{"id":46167,"date":"2018-05-24T10:01:04","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T15:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dejusticia.org\/?p=46167"},"modified":"2018-10-05T16:36:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T21:36:55","slug":"the-yukpas-the-indigenous-community-who-migrated-to-colombia-in-search-of-rice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.dejusticia.org\/en\/the-yukpas-the-indigenous-community-who-migrated-to-colombia-in-search-of-rice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yukpas: The Indigenous community who migrated to Colombia in search of rice"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, May 17<\/span>th<\/span>, around 1 am, bullets broke the silence in the C\u00facuta neighborhood of Escobal, located at the edge of the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge that connects Colombia and Venezuela. There, abreast the T\u00e1chira River, <\/span>some 300 indigenous Yukpa were sleeping under their huts made of sticks and plastic<\/b>. They have been arriving from Venezuela over the course of the past year because hunger and sickness had forced them out of their ancestral territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to run along the neighboring street, where we stayed until morning,\u201d recounts Brinolfo Romero, a Yukpa professor who arrived from the Venezuelan side of the Perij\u00e1 mountain range (there is a Colombian side). It is the Yukpa\u2019s ancestral land. The next day, the Yukpa returned to their settlement and found bullet casings on the ground. They immediately began to collect their things without knowing where they would go next. During the year they have spent in Colombia,<\/span> they have had to move to so many different places that when they settled in their terrain abreast the T\u00e1chira River they thought that they would finally be able to settle comfortably<\/b>. But no. <\/span><\/p>\n

On that day, while they were packing up what few possessions they had, a Yukpa man arrived battered and beaten. He told the group that an armed militia tried to deceive and kidnap him, but he managed to escape. \u201cThey tried to take him, he put up a fight, and managed to get away,\u201dBrinolfo retells. This adds to the disappearance of two Yukpas over the course of the last two months, along with the fact that <\/span>they have not stopped receiving threats to get them to vacate the territory, <\/b>according to the community. The shootout on that Thursday was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. <\/span><\/p>\n

After the attack, they asked the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), one of the few organizations in which they can truly trust since they had been helping them since their arrival, to help them move. That afternoon they moved the children, women, elders, and a few men (106 people in total) to the Santander Park. Upon nightfall it was impossible to return for the rest because in Escobal, nobody can guarantee safety after dark. They say that the <\/span>Rastrojos, the Clan del Golfo, and other criminal organizations operate in the area, <\/b>all of whom are interested in controlling the trails through which contraband passes from Venezuela. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read as well:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>The collective despair of Venezuelans passing through C\u00facuta<\/b><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Families were divided. The C\u00facuta mayoral office and the government moved the Yukpas who got to the park to a shelter. Another group crossed into Venezuela. And a few others, some 40 people, stayed in their settlement and continue to be there. Who just shot? \u201cThe people from the mountains,\u201d Brinolfo says. According to the mayor of C\u00facuta, C\u00e9sar Omar Rojas, the attack was not directed against the Yukpas, \u201cit was in Ure\u00f1a (the first Venezeualan town across the border). It was an attack against the National Guard stationed there.\u201dAnd Felipe Mu\u00f1oz, the Director of the Border Plan, says that the \u201cincident is under investigation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, the Jesuit Refugee Service put out a press release rejecting the attacks, saying that they \u201cappreciate the effort and offers that the Colombian government and humanitarian organizations have presented [but] we do not consider the responses to be enough nor are they on par with standards of protection,\u201dand reminded everyone that the abandonment and lack of protection that the Yukpas have had to endure has already left two victims: <\/span>one child died on March 23<\/b>rd<\/b> from high levels of malnutrition, gastroenteritis and a cardiopulmonary arrest. Another child died on April 9<\/span>th<\/span> from a disease pattern of vomit and gastrointestinal infections.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of these children was the son of Samuel Romero, the chief of one of the three communities who up until a week ago lived abreast the T\u00e1chira River. Samuel and his family buried their son in a cemetery in C\u00facuta and upheld one of their communities\u2019 grief traditions: a few days of complete silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The Yukpa continue to wait for Colombia to recognize them as binational indigenous people. Photo: Ang\u00e9lica Cuevas<\/p><\/div>\n

***<\/p>\n

We met Brinolfo during the first week of May, on a fieldwork mission that us journalists at Dejusticia embarked on. At the time, sitting on a wooden log in his settlement, he told us the reasons that forced the Yukpas into a place foreign and far from the mountain ranges they had always occupied. \u201cWe have resorted to Colombia out of necessity, because of hunger,\u201d he says. He later explains to us that they have spent a year waiting, and living in such miserable conditions, because here they at least \u201chave plantains and rice.<\/span> This is a lot, much more than what our brothers in the Sierra are eating.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

And yet they continue to wait for Colombia and Venezuela to recognize them as \u201cbinational indigenous people\u201d, given that they have historically settled in the Perij\u00e1 mountain range, a territory that the two countries share. Their cosmovision even defends that are all parts of the same community and <\/span>that they do not recognize borders imposed by westerners. <\/b>They are asking both countries for the same treatment that the Way\u00faus from Colombia\u2019s La Guajira region receive, who are recognized as a binational community and protected by both governments. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are people without borders,\u201d Brinolfo says. This is what the Peoples Defense repeated in a letter sent to the chancellor, Mar\u00eda Angela Holgu\u00edn, and the ONIC (Organizaci\u00f3n Nacional Ind\u00edgena de Colombia, the country\u2019s national indigenous organization) stated in a press release: both asked the Colombian government to declare the Yukpas a binational indigenous community. But a government source told us that it has been impossible to tend to this petition for one reason: you need a binational agreement to complete the recognition, \u201cthat there be political will on both sides,\u201d<\/span>and although Colombia sent a petition to Venezuela last December 11<\/b>th<\/b>, \u00a0they have yet to get a response.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

A year ago, a rumor seeped its way into Venezuela\u2019s Perij\u00e1 mountain range \u2014\u00a0located in the state of Zulia \u2014\u00a0that there was a Colombian city named C\u00facuta that at least had rice to eat. The indigenous Yukpas <\/span>were so hungry, and the children and the elders were so sick, that they had nothing to lose.<\/b> A group of took with them what they needed to survive three days of travel and, desperate, started on their journey by donkey, bus, and foot. The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela was unbearable. \u201c<\/span>\u201cIt took us between three and six months to gather three sacks of yucca, and they bought it from us for ridiculously cheap,\u201d said Brinolfo, a leader of the neighboring Yukpa community that sits just a few steps away from this one and is led by Chief Henry. <\/span>For those three bags of yucca they were paid some one million <\/b>bol\u00edvares<\/i><\/b> (Venezuelan currency), the man explained, and that money hardly covered the cost of one kilo of rice.<\/b> That is no way for someone to survive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until the attack on May 17<\/span>th<\/span>, the Yukpas were organized into three groups, all settled along with T\u00e1chira River. The waters of the river where they bathed and even got water to cook were brown, dirty, and odorous. This explains why the children have skin covered in rashes and <\/span>stomachs inflated with parasites. \u00a0<\/b>That being said, what they did not lack since they arrived was their precious rice, as Sonia Mart\u00ednez says it, an indigenous Yukpa girl who lives in the second settlement next to Brinolfo\u2019s. These are two sister communities but with different chiefs. They are the most traditional, the ones who have best conserved their customs<\/span><\/p>\n

The third community, located below the bridge, is recognized as the most \u201cwestern\u201d, \u201cmost civilized\u201dgroup, according to the words of their chief, Remiljio Segundo Romero. Remiljio also proudly accepts that, as they authorities and media outlets say, they are smuggling contraband food from Venezuela. \u201cWe smuggle oranges and avocados, although the press has slandered us by saying we smuggled meat.\u201d This is what the authorities maintain: the indigenous people are transporting scrap metal and meat from Venezuela, and that there exist criminal networks that they are using.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are three very different communities. But the problem, the big question, is that there exist media outlets and entities within the government who have taken it upon themselves to stigmatize the Yukpa, signaling that \u201call Yukpa\u201d are contrabandists. And this has left the Yukpa exposed, <\/span>even more vulnerable than they were before. \u00a0<\/b>Furthermore, some public officials issued statements that seems to justify the attack on Thursday May 17<\/span>th<\/span> against the indigenous group, for being \u201ccontrabandists\u201d and being connected to criminals who troll the trails.<\/span><\/p>\n

This episode inspired the government to construct a \u201cconcerted plan of return,\u201dthat intends to get them all back to Venezuela within the week. But this idea is not new. During the past year, they have dumped them on the other side of the border at least 3 times, and they also come back to Colombia, because here they at least have food and medicine. The ONIC has reported that these forced returns have been made \u201cwithout planning nor differential guarantees.\u201dProfessor Brinolfo insists that Venezuela is not an option for them. \u201c<\/span>We are going to stay here until Colombia hears us.<\/b> Until they give us help. Until they provide us with security. <\/span>But to Venezuela we are not returning.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Without

Without a doubt, the situation that the Yukpa find themselves in is one of the greatest challenges Colombia faces with the Venezuelan migration crisis. Photo: Ang\u00e9lica Cuevas<\/p><\/div>\n

For some organizations, like the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Colombian government should consider the <\/span>Contingency Plan for Inter-Urban Forced Displacement<\/b> before forcibly returning a vulnerable community who does not have guarantees in Venezuela. The Plan, amongst other measures, enshrines the Law of Victims and promises \u201cthe activation of special protections for ethnic groups, the communal cohesion according to their customs, and non-repayment.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is also being asked by a tutela that is currently active in a court in C\u00facuta: that they pay humanitarian attention and that they guarantee the bare minimum of living conditions, keeping in mind their condition as special subjects of protection. <\/span><\/p>\n

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You might also be interested in:<\/span><\/h3>\n

Colombia debe conseguir recursos para garantizar el derecho a la salud de migrantes venezolanos: Corte Constitucional<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n