International

Colombia: National, Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Minga

26/05/2016

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano / The Dawn News / May 20, 2016

We call the Colombian people and the international community to take part in the “Great National, Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Minga. We plant hope, we harvest the country!”, and to accompany the peaceful mobilizations that are coming to express our non-conformity with the current economic and “development” model, which truncates the dreams of the Colombian people of achieving peace with social and environmental justice.

Today, we call to confront, through peaceful mobilization, the harmful extractivist economic policies that put natural resources, national sovereignty and the physical and cultural survival of rural communities and the Colombian people at risk.

The government of Juan Manuel Santos and his predecessors have been emphatic in stating that the model of development of the country isn’t negotiable; even though the citizenship has protested against it, the Colombian state still doesn’t listen nor offer sustainable alternatives to provide a profound and structural solution to the economic, environmental and social crisis that is worsening in Colombia. In consequence, as a just and historic vindication, we demand the national government to guarantee the active, binding and decisive participation of the communities to design and build the Agrarian Reform, which must be integral in harmony with nature and cultural diversity.

This calling is also a response to the government’s systematic violation of the agreements that were signed after the Agrarian Stoppages and Indigenous Mingas of 2013 and 2014, and the protests of 2015 promoted mainly by the Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Summit, and the programs of demands and negotiation presented after the mobilizations of January 24 and March 17 of 2016.

The Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Summit, along with several social and popular sectors (which include environmentalists, transportation workers, unions, women, education workers, and urban and rural organizations) oppose the government policies outlined in the National Plan for Development (PND) that puts up for sale strategic resources of the nation, such as public companies, energetic resources, water and unequally distribution of lands, increasing the profits of the rich and excluding millions of citizens from the access to their rights, depriving them from their territory, and increasing the number of victims.

We radically oppose the restriction of democratic freedoms that will occur if the government applies the law of citizen safety and the new police code. We denounce the repressive role of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron against the fair protests of the communities, their arbitrary detentions, the persecution, harassment and murder of social leaders and defenders of human rights, and the new phase of paramilitarism that seriously threatens social organizations and put the process of building sustainable and lasting peace at risk.

We reaffirm our support to the Peace talks of the FARC-EP and the ELN in Havana. We don’t think that peace is just the silencing of rifles, but the joint construction of communities in political, economic, social and environmental scenarios, to strengthen social justice and participation as we are doing with the peace summits (called “We Plant Hope, we Harvest the Country”) and other social sectors that believe in social transformation for the coexistence and harmony of our peoples.