The force of non-violence constrains the force of arms!

Colombia - the force of peaceful resistance -
At the beginning of July, the rebels of the armed revolutionary forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped a 51 year old Swiss, and his Colombian assistant who worked in the Indian communities of Cauca province where they were setting up development projects by building schools and community production enterprises.

The news of the kidnapping was spread through all the villages and 2000 Indians set out to pursue the 400 guerillas. They reached them at an elevation of over 4000 meters (12,000 feet), encircled them, and without any weapon, constrained them to release the 2 hostages! (After 2 days, the hostages were released).

This release, obtained through \"peaceful resistance\" has raised a national debate: the possibility of resisting violence without needing to use weapons has demonstrated the effectiveness of human solidarity movements.

\"I will return, and I will then be millions\" prophesied the Aymara Indian leader Tapak Katari, in 1781, at the time of his execution by the Spanish conquistadors.

100 million in 1492, the Indians were no more than 4,5 million one century and half later. Currently there are 44 million Indians populating Latin America.

In spite of their great diversity, the Indian movements take on more and more importance. In Ecuador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico or Colombie they are opposed to the neoliberal system that governs the Americas, while protesting against the imposition of the American economic market.  Their tactics are mainly debate, political action and solidarity, creation of multiple networks among all the indigenous peoples, previously isolated from each other.

The Indian organizations thus published a Joint Declaration, during the international meeting of Quito of October 2002, of which here a very short extract: ‘’.... what kind of integration do you speak about  - if ... your project is founded on competition, the desire to accumulate and the appetite for profit at any cost, injustice, contempt towards our people and our cultures, and will to force all to us into the mould of your market and your consumerism - if you do not respect the first and fundamental bond that binds every human being with our mother, the earth ? “

The claims take broad political dimensions, but the Indian movement remains founded on a vision of the world where the human being is the center of concern, within his ecological context. The relationship of man and the earth is essential;

By showing great capacity for organization, mobilization, and patience, the Colombian Indians have shown us that nonviolence is a tool we need to relearn. These are the people who have been despoiled, stolen, victims of genocide for more than five centuries and yet they are the activists of non-violence! Their weapons are courageous solidarity, psychological pressure, a new relationship with the other, a search for equality! And what energy there is in this quiet anger!

They are for me the symbol of a new world, a return to the values of respect for life, of the going beyond oneself in solidarity.  It reminds us that we do not know how to use our anger.

Bit by bit the culture of peace is advancing in our spirits, giving us a new way of looking at on the means of action. It is a process of germination, slow but sure. We must not lose confidence.

I have translated the text in italics from an article in Courrier International number 668 entitled Latin America: the Indians at the doors of power.

Kiki Chauvin, Paris