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Nonviolence and Sustainable Resource Use with External Support: A Survival Strategy in Rural Colombia
Vanessa Joan Gray Latin American Perspectives 2012 39: 43 originally published online 3 October 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X11423225 The online version of this article can be found at: http://lap.sagepub.com/content/39/1/43

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Nonviolence and Sustainable Resource Use with External Support A Survival Strategy in Rural Colombia
by Vanessa Joan Gray

A number of communities in rural Colombia are implementing nonviolence and sustainable resource projects with external support as a means of resisting displacement and dispossession. Practicing peace and rejecting relations with armed groups is a self-protective measure that raises the visibility of the communities neutrality and status as noncombatants. Community residents strong motivation to continue to live in a specific landscape and maintain small-scale, localresource-based livelihoods opens potential sources of support beyond the realm of human rights, humanitarian relief, and solidarity organizations to groups interested in protecting traditional cultures and conserving natural landscapes. Algunas comunidades rurales colombianas estn implementado estrategias de no violencia y proyectos sustentables con apoyo externo para resistirse al desplazamiento y la desposesin. El pacifismo y el rechazo a establecer relaciones con grupos armados es una medida de auto-proteccin que enfatiza la neutralidad de las comunidades y su postura como no combatientes. El inters de los miembros por continuar viviendo en un lugar especfico y mantener una forma de vida basada en la economa de subsistencia les abre las puertas a apoyos que van ms all de aquellos provistos por grupos de derechos humanos y ayuda humanitaria o la solidaridad hasta grupos interesados en proteger culturas tradicionales y conservar paisajes naturales. Keywords: Colombia, Peace, Sustainable resource use, Transnational networks, Activism

Colombias internal war has been exacting a terrible humanitarian toll for over two decades. Various types of armed group are involved in the violence: right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas, criminal trafficking groups, government forces, private security personnel, and U.S. troops. In some regions, armed groups routinely mistreat noncombatants and will harm civilians as a deliberate tactic of war. Since the late 1980s, tens of thousands of Colombian civilians have been killed and more than 4 million have been forcibly displaced. International agencies report that campesinos, members of indigenous groups, and rural people of African descent make up the majority of the victims of violence and displacement in Colombia. Though the government of lvaro Uribe Vlez (20022010) improved the provision of security in some parts of the nation, in 2011 violence continued to claim civilian lives and drive people out of high-conflict regions.
Vanessa Joan Gray, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, has published an article and several book chapters on the Colombian conflict and is currently researching a book on transnational peace activism in Colombia.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 182, Vol. 39 No. 1, January 2012 43-60 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X11423225 2012 Latin American Perspectives

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Colombia has a peace movement that finds expression in a range of activities from marches by urban feminists to youth performance art, trauma recovery programs funded by the government, and the collective practice of nonviolence. The five rural communities examined here are engaged in a nonelectoral political initiative that is leftist in that it opposes the status quo and promotes structural change. In fact, the communities are contesting not only neoliberalism but also the worlds dominant mode of economic development.1 What makes these projects remarkable is that they are located in violent regions and do not receive protection from government forces or armed groups of any other affiliation. These communities have been strafed in bombing raids, caught in sporadic exchanges of fire between armed groups, and punished by long-term blockades. They have lost members in massacres and civic leaders to assassination. Despite all this, they are choosing not to leave the fields, rivers, and forests they call home, and they emphatically reject the use of arms for defending themselves. They are forging an alternative path that is neither fight nor flight. The communities examined here are La India, Santander, in the Middle Magdalena region, San Jos de Apartad, located east of the Bay of Urab in the department of Antioquia, Cacarica, Choc, in the Darin hills on the border with Panama, the highland peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast, and the Nasa-led movement in northern Cauca in the southwestern Andes. The first three refer to themselves as peace communities, and their members are small farmers of mixed ethnicity or African descent. The other two are groups of indigenous peoples that have formed activist organizations to defend their territory and cultures. The unifying theme across the five communities is their use of a strategy of peace and sustainability with external support. All have used the approach for at least 10 years. They are successful in that they have resisted displacement and retained their resource-based livelihoods, though none of them has been spared lethal attacks by paramilitary groups, government forces, and leftist guerrilla organizations. Their continued survival as communities appears promising, albeit precarious. The five cases are not the only Colombian communities to pursue peace and sustainability with external support, but they best illustrate what has been achieved in this manner. To date, the communities have not been systematically studied as a group, but some research on them exists, and local histories have been compiled by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the communities themselves.2 This article brings together information from those sources and supplements it with content from approximately 20 interviews with community residents, members of partner organizations, indigenous rights activists, and conservationists.3 The argument here is that three factors help the communities remain intact and in place despite the formidable odds against them: 1. They maintain an explicit commitment to collective action, principles of nonviolence, and the sustainable use of local natural resources. This commitment is infused with an attachment to specific places and a determination to defend the right to reside in those places, using the local resources and passing on a rural livelihood to their children. 2. They have received long-term material and tactical support from national NGOs, foreign advocacy organizations, European governments, and international agencies.

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3. Colombian courts and international judicial bodies have recognized the communities territorial and human rights claims. These decisions are largely a product of sustained efforts by members of the communities and their support networks, which in turn bring them further publicity and legitimacy. It is hard to imagine that these communities could withstand the force of global trends toward industrialized resource use, consolidation of property ownership, and urban migration, much less defy the will of violent groups, by practicing collective action, nonviolence, and small-scale local resource use. This article explores how they accomplish this feat and how they describe their experiences and goals. Crucial to the communities survival is the material and tactical support they receive from external organizations. Their goal of protecting their lands and way of life dovetails with the interests of organizations whose mission is to promote peace or sustainable development or to protect biodiversity or indigenous cultures. Therefore the efforts of rights activists, international agencies, Christian organizations, and conservation groups based in Bogot, Europe, and the United States play a major role in the phenomenon described here. Others have noted that the communities practice peace and publicize their neutrality as a self-protective measure. This article highlights a factor that is sometimes overlooked: escaping violence and avoiding displacement is only part of what motivates these communities. These communities consistently articulate their desire to inhabit specific landscapes, keep their resource-based livelihoods, and defend their right to self-determination. They are convinced that the quality of their lives and their childrens prospects will worsen if they relocate, especially to an urban area. Because their goals are place-based, their potential sources of support extend beyond the human rights, humanitarian relief, and solidarity realm to include alliances with groups dedicated to protecting traditional cultural practices and conserving natural landscapes. The underlying dynamic is that external groups are able to derive organizational benefits from working with authentic communities that are practicing nonviolence and relatively sustainable resource use in rural conflict zones. The outside NGOs cause is promoted at the same time that the communities laudable features are publicized to a global audience of potential supporters. The material benefits and political leverage that the communities obtain are modest but significant. Moreover, their higher profile and visits from outsiders raise the public relations costs to would-be perpetrators of violence against them. Though visibility does not deter all attacks, it evidently reduces them and also facilitates the work of holding perpetrators accountable. In other words, the cases examined here illustrate the dynamic that Keck and Sikkink (1998) identified regarding the potential for a small grassroots organization in Latin America to augment its power by forming alliances with distant groups via participation in transnational activist networks. Only about a dozen Colombian communities have pursued this approach with much success. Because others have meticulously documented the historical tendency for violence to accompany the expansion of intensive production and extractive activities into less developed regions of Colombia (LeGrande, 1992; UNDP, 2003; Roldn, 2002; Molano, 2005; Richani, 2002; and

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Elhawary, 2007), that pattern will not be reviewed here. It is worth noting, however, some of the ways in which rural Colombians of limited economic means are affected when their lands are engulfed by armed conflict or an intensive resource operation. The two often arrive in tandem. Industrial forestry, mining, petroleum extraction, and agribusiness (legal and illicit) disrupt local residents access to natural resources and cropland and degrade the forests and waterways on which communities depend. Big resource operations hire protection services and become targets for extortion, so their presence fuels competition among rival armed groups in the vicinity. Power struggles among armed groups trigger waves of violence against residents and intense campaigns to recruit local youths to take up arms with one side or another. In the worst scenarios, an armed group will inflict violence with the goal of clearing an area of its civilian inhabitants, either because powerful groups want to eliminate local resistance to land use changes or because the armed group is unable to co-opt local residents and therefore views them as potential traitors or clandestine supporters of its rivals. A major episode of violence may bring a humanitarian response to the area, but the assistance tends to be of short duration and aimed at meeting basic needs. Most rural Colombians affected by conflict do not possess the knowhow for mounting a community survival strategy and do not receive in-depth support for resisting displacement and dispossession. Therefore they flee the brutality and threats or they relocate because their resource-based occupations are no longer viable. They may seek refuge in urban areas or migrate to remote regions in the hope of resuming rural livelihoods. Those who remain behind experience dramatic changes in their social relations and way of life. In contrast, the communities studied here have received a different kind of aid that is designed to build their collective capacity to resist the changes bearing down on them and materially sustain their presence on their land. The sections below describe how this approach has helped them avoid the fate of millions of their fellow Colombians. Each section consists of overview of a communitys trajectory that traces patterns common to the five cases and highlights the transnational dynamic that supports the communities. The conclusion identifies some factors that differentiate the communities and suggests areas where further study would be helpful. THE FIVE COMMUNITIES
LA INDIA

The Asociacin de Trabajadores Campesinos del Carare (Association of Peasant Workers of CarareATCC) was founded in the town of La India, along the Carare River in the Department of Santander, south of the petroleum production center of the Magdalena River valley. The ATCC was created in 1987 by a group of 7,000 campesinos and loggers who had endured 15 years of violence from government soldiers and from guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC). The army installed checkpoints and required that residents obtain written permission whenever they ventured beyond their homesteads. People had

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to travel to the army base and have their identity documents verified as frequently as every five days. Soldiers confiscated goods and detained people arbitrarily and would torture and kill villagers who did not behave submissively or were alleged to be supporters of the FARC. For its part, the FARC assassinated villagers it suspected of being army informants. The cruel twist for an innocent, nonpartisan farmer who survived military detention was that having been released by the army made him a more likely target for murder by guerrillas. In 1982, a paramilitary group began carrying out savage massacres in the region, and soon its operations drew close to La India. The paramilitaries warned that anyone who had had contact with the FARC was a target, which meant that everyone was under threat because it was not possible to live near the Carare for any length of time and not have interacted with guerrillas. Residents knew that personnel, resources, and information flowed from the military to the paramilitaries. They also knew the names of FARC defectors who now served among the shock troops of the paramilitaries. Before long, word reached La India that a number of residents were on paramilitary death lists. It was from this cauldron of fear and impending danger that the bold peace project of La India was born. The collective decision to withdraw all types of support for groups and individuals engaged in violence emerged from within the community and coalesced over a period of months. One of the landmark events took place when 30 campesinos were selected by the FARC to participate in a revolutionary-justice tribunal against a local farmer with a mediumsized plot he had cleared and cultivated for over two decades. FARC authorities had been applying a new land reform policy to his property and parceling out pieces of it to beneficiaries of their choosing. The farmer had a reputation for outspokenness and courage during his many encounters with armed men from both the FARC and the army. Several times he had been detained and tortured by the army, and twice he had escaped summary execution by the FARC. He had survived because of a combination of luck, steel nerves, daring escapes, and a penchant for engaging his captors in vigorous debates that could last many hours. At various points in his life it had been necessary for him to go into hiding for months on end to avoid being killed by one group or another. The farmer was now middle-aged, and his eyesight was poor. His name was Josu Vargas, and the tribunal convened to decide his fate was expected to affirm an order for his execution. No one anticipated what happened instead. During the lengthy and tense discussion that took place, the campesinos in attendance experienced a transformation (Garca, 1996: 177180). While listening to Vargas steadfastly assert his right to keep the land he had worked so hard to make productive (he had agreed to cede to the FARC some of his unconverted parcels), most of the campesinos in attendance came to view him as an exemplary, unflinching representative of themselves. He had suffered even more abuse than the norm but retained his integrity and dignity. He was now prepared to die rather than capitulate and hand over his land. The campesinos on the tribunal concluded that Vargas was being arbitrarily persecuted. People reported later that he had inspired not pity but rather the determination that this man not be cut down by the injustice that permeated their lives. As the tribunal dispersed, some attendees decided then and there

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to organize themselves to break free of the web of armed groups and start advocating for their interests as campesinos. The second pivotal event occurred the following year. The civilian death toll in the area had surpassed 500. An army captain ordered 2,000 La India residents to assemble near the river and there reiterated the ultimatum his commanding officer had given them the month before: You have only four options here. Join us and we will arm you; go join the guerrillas; leave the area; or die (Garca, 1996: 188). The captain had brought along with him 500 new rifles and a group of paramilitaries who set up their encampment nearby. Vargas stepped forward and spoke for the residents of La India. To this day, members of the community recount his words with pride: Look, Captain,... we have observed firsthand that weapons have never solved anything.... You bring us millions of pesos worth of weapons bought by the government when what we want and need is government support for local agriculture.... We do not intend to join the guerrillas, to unite with you, or to leave this place. We have to look for our own solutions (Garca, 1996: 188190). And so they did. In 2011, decades after Vargas and other ATCC founders had been assassinated by paramilitaries, the community continues to adhere to the organizations founding affirmation: We defend our right to life, peace, and livelihood. The residents of La India have achieved goals well beyond avoiding displacement and dispossession of their land. As a result of the ATCCs peacemaking and development work, the town has four churches, three schools, an agricultural college, a health clinic, an agro-forestry co-op, and a cooperatively owned general store. Outside organizations have contributed substantively to these achievements. A few years after its creation, the ATCC was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the alternative Nobel Peace Prize, and received a grant of US$40,000 from the Swedish Parliament. Media coverage of La India spread awareness and broadened support for the community. During the past decade, La India has been the beneficiary of a large multiyear investment in local sustainable development projects under the auspices of the European Unions peace laboratory initiative. In 2009, La India became one of eight pilot communities nationally to be targeted to receive reparations from the Colombian government. The program is administered by the International Organization for Migration with funding by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The ATCC is the local conduit for the program.
SAN JOS DE APARTAD

Residents of a cluster of villages in the Department of Antioquia founded the peace community of San Jos de Apartad in 1997 with legal and financial assistance from a local Catholic diocese and two Bogot-based NGOs: the Jesuit Centro de Investigacin and Educacin Popular (Center for Research and Popular EducationCINEP) and the Comisin Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (Inter-Church Commission for Justice and PeaceJustice and Peace). Located in northern Colombiaeast of the Bay of Urab in the foothills of the Abibe Mountains San Jos de Apartad was settled by campesinos displaced by violence in the mid-twentieth century. The peace community was formed in

Gray / SURVIVAL STRATEGY IN RURAL COLOMBIA 49

the wake of two local massacres and the assassination of four directors of the local cooperative. When paramilitaries informed local villagers that they had three days to leave or be killed, 500 people chose to defy them in an act of nonviolent noncooperation: they declared themselves a peace community. In subsequent months, more residents signed on, and now the community numbers 1,500 people in six districts. The growth in the membership, however, should be taken in context. Before being besieged by mass violence in the mid-1990s, San Jos de Apartad had about 3,000 residents. Therefore half the population has been displaced, disappeared, or killed. Since the founding of the peace community, 184 members have been murdered, with one killing occurring as recently as November 2010. For the most part, the perpetrators of attacks on San Jos de Apartad have been paramilitaries, but assassinations by members of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army and three separate guerrilla groups have also been documented. Armed groups enjoy impunity for extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances, blockades, arson, robbery, and sexual abuse of members of San Jos de Apartad.4 Despite the violence, community members show no signs of giving up. In the 14 years since its founding, San Jos de Apartad has received steady support from CINEP and Justice and Peace. Oxfam, the Red Cross, the British Department of International Development, the Dutch Parliament, Mdecins sans Frontires, and the European offices of the Catholic organization Pax Christi have also provided various forms of assistance. The Colombia Support Network, an NGO based in Madison, Wisconsin, has a sister city project with San Jos de Apartad and publishes action alerts on this community along with many others. Since 2002 peace activists from the San Franciscobased Fellowship of Reconciliation and the UK-based Peace Brigades International have paid staff members to reside in San Jos de Apartad villages so that the community is permanently accompanied by trained international observers. Early on, partner organizations provided food, emergency supplies, and medical assistance, as well as workshops to strengthen community cohesion and educate residents in conflict resolution and humanitarian law so that they could pro-actively defend their rights and neutrality. More recently, European organizations have supplied the community with equipment, seeds, technology, and access to niche markets. Community residents grow cacao and miniature bananas for export using traditional seed varieties and have received assistance for phasing out the use of agro-chemicals. Other projects have funded the production of fertilizer from fermented soy and yogurt and provided training for protecting local water sources with forest preservation and restoration techniques. As do the other communities discussed here, San Jos de Apartad benefits from the work of transnational activists who lobby the Colombian government and pressure governments and organizations around the world to protect rural Colombian civilians. The prodding has yielded action by international bodies such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which established an office in Colombia, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has issued a series of protective orders directing the Colombian government to ensure the safety of peace community residents and members of indigenous groups. Both entities have investigated multiple human rights violations against the five communities under consideration here.

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In February 2005 a massacre claimed the life of a San Jos de Apartad founder who had traveled abroad as a spokesperson for the community. His partner, his 11-year-old son, and five other members of the community were also killed in that incident. The massacre was carried out just days after Colombian President Uribe publicly stated that San Jos de Apartad leaders had ties to the FARC. When crimes such as the 2005 massacre occur, the communitys support network seeks to elicit an international outcry and make it harder for the government to ignore (or condone or justify) attacks on the community. The Colombian national prosecutors office ended up linking 84 soldiers to the 2005 massacre. The Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruling ordered the government of Colombia to protect the residents of San Jos Apartad and requested that the names of the soldiers who participated in the 2005 massacre be revealed. In 2008, the national newspaper El Tiempo reported an acknowledgment by army captain Guillermo Armando Gordillo that soldiers had participated in the massacre. The governments failure to protect community residents reinforces their interest in close relations with NGOs and intergovernmental agencies. It also fuels local resistance to the very presence of government forces. Residents of all five communities report that when state security forces are stationed near them, rough treatment of civilians by all armed groups increases. The risk that residents will suffer collateral damage increases, too. When the Uribe government constructed an enormous police garrison in the heart of San Jos de Apartad in April 2005, it willfully overrode the communitys request that its neutrality be respected. Community members responded by abandoning their main street and moving to makeshift structures they raised nearby. They continue refusing to live, hold meetings, or work near the garrison but have lost the use of important structures built with their scarce resources. Along with a granary, carpentry workshop, and preschool, there was a two-story community center that housed 27 students, contained a workshop for 25 seamstresses, and provided meeting space for large gatherings. The communities described here have opted for local self-governance in a practical manner similar to the way they embraced nonviolence: they considered it necessary for their survival. They live in villages that can only be reached by mule, on foot, or in small boats. They must travel great distances to reach civilian government representatives and cannot count on the government for basic services or public safety in their villages. Consequently, they create structures for governing themselves and mechanisms for settling local disputes. All of the communities take stringent measures to protect themselves and avoid subjugation by armed groups. Members travel in groups, use whistles to summon fellow residents when danger arises, and decline to provide food, shelter, payments, or any other form of assistance to members of armed groups. They also refuse conscription into the national armed forces on the grounds of neutrality. San Jos de Apartad is governed by written principles and proscriptions that ban interactions with members of armed groups, forbid the carrying or keeping of arms and the consumption of alcohol, and require participation in collective governance and productive activities. Residents incur penalties for violating the community charter. The community is governed by an internal council made up of seven members chosen by the community, a member of a national NGO, and a representative of the Diocese of Apartad.

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Residents spend at least one day a week engaged in collective work projects and attend frequent community meetings and training workshops. With communal labor they have built a health center, schools, and roads. Local youths created the community radio station and update the web site. Collectively, they produce the food served in the community dining room and preschool, tend orchards, thresh rice, corn, and sugarcane, and run four fish tanks and an organic seed bank. The food they produce has enabled them to survive blockades lasting as long as three months. According to a visitor in late 2010, the residents of San Jos de Apartad consider their greatest accomplishment the fact that they have held onto their land using nonviolence against violent actors (Zibechi, 2010). Residents insist that the main object of the violence has always been more about taking away land from the campesino than about defeating a particular enemy.
CACARICA, CHOC

The peace community governed by the local organization Comunidades de Autodeterminacin, Vida y Dignidad (Communities for Self-Determination, Life, and DignityCAVIDA) is located in the Cacarica River basin, in the buffer zone of Los Katos National Park in the Darin region on the border with Panama. The Cacarica River is a tributary of the mighty Atrato River. Most of the residents are of African ancestry. Like the members of La India and San Jos de Apartad, the people of Cacarica are campesinos, many of whom settled the area after being displaced from nearby regions by violence or the consolidation of landholdings. Cacarica is located in the northern Choc, where competition for natural resources was intensifying in the period before war gripped the region in the mid-1990s. In several harrowing months in late 1996 and early 1997, paramilitary attacks on villages and air raids by the national armed forces displaced more than 10,000 people in the northern Choc. Most of them fled to nearby towns or distant cities, and some crossed into Panama. Of the roughly 4,000 people displaced from the Cacarica watershed, many spent several years as internally displaced persons in a dilapidated sports facility in the town of Turbo. In 1998, with assistance from a local diocese and Justice and Peace, 1,500 Cacarica residents organized formally to advocate for their safe return to their homes and to petition for collective title to the lands from which they had been displaced. In 1999 the national government issued the Cacarica community council title to 103,024 hectares. In 2001 approximately 1,200 members of the community returned to a small parcel within that territory. The community occupies only 48 acres of its territory because its security is in greater jeopardy when residents do not live close to each other. Over a quarter of the communitys land is currently being usedwithout its consentby large timber and banana firms. (A nearby collectively titled black territory faces similar problems, but the industry usurping the land there is palm oil production for agro-fuel.) By collective agreement, Cacarica residents practice nonviolence, participate in joint productive activities, and share individual earnings. Passing on their land and their resource-based cultural traditions to their children is an explicit priority. As in the cases of La India and San Jos de Apartad, assistance from

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outside organizations such as Peace Brigades International has not only strengthened Cacaricas organizational capacity and legal claims but helped it survive. Small groups such as Chicagoans for a Peaceful Colombia have also played an instrumental role, and transnational networks were pivotal in the issuing of the protective orders by international courts when Cacarica residents were displaced persons in the Turbo stadium. In 2004 a founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina visited Cacarica as part of an international campaign to raise awareness of the ongoing threats to the communitys existence. In 2007 Cacaricas support network organized a visit by foreign activists, journalists, and policy makers to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the murder of 86 Cacarica residents and to call attention to recent human rights violations against the community. Later the same year, a Cacarica leader received the Bremen Solidarity Award in Germany, which came with a financial award. In 2009, the UN climate facility began funding a large sustainable development project in Cacarica as part of a program to protect biodiversity in Los Katos National Park. In the region where Cacarica is located, a strategy of peace and sustainability with external support emerged prior to the eruption of mass violence. Pressures from multiple directions jeopardized the resource-based livelihoods of local residents. Starting in the 1980s, the scale of mining, hardwood extraction, and logging for paper pulp in the northern Choc grew exponentially. The banana export and cattle ranching industries expanded into the area from adjacent departments. Government plans were announced for the construction of major infrastructure projects, including the completion of the PanAmerican Highway through the Darin. Land grabs and speculative acquisitions increased, aided by the fact that many local residents lacked title to the land on which their families had lived for generations. By the early 1990s, high-value hardwood species had been reduced to a quarter of their former presence in local forests, rivers had filled with silt and become difficult to navigate, hunting prospects had deteriorated, and medicinal plants had become scarce. Residentsthe vast majority of them Afro-descendentresponded by forming activist, river-based community organizations. Facing common threats to their livelihoods and their survival as communities, the new Afro-descendent groups collaborated with the long-standing indigenous organizations active in the region. The position that the Choc groups articulatedthat local communities should be able to remain on their lands and be supported in using local resources in traditional and sustainable waysgained wide currency among the local population. The idea also won supporters among policy makers in Bogot, foreign NGOs, and multilateral agencies (Andrade, 2003). Black identity politics flourished in the Choc, and activist groups began to focus on securing territorial rights comparable to those of indigenous groups. The cause of traditional resource users (of all ethnicities) was furthered in 1991 with the rewriting of Colombias constitution and the passage of legislation such as Law 70 of 1993. These reforms opened the way to collective land titles for Afro-descendent communities and institutionalized local resource management rights for rural communities in general. The problem was that there were no protections in place for the physical safety of individuals and groups who invoked these new rights in ways contrary to powerful interests.

Gray / SURVIVAL STRATEGY IN RURAL COLOMBIA 53

In the years just before the bloodshed of 1996, dozens of communities in the northern Choc petitioned for collective land rights. In March 1997, the first titles to black collective territories were granted to the communities of the Truand River, near Cacarica. By the time they achieved their victory, however, Truand residents were internally displaced persons. When Cacarica residents received their title from the national agency charged with such matters, the community had been displaced for several years. Meanwhile, the regional development agency for the Choc granted two logging corporations an extension on their permits, allowing firms to clear-cut portions of the same territory to which the community had received title. Today, fierce competition continues over how resources in and around Cacarica will be used and who will benefit from that use. Like San Jos de Apartad, the Cacarica community is quite small, but with the support of outside partners its members are still holding onto their lands and their way of life.
THE PEOPLES OF THE SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA

The Arhuaco, Wiwa, Kogi, and Kankuamo indigenous groups inhabit the worlds highest coastal mountain range. They profess the belief that their presence in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and their practice of sacred rituals is essential not only to the survival of their communities but also to the health of the planet. Their combined territories straddle three Colombian departments and six municipalities along the Caribbean coast. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta contains 4.2 million acres, 35 rivers, and heights of 19,000 feet. It provides habitat to jaguar, ocelot, peccary, manatee, migrating bird populations from North America, and 1,800 species of flowering plant. The locations that the Sierras spiritual leaders deem most sacred coincide with the natural sites that biologists rank highest in biodiversity conservation value. Since the early 1500s, the peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta have struggled to resist invasion and maintain their cultural practices. The Arhuaco began organizing politically in the modern sense in the early 1980s in a successful campaign to oust Capuchin missionaries from their territory. Today young Arhuaco leaders acquire university degrees and twenty-first-century activist skills in the national capital and return to Sierra villages with the goal of protecting indigenous autonomy and resources, defending territorial and human rights, and interpreting cultural practices in ways that strengthen the communitys long-term prospects for survival. The Wiwa (formerly known as Arsario) and Kankuamo peoples have initiated extensive revivals of their languages and cultures. In the early 2000s the Kogi ended their centuries-long policy of isolation from non-Sierra peoples. Kogi leaders now grant interviews and travel abroad in a well-publicized campaign to persuade outsiders to make changes that will slow the environmental destruction of the Sierra. The environmental issue that resonates most broadly is that the snow and ice in the upper mountain peaks of the Sierra are vanishing, severely affecting indigenous cultures and local natural resources and threatening a water crisis for the cities and agribusinesses below.5 Over the years, the indigenous peoples of the Sierra have repeatedly affirmed their unarmed status and their nonalignment with all armed groups,

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but their members have suffered very high rates of extortion, forced recruitment, and murder. The four groups, which together number over 40,000 individuals, often pursue political and legal actions jointly under the auspices of the organization Gonawindua Tayrona. The Arhuaco leader Leonor Zabaleta was awarded a human rights prize by the Swedish government in 2007. In October 2009 an international peace conference convened by the mayor of Bogot formally nominated the indigenous peoples of the Sierra for a Nobel Peace Prize. In March 2010 National Geographic premiered a documentary on Aruaco efforts to protect their culture and the biodiversity of the Sierra. UNESCO declared parts of the area a biosphere reserve in 1986, and the World Bank and the Colombian government have funded sustainable-development projects in the Sierra. In contrast to the sources of external support for the other four communities considered herepeace, human rights, solidarity, and religious groupsit is anthropologists, conservationists, and indigenous rights activists who figure most prominently in the support network for the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Long-term material support has been provided by Fundacin ProSierra, a Colombian NGO founded by a French-Colombian anthropologist who served a term as Colombias minister of the environment, the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy, the London-based Tairona Heritage Trust, the French NGO Tchendukua, and the Bogot-based NGO the Organizacin Nacional Indgena de Colombia (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia ONIC). Sierra indigenous groups have used financial and technical assistance from outside organizations to acquire deeds to lands they inhabited but did not possess title to, to purchase parcels in order to reestablish legal access to the sea, and to implement ecological restoration projects in areas degraded by settlers, for example, reforestation of land that had been used for marijuana cultivation. External assistance has also been directed toward reducing the pressure on indigenous territories by financing alternative development projects in squatter settlements at lower elevations. These projects provide incentives for settlers at mid-range altitudes to relocate to lowland areas, making it possible for the Sierras indigenous groups to reclaim parcels that these settlers have left.6 External support notwithstanding, a number of trends are undermining the goals of peace and sustainability in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The aerial spraying of herbicidesin the decades-long drug war led by the United Stateshas contaminated water, destroyed vegetation and crops, and damaged the health of humans, wildlife, and livestock. Child malnutrition rates are high and are linked to the depletion of the natural-resource base on which local people depend for sustenance. Guerrilla and paramilitary units continue to traverse the region. The construction of two hydroelectric dams and plans for offshore oil drilling present dire threats to the communities interests. Most recently, several Kogi villages came under military occupation as part of the Uribe governments campaign to control strategic corridors. The traditional authorities and the activist organizations that represent the peoples of the Sierra have sent out communiqus and filed suits protesting the dams and the military installations. To them, the dams bring ecological damage and a boom in commerce and development that benefits outsiders while

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degrading the lives of local people. And they are not likely to forget that an eloquent Ember indigenous leader, Kimy Pernia, was murdered by paramilitaries in the 1990s because he opposed the construction of a hydroelectric dam in a nearby region of Colombia. Like the members of the peace community of San Jos de Apartad, the Kogi do not view an army post in their midst with expectations for greater security. On the contrary, the peoples of the Sierra insist that an armed groups affiliationbe it paramilitary, guerrilla, police, or soldiermatters little. Armed groups seek compliance and to that end try to infiltrate local relationships and manipulate people, undermining community cohesion. They treat everyone who is not clearly with them as a potential enemy. The most painful losses for a community are when its talented and cherished leaders are killed by armed groups seeking to undermine organized resistance. The increasingly dense contacts that the peoples of the Sierra are having with outsiders surely present both opportunities and dangers for the community.
THE NASA

The Nasa people of the highland towns and reservations of northern Cauca in the central Andes of southwestern Colombia may well be the nations finest example of nonviolent action and commitment to more sustainable resource use. The Department of Cauca has more than 190,000 indigenous inhabitants from nine distinct indigenous groups; the Nasa people number over 80,000. The Nasa hold legal title to large expanses of territory in the form of resguardos, but much of their land consists of eroded slopes at high altitudes, and only 20 percent is forested. Thousands of Nasa have been killed in the past three decades: it is estimated that some 60 percent were victims of government and paramilitary forces and the remaining 40 percent were killed by leftist guerrillas. The Nasa movement is geographically centered in the indigenous reservations of northern Cauca, but the movement has forged strong alliances with local, regional, national, and global organizations. Two activist organizations, the Consejo Regional Indgena del Cauca (Regional Indigenous Council of CaucaCRIC) and the Asociacin de Cabildos Indgenas del Norte de Cauca (Association of Indigenous Governments of CaucaACIN), lead the Nasa movement, but power is also wielded by traditional authorities on the reservations, and this is seen as a key strength of the movement. Over the past decade, Nasa leaders have been at the forefront of a series of popular marches, called mingas, in which protesters walk the Pan-American Highway to the distant city of Cali. People in Bolivia and Ecuador engage in similar marches, but since the Nasa traverse zones known for pitched battles involving paramilitaries, government commandos, and guerrillas they are engaging in mass peace action as much as protest. In September 2004 a broad range of civil society organizations joined their march, and 60,000 people made the multiday journey. The 2008 minga marched all the way to Bogot. The goals of the marches and the Nasa movement are complex and heterogeneous, but a few consistent themes can be identified: (1) a rejection of all the armed parties and the assertion of the right to autonomy and local selfdetermination; (2) a strident critique of the social and environmental costs of the economic, development, and drug war policies fostered by the U.S. and

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Colombian governments; and (3) a vision of cultural and physical sustainability expressed in community-designed planes de vida (life plans) that draw on traditional practices of governance, law enforcement, natural-resource use, health care, and education. On several occasions, grassroots resistance to armed groups in Nasa communities has attracted the notice of the international press. In November 2001, 4,500 men, women, and young people from six reservations converged on Caldono, Cauca. They deliberately walked into an armed confrontation between police and guerrillas and demanded a ceasefire and the withdrawal of guerrilla forces from the town. In 2004, when the mayor of Toribo, Cauca, was kidnapped by the FARC, Nasa activists marched two weeks through the mountains to the rebel camp where the mayor was held. Their purpose was to secure the mayors release, and they succeeded. In April 2005 another battle dragged on for days in Toribo. With FARC guerrillas using gas canister bombs and the air force dropping bombs, the damage to the town was severe. About 3,500 people were displaced, a dozen people were seriously wounded, and a 10year-old was killed. The residents of the nearby Jambal reservation, however, announced that they were returning to their homes even though the battle was still under way. They explained that the health of their infants, pregnant women, and elders was deteriorating because of the crowded, unsanitary conditions where the community had taken refuge. Moreover, their domestic animals had been left behind and needed care and protection. If this continues, community leaders said, we are at risk of becoming beggars and dependents, which we are not willing to do (Wirpsa, Rothschild, and Garzn, 2009: 235). The dignity and conviction with which the community actedand the moral weight it carried as news of the incident spreadpersuaded the armed groups to hold their fire. The residents did in fact return to their homes. Successful mobilizations and a strong collective identity have a long history among the Nasa people. The Nasa resisted subjugation by the Spanish with arms during the colonial period (they used to be known as the Paez and had a reputation for being fierce fighters), but they have long employed alternative tactics in defending their interests, such as learning the Spanish language and laws and then negotiating accords with Church officials and colonial administrators. In the late 1970s Nasa activists used legal mechanisms and direct action in the form of land invasions to reclaim reservation lands that had been usurped by large private estates. In the 1980s a group of Nasa formed a guerrilla organization, the Movimiento Armado Quintn Lame (Quintn Lame Armed MovementMAQL), which took its name from a nonviolent Nasa activist who was a popular hero in the 1920s and 1930s. The MAQLs purpose was to defend Nasa lands and people from abuse by armed groups, including drug trafficking organizations. The group demobilized in 1991, and most Nasa leaders have advocated nonviolent strategies of resistance since the early twentieth century. The most widely admired Nasa innovation is its unarmed indigenous guard, which was formed in 2001 and numbered 7,000 members by 2005. The guard patrols in shifts in groups of 10, maintaining a round-the-clock presence in Nasa villages. Members are trained in indigenous approaches to conflict resolution and interpersonal relations, as well as in international human rights

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principles. As a symbol of their authority, guard members carry a wooden ceremonial staff blessed by a shaman and adorned with the Nasa colors (red and green). Participation in the guard is voluntary and not remunerated. Leaders and observers credit the guard with offering an effective alternative for young people who are tempted or pressured to join an armed group. Various development pressures are affecting the territory of the Nasa: mining operations, sugarcane production for agro-fuel, and the illegal opium poppy and cocaine industries. (Coca is a traditional crop for the Nasa. They cultivate some coca legally and produce and market coca tea and a coca-based energy drink.) Violence between armed groups continues to endanger the well-being of the community. In February 2010, a two-day battle between public forces and the FARC was waged in the municipal center of Jambal, Cauca, prompting yet another call for international assistance and solidarity. Given the size and significance of the Nasa movement and relative to the other four communities examined here, external material support for the Nasa movement is not extensive. U.S. and European peace and solidarity groups send delegations to visit Nasa organizations and reservations, and they help publicize Nasa communiqus and media coverage on events affecting or involving the Nasa. The U.S.-based Witness for Peace, for example, maintains close ties with ACIN activists and brings delegations to the region on a regular basis. The European Union funds some Nasa projects in the areas of sustainable development and education in Nasa language and cultural practices. In 2004 the Nasa indigenous guard received a peace prize awarded jointly by the United Nations, the Ebert Foundation, and the Colombian media outlets El Tiempo, Caracol Radio and Television, and Semana. The American Friends Service Committee nominated Ezequiel Vitons, a Nasa elder and ACIN activist, for the Nobel Peace Prize in February 2007. Nasa activists exhibit a vibrant balance of pragmatism and openness to the outside with a commitment to preserving difference and autonomy. Not all Nasa practices are perceived as desirable by outsiders, but most observers view Nasa governance and cultural institutions positively. It is telling that ACIN requires that traditional authorities be the sole distributors of humanitarian aid destined for Nasa communities. By adhering to such principles, the Nasa may lose out on some opportunities to partner with outside groups, but they also assert their autonomy and reinforce the legitimacy and viability of their internal governance structures. The Nasa explain that their priority is to maintain equilibrium and harmony within their communities and ensure that donated materials will be used in ways that serve the collective good. CONCLUSION The communities in this article vary in size, ethnicity, and the organizations that champion their cause, but they share crucial features in common. They are resisting displacement by armed groups and dispossession by modernizing forces. They offer inspiring examples of people who have responded to chronic violence by rejecting violence itself. They are fighting for an environmentally sustainable way of life that they hope their children will be able to enjoy, and they have demonstrated an unusual capacity for sustained collective action.

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They are putting their lives at riskconsciouslyin an effort to defy historical forces that have prevailed not just in Colombia but throughout much of the world. The networks that the communities and their partner organizations participate in are regional, national, and global in scope. The communities partnerships with outside organizations provide them with visibility, financial support, legal aid, physical accompaniment, strategic advice, and access to markets and technology. The organizations backing the communities offer best practices examples of how the goals of peace and sustainability can be supported in remote and dangerous places. The communities have found something that worksmostly, for now. The quality and durability of the communities links to supporters in other locations will shape the communities prospects for survival. Ultimately, if the worlds transnational alliances for peace and sustainability are unable to build just and environmentally sound models of development on a much greater scale, then even the largest of the five communities will be, at best, endangered islands. NOTES
1. The communities are widely perceived as having a leftist orientation. Community members often use leftist rhetoric in describing their reality, advocating for their interests, and critiquing multinational operations and the petroleum, logging, mining, and agribusiness sectors. Ideological affinities may help the communities forge relationships with partisan sectors of global civil society. At the same time, the perception that the communities are made up of leftistsand the fact that they have been falsely accused of being sympathizers of armed leftist groupsmay explain why sometimes reports on peace activism in Colombia fail to acknowledge these communities stellar credentials as builders and practitioners of peace. 2. Uribes (2007) chapter on San Jos de Apartad, Hernndezs (2004) book on Colombian peace initiatives, Carrolls (2011) chapters on violent democratization in Urab, Tates (2007) study of human rights campaigns in Colombia, and Ashers (2009) book on Afro-Colombian movements in the Pacific make theoretical and empirical contributions that inform the argument put forth in this article. Rappaports (2005) study of Nasa alliances with intellectuals and activist organizations is similarly valuable, though it does not focus on Nasa peace activism or resource conservation efforts. Troyans (2008) article on the CRIC, a political organization with a key role in the Nasa project, provides important historical background. Garca (1996) describes the history of La India and the creation of the ATCC, CAVIDA (2002) relates the Cacarica experience from the communitys perspective, and Giraldo (2010) documents the persecution of San Jos de Apartad residents and the impunity enjoyed by their attackers under the administration of lvaro Uribe. Chapters in edited volumes such as Bouvier (2009), Hancock and Mitchell (2007), and Lederach (2005) discuss specific aspects of some of the communities, as does Alther (2006). Reports by NGOs and intergovernmental agencies feature updates on the communities, and one can find documentary footage and YouTube clips on the communities. 3. The interviews were conducted during two research trips to Colombia (one to Bogot in August 2008 and one to northern Cauca in May 2009), with Colombian activists on speaking tours in the United States, and via phone and e-mail. In addition, the narrative presented here is informed by my dissertation field research in the late 1990s on conservation in Colombia, as well as my more recent consultancies with the World Bank analyzing the testimony of hundreds of Colombian victims of violence and displacement. (I worked on the Colombia data for two large, multiyear studiesVoices of the Poor and Moving Out of Poverty/Conflict Casesheaded by the anthropologist Deepa Narayan.) 4. These communities have all been victims of armed blockades that control the movement of food, medicine, currency, and fuel to and from an area. Because San Jos de Apartad is located

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near a corridor along which weapons, drugs, and other contraband are transported, strategic motives for using blockades exist. But members of the peace community are singled out at checkpoints, stringent limits are imposed on them, and their possessions are confiscated outright, despite the fact that they are nonpartisan civilians. Therefore it seems that the blockades are being used in a deliberate attempt to make it so hard for the community to meet its basic needs that its members will vacate the area. 5. There is consensus in the global scientific community that the declining mass of the snow caps in the Sierra is a result of changes in global climate and, in turn, is contributing to feedback effects on local weather as well as global climate patterns. 6. See Bocarejo (2009) for a critique of the way external groups provide support to indigenous groups for purchasing land while disregarding the land tenure problems of nonindigenous campesinos.

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