves as members of the “Aguilas Negras” paramilitary group and said this was a warning and then left.

On October 29th 2009, Marly Guamanga was murdered in the Damina area of Cerro Tijeras indigenous reserve, Suarez municipality, Cuaca department.

On November 11th 2009, Reinaldo Bomba was murdered in the Bella Vista area of Cerro Tijeras indigenous reserve.

On November 13th 2009, Nilson Campo was murdered and Egdio Huila was seriously injured in the Damian area of Cerro Tijeras indigenous reserve.(4)

This is part of a systematic persecution of not just indigenous, but also afro-colombian and farming communities, whose struggle to remain in their ancestral lands gets in the way of powerful economic interests.

“They have returned to search for what was left after the first plundering 517 years ago. They are motivated by economic interests and seek land, water, gold and other natural resources. Wealth that the “investor friendly” government, is handing over to the highest bidder.” (5)

Aida, trembling at moments yet remaing a dignified emotional composure, spoke about the need to continue speaking out against not just the murder of her husband and the displacement of indigenous community through violence but also to speak out against the multinationals and European and US governments that drive it.

On the same day, Jose Goyes, another indigenous leader, took part in the climate justice mobilisation in Copenhaguen and spoke about what was happening in Cauca, making the links between climate and social iisues

"In the area (Cauca) we have the Anglo Gold Ashanty gold company from South Africa, Union Fenosa from Spain, and Carton Company from Ireland and ... the Cosega company, which is a gold enterprise from Canada. These multinational companies are causing large displacement, threats and even massacres and death sentences to indigenous communities. In our territories the paramilitary groups are supporting the state policy and the multinational policy through the use of violence. Cosega resource from Canada have a large interest in the area and the paramilitary groups have supported their political wish by threathening most of the indigenous leaders that are resisting the exploitation." (6)

Yet despite this huge powerful real threat against their human rights, primarily the very right to life, people continue to laugh, love and organise to resist this genocide against their cultures. This day was both profoundly sad, especially while watching Edwin´s daughter perform a dance in memory of her dad, yet at the same time it was a celebration of life, with shared food, song, laughter and ritual.

Photo: Banner " They can cut off our wings but never our desire to fly"

(1) Assassination of the husband of Ms Aida Quilcue

(2) Colombia: UN confirms ‘systematic’ killings of civilians by soldiers

(3) Embattled Cauca: A New Wave of Violence and Indigenous Resistance, by Mario A. Murillo

(4) Three murdered in Cierro Tijeras Reserve, Cauca

(5) Instruments of War by ACIN

(6) Colombian paramilitaries assassinate indigenous leader in the name of Canadian multinationals

Minga in photos and music

Day 6: Walking the word - decolonising solidarity

It is the end of the beginning. The last day of an exhausting but amazing week of mobilisations. The closing act of the Peoples Pre-congress takes place in the central park in Cali, after another two hour march. An afro-colombia leader from Choco is given a special place in the closure to make visible the presence of afro-colombian communities in the Minga. Choco is the poorest region in Colombia.

"The only way to travel in Choco easily is by plane and we all know who planes are for. We travelled on foot, in canoes and in buses for several days, sleeping in difficult conditions and going without food to get here, to participate in Minga".

He tells us how the population of Quibdo, the main town in the region, has doubled from 40,000 to 80,000. Choqueños, mainly afrodescendents, have been forced to abandon their territories due to the violent imposition of megaprojects such as mining and palm oil .

"We know that alone we are not able to change things, we need to unite with indigenous, with campesinos, because in the end we are all living with the same difficulties and problems. This is why seven hundred of us have made the huge effort to be here in the Peoples Pre-congress".
Tears trickle out of me as I make links between this declaration of the Peoples Pre-congress and a difficult conversation I had last night.

Last night a friend challenges me to reflect on something I did. He challenged me to look at how I controlled the way in which we discusses a difficult conversation, racism within the Minga. With the bitter taste of irony in my mouth, I, with my full set of colonial priviliges, british, privilige to move wherever I want in the world, white, privilige to walk down the street and for people not to think I am going to mug them, set the terms for how we discussed racism that suited my needs, and not his. As we talk, his anger manifests itself as he goes over and over the two words he has written on a scrap of paper, ego britanico.

“I have seen this before many times. The arrogance and preponencia of british people to have their own way, the result of being from a country that has repeatedly colonised and dispossed other peoples throughout history to get its own way”.

His words challenge rather than shock or suprise me. I am grateful to this rare person who critiqued me to my face. I wonder how many people I meet share similar criticisms about my way of doing things but do not tell me. I wonder what this says about ongoing patterns of colonial power within my everyday relationships here. I breathe deeply as I look at my challenge of how to achieve the balance between being myself and being conscious and accountable to how my self has been shaped by my cultural-political-historical context.

Back in the park, we listen to a song by Mercedes Sosa, recently passed away, as the Peoples Precongress in Cali draws to a close in Cali's central park. The thousands of participants stand intently, some listening, some quietly singing alone. The compañeros who sings it, dedicates it to those compañeros no longer with us, including Mateo. As I listen to the beautiful melody, I imagine what he could have taught me. Mateo, a Swiss revolutionary, worked for ten years as part of the Red de Hermandad. He was killed last December in a road accident. Incredibly missed and rememberd within the social movements in Cauca and Valle I wish I had the opportunity to know how he worked to de-colonise himself.
After the song, two compañeros read the final declaration.

"Minga is a collective expression that revives hope, that strengthens resistance and walks the word in defence of dignity and in commitment to collective life. We are conscious of how the neoliberal strategy is strengthened in our territories through the handing over resources and selling of mother earth to international capital, thorugh the recomposition of of corruption and the legalising of crimes against Colombia´s sovereigny, and through impunity and the militrisation of civilian life."

I seek a place to be alone with my emotions of rage and sadness. The weight of being British, of having benefited from so much violence, of being surrounded in the park by so many people who suffer from this violence, overwhelms me. The weight of knowing that the British ego is alive and kicking and that it continues to play a crucial role within the UK in the justification of the violent looting of other peoples natural resources is overwhelming.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see the caring eyes of an indigenous leader who I have shared words with during the week. He has 5 bullet wounds from attempted assassination attempts and had his farm burnt down. He is now displaced, living between cities. During this week, he was always accompanied by four indigenous guards. He tells me that when he goes back to his community, it is obligatory for him that he travels with thirty indigenous guard, armed with just their bastions of resistance. He listens to my emotions, as the words of the final declaration sound in the background.

"Mingueros and Mingueras, we have gathered in this spaces filled with dreams and ideals and we leave with thoughts on how to legalise with significant popular legitimacy, with proposals on the path to peace, whose route is the word that overflows with solidarity, generosity and resistence."

My solidarity must begin and end with me, a white british folk, learning to notice my colonial mentalities and then taking responsibility for them.

For more thoughs about this work of decolonising solidarity visit decolonizingsolidarity.blogspot.com, the blog a beautiful wise friend.

To read the full closing declaration and the notes from the 5 tulpas that discussed the five points of the Agenda of the Minga check out this blog (in spanish only)

Day 4: Our Dignified Rage Walks the Word

This is a translation of a newsletter being written by a communication collective in Cali during the mobilisations.

Opening of the Peoples Pre-congress

With the arrival of the last marches and delegations that are part of the Minga of Social and Community Resistance in the Southwest of Colombia as night came, the peoples pre-congress was opened. Thousands of people filled the area in front of the state and the passionate emotive hymn of the Indigenous Guard opened the evening’s activities. The verses of the national anthem were not sufficient to welcome the diversity of the participants and the crowd was quiet with the sound of whispered conversations.

One after another, voices of those who have been in the process of building the Minga and who, tired and angry, expressed and conveyed the dignity of the peoples who are tired of paying the consequences of the current political and economic model. The voices told us of their realities: the impact of the multinationals on their communities and regions, the game that the powerful play with the destiny of the communities, the permanent human rights violations, the impossibility to decide how their economical, environmental and cultural resources will be used, and the militarization in rural and urban areas…… the angry dignity created by these problems exploded in words through different expressions from the heart of the Mingueros. But the voices also told us about their processes, about the steps that they have taken to build another country “where we all fit”, and about the hope and strength of the peoples. After this collective recognition, of knowing who we are and where we come from, the party began with happiness and fraternity.

Organising the path

All the mingueros met in the afternoon in themed working groups to decide on the methodology that they will use in the working groups and the discussions in The Peoples Pre-congress in Cali; also they shared and defined the subthemes that arise from the 5 point agenda that has been created nationally in the Minga de Pensamiento and that will be crucial in organizing and advancing in the construction of some proposals and paths to keep walking the work towards The Peoples Congress. In the Sovereignty, Land and Territory working group, people spoke about: comprehensive agrarian reform, legalization and reclaiming land, privatization, megaprojects, environmental sovereignty and food sovereignty. In the War and Human Rights working groups they looked at how to build a Peace Agenda that looks at the political and social roots of the conflict and how to propose a political solution based on these roots, as well as demanding from the state the guarantee and application of all human rights.

Public Statement

The organizations who are participating in the Minga of Social and Community Resistance denounce to the national and international public opinion and to Colombian social and human rights organizations the attacks to which Mingueros in the department of Cauca have been subjected to. Today in the city of Popayan various people have been detained by the police. They are Omaira A Piamba from the Comitte for the Integration of Mestizo Colombia, ALEX LOPEZ a motorcycle taxi driver and Julio Quiñones who is involved in housing struggles in Popayán.
It is important to note that the people detained by the police were participating at the time in one of many peaceful activities that are happening in different cities in the country as part of the Minga of Social and Community Resistance.

Again the armed forces are brutally attacking the popular and social movement that has taken to the streets to make proposals and work for a better country for everybody.

We demand the immediate freedom of the compañeros detained in Popayan and that the fundamental right to participate in peaceful protest is respected.

We Have Grown

The heavy rains that arrived in the afternoon also brought the force of the campesino, afrodescendents and other social sectors to the Peoples Coliseum. Their arrival was emotional for all as they were greeted with enthusiastic clapping and happy cheering from those who had already arrived. These Mingueros have been walking from different parts of the country for more than a week; Chocó, the North and Central area Valle, Tolima and the coffee región. They entered the coliseum with rallying cries against the multinationals that invade their territories, against the government that persecutes, marginalices and assassinates them and about all shouting with happiness for the opportunities for creation of new possibilities through exchanges with others who are socially conscious with the hope of moving towards a popular uprising and the construction of a new Colombian, dreamed by many.

The Minga continues to nourish itself with people from different places, marchers from Popayán and Antioquia who arrived to join in the process of the Pre-Congress. We are many who are preparing for the congress in July 2010. We are not everyone. We hope to wake more consciousnesses, hearts, and wisdom to keep weaving the Minga of Social and Community Resistance.

Day 3: Building Popular Power in Minga

It is nearly 9pm on Tuesday night in the grounds of the Coliseo in the city of Cali. People have rested after the 3 day of walking 15km and young indigeneous are now dancing in large circles in front of the stage. The music fades and Feliciano Valencia, spokesperson for La Minga speaks to the thousands that have gathered to listen to the proposals for tomorrows activities;

• delegations to visit 5 places in the city to talk about what is Minga and to invite community organisations to walk the word


• a caravan in the 40 chivas through the streets of Cali to make the Minga visible,


• join teachers who are marching against labour conditions and have invited us to join.


• begin thinking collectively about what the Congress of the People, planned for July 2010, actually is with important questions for consideration such as how are we going to legislate and what are the mechanisms and strategies we need so that the peoples laws are put into practice?

With the sheer quanity of people I have been curious to watch how decisions are made at this scale, how different forms of power are working and and how popular power is being built. What I watched was these proposals being created through a serious of meetings. Firstly the political commision of the Minga, which includes representatives of each social organisation involved in the Minga, met and came up with a proposal with Feliciano playing the role of listening, gathering all the opinions and presenting a synthesized proposal. This was then discussed and adapted by some 40 governers of the different Indigenous reservations. This was then presented to everyone. During the night, each community will have discussed it and as I write, another meeting is taking place to finalise the plans for today.

The sheer presence of indigenous from Cauca, through their impressive organisational capacity, is a challenge to the proposal of Minga to be inclusive to all. Yesterday, there was some serious errors such as the idea to start the pre-congress before the second smaller march arrives , yet once this was flagged up the idea was inmediately dropped. There is much to be learnt, and to get wrong and do better the next time, in terms of thinking about how to make proposals that are not based in sectorial thinking, but thinking of all.

Much has already been learnt. The 5 point agenda includes indigenous based proposals around territory and cultural, while also going much beyond and is incredibly inclusive. And as a friend says over a beer last night, "i think there is a distortion of the reality abroad of Colombia. They either thing that all resistence follows the same logic as the insurgency or that the problems in Colombia are all about defending the profits from the drug-trafficing trade. Here, what I think is important to say to people in your country is that we are here saying clearly there is another reality in which many Colombians are living and from this harsh violent reality, we are building a resistance based in the grassroots, and it is a resistance that is building serious proposals collectively to create another country. And the government are worried, the moment the indigenous invited other social organisations to recognise the commonality, they see a threat to their dictatureship"

In Popayan, two hours further south, mainly campesinos organisations held a campesino and popular assembly on Monday in preparation for the precongress in Cali. They declare " In our territories, we, communities and organisations will not allows policies and laws to be applied that are harmful to us, that have not consulted with us, that do not take into account the wellbeing of all and that are not participatory, coordinated or integral. Handing over territory to private hands will not be accepted and we will assert our rights to sovereignty, autonomy and independence to maintain the integrity of our lands."
And in the north of the country, social organisacions write "With happiness and vitality typical of the communities, but also with the hope to change the hard conditions that characterise their lives, the habitants of the Sur de Bolivar and the south of Cesar are "navegating the word" down the river Magdalena towards Cartagena.

"The message that we want to spread nationally and internationally is clear, free mother earth and our territories from the proposals, policies and projects of death with proposals where life and happiness, are the foundations of the people as they build with dignity a free and self-determined future, it is the voice of the people in a country where death took control of the Great River Magdalena and the oblivion tried to occupy all the territory, leaving hope with none.

We are a people who have declared our resistance, faced with a violent and injust state, that acts through the dispossesion of land, natural resources, memoria and identity. Faced with this tough situation, the proposals of life of the communities are representes in the sound of the drums, the flute, the accordion, the bagpipes, and the maracas . This is the sound of the resistance which does not permit us to forget our numerous leaders who have been disappeared and murdered, such as Alejandro Uribe, Edgar Martínez and Edgar Quiroga; it is the rhythm through which victims of state crime, students, women, indigenous, workers miners, afro-colombians, small scale farmers, unions and many more Colombians continue to meet and see their own struggles in the struggle of their brothers and sisters. The proposal of the Minga of Social and COmmunity resistance is needed by all of us. "

Day 2: Walking the Word in Cauca

The temporary camp awakes before dawn, its numbers swelled by the constante stream of civas that through the night, piled high with people, food and firewood. As day comes, the huge black tarpaulins that were strung up during last nights rain to create sleeping shelters for entire communities are already being folded up. The level of organisation is phenomenal. A camp for with 20000 people has breakfasted, showered, packed away and ready to march again in just three hours.

As we prepare to leave, a group of 100 Indígeneous Guard go running past, evenly spaced out, young and old, men and women, each with their bastion adornded with red and green ribbons, the red blood of the earth and the green of nature.

I walk a while chatting with a young guardia. “I joined two years ago, in my community of 500 people, 45 are in the guardia. When the pólice or army come into our resguardias, we get together to go and find them and remind them of the indigenous laws that does not allow the armed forces in our communities. We tell them to leave".

After the husband of Aida Quilcué, Chief Councillour of the CRIC, the Regional Indigenous Council and a spokesperson for the Minga , was killed in an army ambush in December 2008, the quick arrival and response of the Indigenous Guard preventing evidence being destroyed.

The Guardia Indigena today are coordinating the safety of the marchers. Unfortunately a guardia bastion, symbol of indigenous resistance, trips over a young guardia and she crashes to the floor. We rush over but she gets up quickly, and without hesitation, continues, now hobbling, in her part of a human chain that goes from the head to the tail of the march, walking the line in the middle of the road to protect us from traffic.

We march squeezed in on one side by container lorries on route to Buenaventura port and on the other by sugar cane as far as the eye can see. The symbolism is intense. From this enclosing on all sides by an imposed economic development model has arisen the 5 point agenda of the Minga. Economic models that use violence to squeeze communities until they must displace because they have nowhere left to live. Broken agreements with the government that means social movements must look for other solutions, no longer believing that the Colombian state will ever act in benefit of the poor.

The march is tiring, our feet ache, stomachs empty, a temporary physical discomfort yet this reflects daily reality for the majority in Colombia. Yet the march is inspiring and exciting as we all know that in many other places in the country people are also walking the word in the streets this week, joining the dots.

Campesinos from Choco are walking to Cali via Pereida talking about displacement about palm.

Small scale miners are heading to Cartagena down the River Magdalena taking about defense of the territory from multinationals that want to get control of the gold there.

Communities in Tolima against a huge open cast gold mine are talking about how this will destroy their livelihoods.

Communities along the river Sogamoso are in Minga, talking about the mega-dam that will destroy their communities.

Cartagena are in Minga, marching against hunger and will meet with those on route down the rvier Magdalena to build a common agenda.

And all are talking about the Agenda of the Peoples. How do we continue to work together to recognise what our different struggles have in common and create a different country. The conversations at the Pre-congresses on Wednesday and Thursday are going to be an important step in these conversations. Many social organisations still believe that the Minga is indigenous Feliciano Valencia, councillor of the CRIC says "we have to go beyond these particular identities that make each of us fight in our corner. I´m indigenous but an indigenous struggle is not going to change this country. This is a fight between the rich and the poor. And one day, we will win."

Day 1: Walking the Word in Cauca

A flash of fork lightning cuts throught the dark brooding sky, as two thousand indigenous march with an spirit of confidence and dignity towards us. The red and green colours of CRIC, the Indigenous Council of Cauca, are held high on flags and low, tied around the neck. Daisy Juliana, part of the CRIC and with whom I shared a smile on the bus on the way to meet this first group of marching Mingueros, waits excitedly with us despite the thirty or so armed police near by.

In the 10 minutes that we waited by the side of the rural road, we had spotted one unmarked 4x4 parked up and a police man talking with civilians inside, two men on a motorbike that drove past three times, a private security guard alone on a bridge, an unmarked 4x4 parked on the hard shoulder and a police van that stopped. The presence of suspected paramilitaries is worrying yet all too normal in Colombia. Here paramilitaries groups, whose insitutional links with the Colombian state have been well documented, have used violence and the fear of violence to attack and destroy movements, such as the Minga of Social and Community Resistance, that want to create alternatives to the imposed Western economic “development” model.

As we are “walking the word” Daisy comes and finds me . “It is mainly young people here today, some elders will arrive tomorrow, but us young people are really motivated. We want to change things, we teach the kids, we still have hope that our future can be better” She greets a young lad who is hobbling “He always marches, him and his group from his village, their village is near mine, about 7 hours walk from here.” She pauses from talking to me to shout with others

“No to Uribes policy of democratic security....... No to multinationals in our lands taking our natural resources...... No to foreign military bases in Colombia”

The Minga was a proposal by the indigenous to other social sectors, to organise and come together around a common political agenda. The first steps have been taken with a year of hard work among campesinos, indigenous, students and community groups to dialogue around their individual issues, figure out what they have in common and work together to achieve changes that benefit all.

In the UK it would be like farmers and students coming together to talk about, for example, what privatisation of education and control of food prices by large supermarkets have in common, and from these commonalities coming up with political proposals and plans of action together to confront both. Like this, only with more social sectors involved and not just a vague distant dream of mine.

As we enter Villarica, people coming out of their houses to watch. The response by the mainly afrocolombian community varies from watching quitely from afar to clapping and cheering loudly to welcome the march. I assume most of the men are sugar cane cutters, as the village is in the green desert of Valle de Cauca. This work has been described as modern day slavery. There has been dialogue between the Minga and those sugar cane cutters well organised but they have not felt that they share a common agenda. It is tough work in tough conditions, but the spirit of Minga is to do this tough work. The idea is not to arrive with the solutions but through hard work to build them together. This week The Peoples Pre-Congress will take place in Cali, Cartagena and Bogota to continue doing this work, together.

It is a long ardous path ahead, to build a political proposal for the country that goes beyond regional and sectorial needs, to build a proposal that speaks to all Colombians. But at least they are on it. It is a path which we scarely know we need to walk in my homeland. A big sigh.

Thank you to the lovely family that thought nothing of letting me use a bedroom to write this article. Sharing and solidarity are so precious, beautiful and vital to resistance, to live with dignity.