My first day in the city of San José del Guaviare in eastern Colombia. It was pouring rain and across the street a group of about 10 women, children, babies and a few men were huddled together under a tin roof. They looked nervous and looked from side to side. Edilson, my guide, waved to them, and when they recognized him they were glad to see their old friend again.
This nunak group had arrived in town at dawn to try and get food, medicine, and supplies. “And some to beg and get alcohol, too,” Edilson added. They had waited for hours for the van that had promised to take them back to Aguabonita, one of the temporary settlements of the Nukak people on the outskirts of San José del Guaviare, but it never came. After a long wait we finally traveled together to Aguabonita. On the trip, two mothers told us their babies had fever and diarrhea, “probably malaria,” they added. When we arrived, Edilson and I spent the rest of the day conversing with the Nukak in their malocas: large open communal houses where one or more families cook, eat, sleep, work, rest, shout, argue, and laugh .
This is the daily life of the Nukak in the department of Guaviare, once the ancestral territory between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers and covered by the foothills of the dense Amazon jungle; now a deforestation-torn landscape for extensive ranching. The Nukak are the last indigenous people to be contacted by mainstream Colombian society and one of the last nomadic peoples in the country.
Attacked by cocaleros and armed groups
Evangelical missionaries from the controversial New Tribes Mission began forcibly contacting them in the 1970s. At the same time, their territory was increasingly invaded by cocaleros, armed groups and settlers. White diseases began to appear among the Nukak, and with them the white medicines that the missionaries blinded them with. This circle of enforced dependency led in 1988 to the unexpected appearance of a group of about 40 indigenous people in the city of Calamar, recently established on their territory.
From that moment, disaster struck the Nukak people. As a result of regular contact, more than half died within a few years, most from the flu. In 2019, the Constitutional Court declared them one of the 32 Colombian peoples in imminent danger of extinction. Currently only about 900 survive.
Around 25% of the reserve has been cleared for illegal cultivation, mainly coca and palm and cattle farming, and the armed conflict has left an area occupied by armed groups and anti-personnel mines.
Shortly after the first contact, these Indians were considered one of the most mobile peoples in Latin America. Today, due to forced resettlement, they live in 14 settlements on the edge of their ancestral territory in the department of Guaviare. Their precarious situation and recent exposure to mainstream society make them extremely vulnerable to diseases like influenza and measles, to which they have no immunity. Adolescents and children are particularly vulnerable to alcohol and drug abuse, sexual violence and forced recruitment to work on the illegal coca plantations in their homes just over 30 years ago.
In 1993, thanks to a campaign by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), supported internationally by Survival International, the Nukak Resguardo (Reserve) was created, expanded in 1997 to nearly a million hectares of jungle. To date, the reserve has been significantly deforested. Around 25% has been cleared for illegal cultivation, mainly coca and palm and cattle farms, and the armed conflict has left an area occupied by dissident armed groups and planted with anti-personnel mines.
The Victims Decree Law of 2011, as part of the Colombian Peace Accord negotiations, establishes “measures of assistance, provision, comprehensive reparation and restoration of territorial rights for victims belonging to indigenous peoples and communities.” Respect for the rights of the Nukak Indians is long and precarious. They are largely ignored by the authorities and lack access to basic health care, education and job opportunities. And most importantly, they do not have access to their territory.
Faced with the task of the state, the Nukak, with the support of some allied organizations, have drawn up a return plan to prospect and analyze the habitability of their ancestral territory. However, returning is dangerous: they need the authorities to relocate the peasant settlers occupying the area, the armed groups and the coca and palm growers. The clock is ticking: the central government must act quickly and ensure a safe return so that the Nukak can once again thrive as an independent and self-sufficient people. Now more than ever they need their international allies to support their struggle. “We still want to go home. On the territory we had clean water and there were no mosquitoes [el mosquito que transmite la malaria]. Here we are abandoned, but the Nukak always fights for his family,” says Alex Tinyú from the Nukak settlement of Charras.
Sara Mediavilla She is spokesperson for Survival International’s Nukak land rights campaign and recently returned from a field trip to Colombia to complete her Masters in International Development.
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