Al Jazeera Tells the Untold Side of the Story
released without anybody getting hurt. They were so successful that today more than 70 percent of Colombia’s ethnic groups have similar guards. Since then they have won the prestigious “National Peace Prize” sponsored by the United Nations. Today they remain a powerful mechanism for civil resistance. But what hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is the level of those threats. The 2016 peace accord brought the demobilisation of the FARC and a brief lull in the violence; a time of hope and renewed illusions. But the conflict has returned. The Colombian state failed to fill the vacuum left by the rebels and new criminal mafias, neo-paramilitary groups and rebel dissidents started a new confrontation for the same old drug routes and territorial control. Leaving the Indigenous Guard and the entire Nasa community once again alone to fight peacefully under constant threat for their land and dignity.
In 2001, the community was trapped between right- wing paramilitary groups and the leftist FARC. Both factions accused the town of being sympathetic to the other party, and villagers were murdered by the hundreds. In response, the Nasa created the guard as a sort of neighbourhood watch to patrol the territory. Volunteers’ red and green bandanas symbolise the fight for the land and the blood they’ve spilled, and their “command sticks” are often more symbolic than threatening.
The organisation has no age limits or gender requirements. They say nonviolence in a country armed to the teeth wasn’t a philosophical or ideological choice but a pragmatic one. They had tried armed self-defence in the past but it didn’t work. The community understood that more weapons only generated more bloodshed. The first time they caught national attention was in 2004, when a number of Nasa leaders were kidnapped by the FARC. About 400 guard members went after them, deep into the jungle. They found them after 20 days and managed to have them
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