Recibimiento de los Jaguos al Festival del Sol

Bienvenidos a la Jagua!! Con brazos abiertos nos da mucho gusto recibir a nuestros hermanos y hermanas de los Pueblos Yanacona-Quechua, Nasa, Misak  y los otros Pueblos presentes. Aunque más conocido por casas coloniales y leyendas de brujas hechiceras y chismosas, la Jagua es mucho más. En la unión de nuestros dos ríos el Guacahayo/Huacayo  o Yuma (el Magdalena) y el Cuacua (el Suaza), tomamos un gran paso en la recuperación de nuestra identidad, cultura y territorio. 

Fundado como Nuestra Señora de la Limpia concepción de la Jagua por la diócesis de Popayán, este asentamiento indígena existía antes de su fundación de la Colonia Española en 1540 con el propósito de evangelizar. Este territorio entre los aguas de los dos ríos siempre ha sido un lugar sagrado, ceremonial y compartido entre varios pueblos. Como los ríos, se unían los territorios de las  grandes naciones de los Andakies, los Tama y los Yalcones, aunque los habitantes originarios de esta zona siempre se han conocido como los Jaguos. Por los aguas de los ríos se comunicaban con otros Pueblos como los Nasa y Pijao. 

Desde antes de la separación de Garzón de la Jagua en el año 1783, la Jagua ya era su propio municipio,  sobrevivió una inundación del río Suaza en el año 1827, la perdida de parte de su territorio para crear el Municipio de Altamira en 1853, hasta que finalmente fue suprimido como municipio y anexado al Municipio de Garzón en el año de 1937 de donde depende hasta el día de hoy. 

Hoy la Jagua ya no es un resguardo, ni municipio, pero igual a nuestros antepasados la Cacica Gaitana y Pigoanza, aun resistimos después de 472 años. Nuestras tejedoras de fique son las más respetadas por estas tierras, nuestros suelos se siguen cultivando y los ríos pescando, nuestros artesanos siguen  tallando piedra y madera y los jóvenes siguen creando arte y cultura.

Nuestra identidad, sentimiento de pertenencia y arraigo se ha perdido. Hoy luchamos por un territorio que antes de la multinacional Emgesa-Endesa-Enel en su gran mayoría fue controlado por terratenientes, y hoy tenemos el Proyecto Hidroeléctrico el Quimbo, la petrolera Emerald Energy en el Páramo de Miraflores y tenemos el Batallón Energético José María Tello encima del pueblo.  El progreso y seguridad vino para sacar a los Jagueños y las Jagueñas del territorio. 

Tenemos una herencia ancestral y cultural muy rica y viva pero a punto del olvido y abandono por la mayoría. Todavía tenemos la oportunidad de fortalecer y rescatar lo propio. Los habitantes originarios del “Entre Aguas” de los dos ríos y alrededores necesitamos esculcar nuestros raíces y reapropiarnos de nuestra lengua y espiritualidad originaria, cuidar y no explotar a la Madre Tierra, volver a mantener los sitios sagrados, proteger las guacas de nuestros ancestros y liberar el territorio para poder sanarla para la naturaleza y ecología se restablecen y poder brindarnos con alimentos, medicina y materiales. 

Este es un llamado a todo y toda Jaguo que se reconozca su descendencia y que se asume su arraigo a este territorio desde mucho antes de la llegada de Añasco. Los indígenas de la Jagua nunca se desaparecieron, nunca se fueron a otra parte, siempre han estado aquí, dormidos, unos mezclados, pero aquí están. Jagueña, Jagueño, mire en el espejo y mira en esos ojos y despiértate. No ignora de donde bienes. Seguimos adelante, en la defensa y la liberación de la Madre Tierra, recuperando nuestra memoria, territorio e identidad, paso tras paso. 

¡Jaguos de Asoquimbo por una Reserva Agro-Alimentaria!

Fotos del Inti Raymi-Festival del Sol (24-26 de junio) - Photos from Inti Raymi - Festival of the Sun (June 24-26)

Preparaciones en la Jagua para recibir el Festival del Sol con el Movimiento por la Liberación y la Defensa por la Madre Tierra  - Preparations in la Jagua to receive the Festival of the Sun with the Movement for the Liberation and Defense of Mother Earth

  

la Bienvenida en la Jagua - the Welcoming in la Jagua 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ceremonia en la unión de los dos ríos (Huacayo-Magdalena & Cuacua-Suaza) - Ceremony in the joining of the two rivers (Huacayo-Magdalena & Cuacua-Suaza)

 

Actos Culturales - Cultural Acts

 

Festival llega a Garzón - The Festival arrives in Garzón

 

 

Honorando nuestros mayores en Rioloro - Honoring our Elders in Rioloro

Almuerzo en Gigante - Lunch in Gigante

 

 Muestra del documental "el Gigante" - Screening of documentary film "el Gigante"

 

Movement for the Defense and Liberation of Mother Earth Commences the Festival of the Sun

Original Source: Upside Down World

Hundreds of years ago as Spanish and other Europeans invaded and conquered what today is known as America, it was a common practice to forbid traditional spirituality, festivals and rituals. One of the many festivities forbidden is what Western society knows today as the summer solstice, the Festival of the Sun, the year´s longest day. For many of Original Peoples across the Andes, while this date had many different names it marks the beginning of the New Year and it holds widespread importance. In Huila and in other places where the Catholic Church attempted to replace this celebration with John the Baptist, or San Juan, it has always been the Sek Buy for the Nasa, or Inti Raymi for the Quechua-Yanacona and Wüñol Tripantü for the Mapuche farther South in what is occupied by Chile and Argentina. This year, campesino and indigenous members of the Movement for the Defense and Liberation of Mother Earth are looking back to their origins as they keep their word by walking it forward for the territory and river.

“It is vital that we rescue our indigenous identity”, expressed Harold Segura a member of the Association of Affected by the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project-Asoquimbo, in a meeting in La Jagua, one of the stops for the Festival of the Sun. “We were originally an indigenous resguardo (Colombian equivalent of Native Reservation), the second oldest in the department after Timaná and we have slowly lost sense of who we are. We still have such a rich culture and territory but with the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project on the river, petroleum company Emerald Energy in the Eastern Mountains and the Special Energy and Transportation Batallion 'José María Tello' next to us we are about to lose it all forever.”

For this Inti Raymi the Yanacona Nation will be holding ceremonies in the Laguna of Buey in the Páramo of Papas, the birth place of the Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River in the Colombian Macizo (Highlands). From there a march and then caravan will descend down the River Valley in accompaniment of Quechua and Aymara peoples from Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru; other indigenous peoples such as the Nasa and Misak from the Regional Indigenous Council of Huila-CRIHU and the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca-CRIC, and the campesinos, fisher-people, youth, and others from Asoquimbo and the other organizations from the Movement for the Defense and Liberation for Mother Earth. 

The Festival of the Sun of the Movement for the Defense and Liberation of Mother Earth will make stops in different locations throughout the Macizo Colombiano and the Upper Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River Valley to pay ceremonies and rituals for the river and territory, hold public forums in urban centers and the affected areas, and finish on June 26 at the Paso del Colegio Bridge where there will be a ritual for the liberation of the river, a forum about the experiences of the Campesino Reserve el Pato in Caqueta and the screening of the documentary film about the movement against the Quimbo Dam, “el  Gigante” – the Giant.

Asoquimbo and other members of the Movement have been using the recent relative quiet to prepare in their communities for the liberation of the river and territory as part of the Festival of the Sun. On April 29, members of Asoquimbo went to the Enel´s shareholders meeting in Rome, Italy along with members from 60 organizations from around the globe impacted by Enel´s energy mega-projects. While confronting the company directly and arguing against its imposed view of progress and development, the organizations formed and released their first declaration as the International Campaign against Enel´s Energy Model. Member organizations of this movement from Italy, Russia, Guatemala, Chile and elsewhere will hold simultaneous liberation actions at rivers in their respective territories during the Festival of the Sun.

In Germany this past May the organization Salva la Selva presented a petition with 38,500 signatures to the Colombian Ambassador Juan Mayr Maldonado  against the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project and for the Campesino Agro-Nutritional Reserve. Ambassador Mayr Maldonado agreed that Minister of the Environment Pearl needs to be stricter with the environmental licenses for projects such as the Quimbo. Through these different actions Asoquimbo has been weaving relations of solidarity and mutual aid with other communities facing off Enel-Endesa as well as other resource extraction projects. Asoquimbo member Miller Dussán traveled to La Guajira to participate in the Forum on Impacts of Mega-Coal-Mining on the Guajira and Colombia that was held as the Cerrejon Coal Mine attempts to gain approval to divert the desert peninsula´s most important river, the Rancheria, 26 km from its natural course. 

In Paicol, Huila on June 6, Monseñor Jaime Tovar, an outspoken critic of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project, invited members of Asoquimbo to meet with the 14 Parishes of the Vicaria of San Sebastian who share Asoquimbo´s critiques and are supporting the Festival of the Sun. Also from their own gathering in Lima, Peru in mid-June the Latin American Episcopalian Council-CELAM released a declaration against the extractive industries  of mining and hydrocarbons and the problems of so-called renewable resources in Latin America, while also praising the Churches role in supporting affected communities.

Earlier this month there was a second massive die off of fish in the Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River in Domingo Arias the Quimbo Dam construction area, when more than 540 fish from 13 different species were reportedly found dead. At the most recent assembly of Asoquimbo in Rioloro, fisher-people from the area confirmed that the fish they were fishing from the area could no longer be eaten because they were covered with white sores. Meanwhile, Luz Helena Sarmiento, the Ministry of Environment’s director of environmental licenses, continues to refuse to correct herself from a television interview with Noticias Uno when she claimed that not a single fish has died in the building of the Quimbo. She went onto claim that the project has been such a success that they hope to export it elsewhere. 

In efforts to visualize the non-human impact of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Projects, members of Asoquimbo have created a mission through the National Geographic-backed internet platform for crowdsourcing ecological data, Project Noah. Through the mission called “Biodiversity Threatened by the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project”, local wildlife photographers are registering the biodiversity footprint that the dam is leaving, by uploading photographs of species taken and geo-referenced to the affected area. The mission is approaching its 100th entry, while it still has yet to scratch the surface of some of the region´s more critical species such as pacarana, neotropical river otter, gray-handed night monkey and the endemic Velvet-fronted Euphonia. 

With sadness, though, Asoquimbo holds in memory and commemorates Luis Humberto Tapiero Trujillo, a forty year old father, husband, worker, a mechanic employed by Impregillo at the Quimbo Dam who passed away on June 17 when heavy machinery fell on him in the rock pulverizing area of the construction site. Tapiero Trujillo is the first worker, but unfortunately not the first casualty of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project. Asoquimbo is currently demanding an investigation of the circumstances of his death and that his family be compensated.

Earlier this month, another photograph was taken, this time by the local journalist Albatros, giving evidence once again that the Guacahayo-Yuma-Magdalena River refuses to be diverted and continues down its natural path. The region´s inhabitants, the territory and the river itself continue to resist. 

“We are like that river”, said elder and member of Asoquimbo Josefa Galindo, from Rioloro, “we will be here in our territory resisting and fighting till the very end”.

La Voz de Matambo Vol. 7: Festival of the Sun: Recuperating Our Territory

The Festival of the Sun (Inti Raymi) is an indigenous initiative to traverse and get to know more of our own territory as a space of social, cultural, political, economic construction, as well as the construction of historical memory and ancestral knowledge. Additionally we seek to identify the conflicts present regarding the natural resources upon which we depend.

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Program: Trek of the Andean Peoples on the Millennium Andean Path – Kapaq ñan chinchaysuymanta

Date	Activity	Location
June 22	First Part of Trek: Trek and Offering at the Laguna del Buey	Depart Papallacta (South Cauca) to San Antonio (San Agustin). Start at 5 AM.
June 23	Second Part of Trek: Trek	Depart: San Antonio towards Kinchana (San Agustín – Huila). Start at 6 AM.
	Forum: Defense and Liberation of Mother Earth	Parish House of San Agustín – Huila. Start 5 PM.
June 24	Offering to Tayta Inti and Pachamama, initiation of Grand Ancestral Celebration of INTI RAYMI- Ritual in the sacred Tulpa Willika Nina.	Jatun Wasi in the Indigenous Resguardo of Rumiyaku. Pitalito, Huila. Start at 8 AM.
June 25	Forum: Festival of the Sun, Territory and Megaprojects.	Central Park of Pitalito, Huila. Start at 8 AM.
	Ritual in Honor of the Cacica Gaitana	Central Park of Timaná, Huila. Start at 11 AM.
	March and Ritual at the joining of the Suaza and Magdalena Rivers.	La Jagua, Garzón, Huila. Start at 3 PM.
June 26	Forum: Land and Territory- Gains and Advances in the Resistance of Asoquimbo.	Central Park Bolivar of Garzón, Huila. Start at 8 AM.
	Forum: Memory of of Territory with Grandparents	Community of Rio Loro, Gigante, Huila. Start at 10 AM.
	Forum: Liberation and Protection of the Mother Earth- Gains and Advances in the Resistance of Asoquimbo.	Central Park of Gigante, Huila. Start at 12 Noon.
	Closing of Festival: Experience of Campesino Reserve of El Pato, Caqueta- Ritual of Recuperation of the River- Screening of Documentary Film: el Gigante.	Cruce de la Plata – Paso del Colegio Bridge (Gigante, Huila). Starts at 4 PM.

CALLED FOR BY:

The Movement for the Liberation and Defense of Mother Earth

Information: 321 230 0156

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 The Region of South Colombia and the entire country recognizes how fundamental and strategic the Magdalena River is to the communities and populations, their cultures and way of life. None the less, facing this vital hydrological reference is the questioning of the neoliberal concept of development and growth. Instead, the defense of Hydrological and Agro-Nutritional Sovereignty against the business of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project, that puts at risk the existence and survival of the communities that have historically inhabited the banks of the Magdalena River, the entire Upper Magdalena River Valley and the systematic violation of the rights of these inhabitants.  

In this sense, it is necessary to create visibility around the struggle, peaceful resistance and civil disobedience against the corporate control of all territories, generate consciousness by walking our word, dialoging about our knowledge for the defense of our territories; biodiversity and genetic diversity sovereignty; nutritional sovereignty, security and autonomy; the cultural birthrights of our country and security. The reaffirmation of the Indigenous Resguardos established in the Colonial Era and all the communities affected by the mega-projects of mining, energy, and agricultural industry, conceded by the Colombian Government to the national and multinational corporations such as: Endesa, Emgesa, Enel, Emerald Energy, Anglo Gold Ashanti, among many others. We also struggle for the construction of a sovereign and autonomous mining, energy and agricultural policy and a holistic agrarian reform that guarantees self-determination of the territory by indigenous and campesino communities as well as other legitimate inhabitants of these areas. This must also include the construction of a new Environmental Statute that recognizes ancestral authorities and the Universal Rights of a Healthy Environment that supersedes the appropriation of our strategic territories and ecosystems by transnational corporations, and finally the creation of Agro-Nutritional Campesino Reserves and the suspension of granted and future environmental licenses for natural resource extraction.

REASONS WHY WE DEFEND OUR TERRITORY AGAINST THE QUIMBO HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT AND FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN AGRO-NUTRITIONAL CAMPESINO RESERVE

1. Of the area to be inundated, 95% of those lands are part of the Amazonian Protectorate Forest Reserve and the Colombian Macizo (Highlands). They are some of the “best agricultural lands in the region… and it would be difficult to establish the same agricultural productivity in the area because of lack of applicable lands”. (Ombudsman´s Office)
2. Eight community cooperative businesses that produce sorghum, cacao, corn and rice with an annual value of over U$18 million would be lost.
3. More than 200 campesinos have been displaced by the purchasing of lands, some without proper compensation, over 1,500 affected people have not been included in Emgesa´s census nor are they protected by the State in having their rights recognized.
4. The affected areas have about 842 HA of riparian forest and tropical dry forest, populations of fish essential for local food security, 103 species of birds, 13 species of reptiles and three species of mammals that are endangered: pacarana, night monkey and neo-tropical river otter.
5. Hydroelectric energy is not clean or renewable energy: it affects natural life cycles, destroys ichthyo-diversity and produces methane gas and global warming from the decomposition of organic material. It leads to the privatization of water, land and biotic resources as has been recognized by the Global Commission on Dams.
6. It is a private business that, at the cost of public rights, is being constructed with the argument that the country needs more electricity when “Colombia produces a surplus of energy at 4,761 MW” according to the Banks of Development Initiatives of Antioquia in 2011.
7. The exclusion of those affected from participation in the decision-making process, the lack of prior consultation regarding the building of the dam, the change in use of the land and the environmental norms and inconsistent legal procedures in the approving of the Environmental License. Law 160 of 1994 establishes that for the area of the Quimbo each family unit has a right to 30-50 HA if they possess a property of 5 HA or less.
8. The Comptroller’s Office of the Republic, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and Natural History-INCANH, the National Anticorruption Unit, the new Unit of Environmental Crimes of the Attorney General and the Mayor of Bogotá have all investigated and followed the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project for destruction of the environment and archaeological remains, social and psychological trauma, destruction of local production chains and social fabric, the violation of all the fundamental rights of the affected population and putting at risk the resources of the State and life and well-being of the inhabitants of the region.
9. The construction of an Agro-Nutritional Campesino Reserve subsidized by the state as an alternative and renewable energy model that guarantees access to resources such as land, water, defense of campesino economies, the right to work, the conservation of social fabric, the preservation of strategic ecosystems, the conservation of the territory as a public good and the participation of the communities in the creation and verification of the plans that secures the holistic and integral bettering of the quality of life of this very same population.
10. Endesa-Enel and the Government have lied, stigmatized, criminalized peaceful protest and violently displaced the affected as a response to early arguments.

Asoquimbo has been in…

·         Italy on April 29, 2012 subscribed to the “International Campaign against Enel´s Energy Model” with over 50 organizations from all over the world.

·         In Gigante and Garzón on June 1^st a meeting with council members to promote a Popular Consulta as stated in Article 53 of Law 134 of 1994.

·         In Paicol, Huila on June 6^th in a meeting with the 14 Parishes of the Vicaria of San Sebastian, invited by Monseñor Jaime Tovar, to share Asoquimbo´s arguments and invite to participate in the Festival of the Sun.

·         In La Guajira on June 7^th  & 8^th for a Forum on Mega-Mining regarding the diverting of the Rancheria River and for the Defense of the Territory and new sovereign and autonomous Mining-Energy-Agricultural policies.