I started working on this issue - with Kimi
Pernia Domico and the Embera government - 15 years ago. This is how I initially
became involved in Latin American Indigenous issues. This is why I learned
Spanish...so I could understand all the articles and e-mails I received from
the Embera government. So I could post them to the website we had created as part of the work the Red de Apoyo por Los Embera-Katío de Colombia was doing from here in Canada. This is how I became
friends with Kimi Pernia Domico who in 2001 was kidnapped and disappeared. Kimi
was a strong, energetic and well spoken traditional leader of his people. He
spent his life fighting for the Embera and against the Urra dam. He is
incredibly missed. I miss him.
Kimi Pernia Domico
Photo: Sofia Smith
Here is the story of the Urrá Dam and the
Embera-Katío of Colombia in short:
Overview:
The Urrá I dam was built on the Sinú River in
Colombia's northeastern department of Córdoba, between 1992 and 1998. This is
the region where the country's paramilitary forces began and are strongest. The
dam has caused severe environmental destruction within the territory belonging
to the Embera-Katío indigenous people. The Embera-Katío led the unsuccessful
opposition to the project, which is supported by wealthy landowners allied with
the paramilitaries. Their determination has been strong in the face of violent
intimidation, including assassinations and disappearances.
Description:
The Urrá dam has always been a project advocated
by the wealthy landowners of Córdoba, at least some of whom are allied with the
counter-insurgency paramilitary forces. Brutal pressure by the paramilitaries
stifled dissent from most of the settlements that would be negatively affected
by the construction of the dam. The notable exception was the indigenous
Embera-Katío people, who carried out a well-publicized "celebration"
of the ceremonial murder of the river.
Embera-Katío activists and leaders have been
murdered and kidnapped for their opposition to the dam and their insistence on
their legal right to a seat at the negotiating table. Despite the existence of
Colombian and international laws unambiguously requiring prior informed consent
by indigenous peoples of development projects affecting their lands,
requirements that were upheld by Colombia's Constitutional Court in this case,
it was only after 150 Embera-Katío people camped out on the grounds of the
Environment Ministry that they were able even to bring the government and the
company into negotiations. Some agreements were finally reached, but they have
not been carried out, and the Embera-Katío continue to suffer both from the
unmitigated environmental devastation wrought by the dam and from the violent
conflict surrounding and often directed toward them.
Negative environmental effects of the dam are
many. The principal effect, which was foreseen but glossed over in impact
studies, is the decimation of the migratory fish population, especially the
bocachico, which had been the primary protein source in the local diet. The
near-total loss of the fish population has ripple effects throughout the food
chain and the ecosystem in general. Other effects include degradation of water
quality both in the river proper and in the seasonal marshes, disruption of
natural flooding cycles that used to renew water and soil, stagnation of marshes
that have become breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes, increased
salinity of the water, and others.
Time Frame:
50+ years: Urrá was first proposed in 1951.
Location:
Continent: South America
Region: Western South America
Country: Colombia,
Department of Córdoba
Actors:
•
ACCU: the paramilitary organization Autodefensas
Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá.
•
the Government of Colombia
•
Urrá S.A., the dam corporation
•
the Embera-Katío indigenous nation
•
fishing and peasant communities in the project
zone
•
people displaced into the project zone by
paramilitary violence
•
other armed actors: guerrillas, regular military
Environmental Effects of the Urra Dam:
The Urrá project has been environmentally
devastating. The most significant impact is the near-complete disappearance of
the bocachico, the fish that previously provided the main source of
protein in the diets of the Embera-Katío people as well as neighboring fishing
and peasant populations1.
The main problem for the bocachico is the same one facing
salmon in dammed North American rivers: it is impeded from swimming upstream to
spawn. The Urrá company offered tank-farmed fish as a mitigating measure, but
it has not been successful.
Some 8,500 people were displaced by the
construction of the Urrá I dam and the filling of its reservoir2.
The flooding occurred despite an order by the Constitutional Court forbidding
the company to proceed with filling the reservoir because of its failure to
reach an agreement with the Embera-Katío people. Embera leader and anti-Urrá
activist Kimy Pernía Domicó alleged, in a speech at a 1999 forum at the
National University in Bogotá, that the license to fill the reservoir was
granted by the Environment Ministry in response to a letter circulated by the
paramilitary suggesting that those who opposed the dam did so under pressure
from the guerrillas and demanding that it be filled immediately3.
The flooding was also carried out in a reckless manner, without notification4 and
without measures to safely evacuate those residents who had refused to
voluntarily cede to the disastrous project5.
In the same 1999 speech, Pernía Domicó claimed
that “the purpose of the dam was to drain the marshes and bogs, so that INCORA
[the Institute for Agrarian Reform] could deed them to the landowners of
Córdoba, and we all know who those are and how they act. The Constitutional
Court ordered INCORA to put a halt to those illegal land grants, and ordered
the municipal governors to see to the return of those lands to the nation”6.
Tragically, Kimy Pernía Domicó was abducted by armed men in June of 2001, and
has not been seen since. He is only one of dozens of anti-Urrá activists and
Embera leaders who have been killed, disappeared, threatened, or forced to flee
the country by the paramilitary forces backing the dam project.
The environmental destruction caused by Urrá
includes many other serious impacts. In addition to homes, some of the
Embera-Katío nation's most fertile lands, as well as sacred sites and burial
grounds, now lie at the bottom of the reservoir. Salt water now penetrates
deeper inland, further degrading once-fertile soils, which moreover no longer
benefit from the nutrients that were once deposited by seasonal flooding.
Brackishness and sedimentation of the river have deprived communities of
drinking water. In an area with no roads, blocking the river and draining
wetlands has cut off the primary mode of transportation. The newly-stagnant
bogs, that used to be refreshed with the periodic rise and fall of water
levels, have become breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.
1Correa, Iván. “Urrá Dam, Colombia”, panel discussion at a conference
of the World Commission on Dams, August 13, 1999.
http://www.dams.org/kbase/submissions/showsub.php?rec=cas024
2Castro, Margarita de. “Lessons from
resettlements of Urrá Hydropower Project”, discussant at the above-mentioned
panel. http://www.dams.org/kbase/submissions/showsub.php?rec=soc126
3Pernía Domicó's speech is reproduced (in
Spanish) at http://www.gratisweb.com/embera_katio/Palabra.html.
4“Urrá inicia la Inundación!”. Statement issued
by the Embera-Katío nation, November 18, 1999.
5“Inundación Irresponsable”. Statement issued
by the Embera-Katío nation, December 4, 1999.
http://www.gratisweb.com/embera_katio/Irresponsables.htm
6Pernía Domicó speech, op cit.
Outline of the Conflict:
The conflict is a civil war with three major
parties: the revolutionary guerrillas, the Colombian military, and the
counter-insurgency paramilitaries. There are several revolutionary armies, all
nominally – and perhaps in their genesis idealistically – Marxist. By far the
most significant group is the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia
(FARC). On the right, the paramilitaries are more or less united under the
umbrella of the so-called Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), although their
unity has been strained by internal divisions as well as external pressure
against their drug-trafficking that financially sustains them. The AUC was
organized in 1997 by brothers Carlos and Fidel Castaño, leaders of a
particularly feared paramilitary organization in the province of Córdoba (ACCU,
Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá). This is where the Urrá dam was built
on the Sinú River, in the territory of the Embera-Katío indigenous people.
The paramilitaries are said to be engaged in a
sort of agrarian counter-reform. They practice a war of displacement,
terrorizing and even massacring villagers in order to clear territory, which is
then available for a variety of income-producing activities, from licit
agriculture to coca cultivation, mineral extraction or, in the present case, a
major hydroelectric project. Although Colombia leads the region in legal
recognition of indigenous rights, including broad territorial rights, in
practice those rights are not vigorously defended by the state. On the
contrary, the links between the official military and the paramilitaries are
well documented. The guerrilla forces are also implicated in many abuses;
however, the area where this case takes place is much more dominated by the
AUC.
The Embera-Katío, like many of the indigenous
peoples in Colombia, have asserted their non-alignment and non-involvement in
the civil war, and have declared their territory off-limits to both combat and
coca cultivation. Nonetheless, community leaders have been the victims of
assassination, kidnappings, and intense intimidation for their opposition to
the Urrá I and II dams. Moreover, their territory has been invaded by people
displaced from the surrounding area by paramilitary pressure. Finally, they
have failed to prevent the construction of the Urrá hydroelectric project,
whose environmental impacts have devastated their habitat and way of life.
Environment and Conflict Overlap:
The Embera-Katío nation has overwhelmingly
opposed the Urrá project, for its fatal impact on their ability to continue to
exist as a people. The Embera culture is intimately related to the riverine
habitat, which has always provided the basis of their economy, and the
stewardship of which gives structure to their value system. Indigenous peoples
the world over have, by definition, a special relationship to their homelands,
which states are obligated to respect under international law1.
Colombia also has its own national constitutional and legal standards requiring
respect for indigenous peoples' rights to self-governance, territorial
integrity, social and cultural uniqueness, and informed participation in
decisions impacting them and their lands. Specifically, the lack of early,
transparent consultation on the Urrá project violated national and
international law.
In response to their determined opposition to
the project and insistence on respect for their rights, tribal leaders and
activists were terrorized by the ACCU, the brutal local paramilitary
organization. Numerous assassinations, kidnappings, threats, and burning of
homes and boats failed to convince the indigenous communities to give up their
campaign. Like other indigenous nations in Colombia, the Embera-Katío has
distanced itself from all of the parties to the civil conflict and has declared
its territory off-limits to all armed combatants. Nonetheless, because its
property – its territory – is considered of value to the landowners who are
aligned with the paramilitary organization, the Embera-Katío nation has been
victimized by the violence just the same. Even in lands not directly degraded by
the dam project, the tribe has had to deal with the invasion of their territory
by other non-combatants who were violently displaced from their own lands.
At its heart, this is a case of conflict over
incompatible environmental and economic value systems. Up until the time that
Urrá I was built, the Embera-Katío people enjoyed a prosperous subsistence
economy built on the values of indefinite sustainability and environmental
stewardship. The ethos that supports megadams such as Urrá, especially in the
atmosphere of conflict characterizing Colombia in general and Córdoba in
particular, is one of immediate gratification, unsustainable exploitation of
natural resources, continual increase and accumulation of personal wealth, even
at others' expense.
1Most significantly for its groundbreaking nature, Convention 169 of the
International Labor Organization.
Environment-Conflict
Links and Dynamics:
DIRECT. The conflict is over the Embera-Katío's
lands. The dam not only degrades the worth of the land to the tribe, but by
draining wetlands it makes land available to the paramilitary's allies.
Kimi Pernia Domico:
Kimy Pernia Domico, traditional leader of the Embera-Katío, led his people’s fight
against the Canada-supported Urra hydroelectric project, which flooded
thousands of hectares of land occupied by 2,800 Embera-Katio Indians. The
Embera Katio have been struggling for their survival in the face of a Urra 1
dam megaproject. Because of their struggle, the Embera Katio have been the
targets a systematic terror campaign.
Kimi visited Canada on a number of occasions to
testify about the devastation caused by this dam, which was partially financed
by our tax dollars through Export Development Canada.” In April 2001, he spoke
at the People’s Summit in Quebec City against the Free Trade Area of the
Americas.
Kimy Pernia Domico was abducted on June 2,
2001, by heavily armed men on motorcycles from his village of Tierralta, Cordoba.
Kimy was leading the Embera-Katio’s efforts to draw international attention to
the effects of the Urra hydroelectric dam on their traditional lands and
livelihoods. In Canada, Kimy remains highly respected for testifying to
parliamentarians in 1999 about the devastation caused by this dam, which
received some $25 million in financing from Export Development Canada.
Kimy testified that the dam had dried up the
Embera Katio’s staple diet of fish, and had brought environmental destruction
and malaria to their community. He explained that in organizing and
demanding their constitutionally protected rights, the Embera leaders were
accused of collaborating with the guerrillas of the Armed Revolutionary Forces
of Colombia (FARC) and were considered military targets. With chilling
foresight, Kimy also revealed to Canada’s parliament, the dangers of speaking
out:
“…saying these things to you today puts my
life in danger. The [paramilitary] gunmen have set fire to our boats to prevent
us from going to meetings. They have set up checkpoints on the rivers and
detained our people. Anyone who dares to speak out about Urra is accused of
being involved with the guerrilla and with that pretext, they have declared
both our communities and leaders to be a military target. You can understand
that my people live in great fear both of imminent attack, as well as what the
future holds for us without land or fish.”
Extract from Kimy’s
testimony to Canada's Standing Committee
on Foreign Affairs and
International Trade
November 16, 1999
Eleven Embera-Katio leaders had been killed
since 1994, when the community began its struggle to oppose the Urra dam
project. And then Kimy disappeared as well, two days after he spoke with a
Rights & Democracy/Assembly of First Nations Mission to Colombia. His
disappearance met with widespread national and international concern. In
Colombia, more than a thousand people mobilized to search for Kimy. In
Canada, fifty-six members of Canada’s Parliament signed a letter of
concern, which was sent to the President of Colombia, and vigils were held in
Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. In 2003, Kimy received in absentia
Canada’s prestigious John Humphrey Freedom Award for his dedication to human
rights.
It was put forward at that meeting
that an International Tribunal and Verification Commission be established in
order to investigate and make visible the ethnocide of Colombia's indigenous
people by armed actors, particularly the paramilitaries.
Kimi Pernia Domico was never found.
Level of Strategic Interest of the Area:
Primarily SUB-STATE; but, also State in that the
conflict in Córdoba is related to the civil war taking place throughout
Colombia; and also Multinational, insofar as the dam builder, Swedish firm
Skanska, and financier, Canada's Export Development Corp, faced pressure from
domestic and international environmental and human rights NGOs.
Outcome of the Conflict:
COMPROMISE, in that a negotiated agreement was
finally reached between the Embera-Katío, the state, and the Urrá corporation.
However, in that the government and the company have failed to meet their
commitments, it might be considered a stalemate.
Sources for the above information:
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