'We Can Forgive if They Can Respect'

Victimized by war, Indians in northeast Colombia say their only loyalty is to the land.

LA MESA, Colombia - He is like a ghost in the greenery, a slow blur of white within a thicket of trees.

In an undyed wool poncho called a "ruana" and conical hat resembling a fez, 21-year-old Algusto Tore seems a welcome anachronism of agrarian subsistence and simplicity in a nation dominated by modern weapons of war.

He is a member of a small tribe of Arhuacos Indians who have lived at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains for generations.

They are people who consider themselves stewards and protectors of the land, but who — like so many other civilians — have become victims of Colombia's four decades of armed conflict. Many of their leaders have been killed by guerrillas or paramilitary fighters, many times as a warning not to collaborate with the other side.

Tore is shy as we approach him. He shifts back and forth in the only non-traditional clothes he wears, a pair of high rubber boots. His four-year-old daughter, Yarrihilda, watches us from nearby.

A Colombian journalist, Ignacio Gomez from Noticias Uno, asks him if he fears living so close to La Mesa, the headquarters for the recently demobilized Bloque Norte of the right-wing paramilitary group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish initials AUC).

"For this moment it's okay," he says, with a little nervous laughter. "But later on I don't know."

For now, the 60 or so Arhuacos here walk the same dirt roads as recently demobilized paramilitary fighters and the Colombian National Police now providing security for the town.

From the outside, the relationships seem cordial.

"With collaboration, you have the exchange of ideas," says 57-year-old Serkamaqu, an Indian leader so colorfully articulate that his words have the ring of poetry.

"Which road do we take," he asks, concerning the tribe's relationships with outsiders, "the old road, or the new road? There is no reason to take the old road. You have to be present and have conversations with friends — the police, the army. We have to have respect for each other."

As he shows us around the houses in which the Indians live, he raises his hands in sweeping, cosmic gestures.

"We were born here and we grew up here. The Sierra Nevada is our territory. We are here to preserve nature."

It's that loyalty to nature, he says, the Arhuacos feel most strongly — not to a government or outside groups.

Serkamaqu walks through a small but vibrantly green patch of coca bushes. He points to them.

"Coca is our contract with nature."

At the age of 20, Arhuacos men are allowed to chew coca and are given a hollow gourd called a poporo, which is filled with crushed seashells.

They wet a smooth branch by placing it in their mouths, then poke it through a hole in the top of the gourd which gathers the shell dust. Then they place it back in their mouths, mixing the lime of the shell dust with the coca.

Kevin Sites with Serkamaqu

"The coca goes in here," Serkamaqu says, pointing to a cheek already pregnant with the leaves, then tapping the hollow gourd. "The shells go in here, and this is what activates the mind."

It's a daily and continuous ritual, and its results show on the green chlorophyll-stained lips and teeth of the Arhuacos men.

The Colombian government, with the financial and military assistance of the United States, is carrying out an aggressive coca eradication program that includes massive aerial spraying of herbicides. But under indigenous rights laws, Indians are allowed to cultivate small patches of coca for their personal use. It is a ritual openly demonstrated, but not readily shared with outsiders.

"If I ask the police to borrow his weapon, it shows a lack of respect for him. If he asks to borrow my poporo it shows a lack of respect for me," says Serkamaqu.

The Arhuacos, like other Colombian indigenous groups, see their role as a kind of big brother to the white man, or what Serkumaqu refers to as the colonizers. They see it as their role to instruct them in how to respect nature.

It's a pressing concern in a country where the very soil has become a nearly constant battleground.

Commercial coca and poppy production and the attempts to eradicate it have left large portions of the land in the southern Putumayo region a casualty of war, like so many of Colombia's people.

"Exploitation affects nature more than anything," Serkamaqu says. "What is the mystery of nature? We have to learn this. Even if you have a whole century to live, you won't learn everything."

When there are no Colombian National Police or ex-paramilitary fighters around, Serkamaqu approaches us privately. He wants to tell us something that he was not comfortable saying before.

With a deep gravity, he bows his head and in hushed tones tells us this:

"We want the colonizers to go away. We just want them to leave us alone. We don't want anything."

But what about the injustices of the past? The murders of Indian leaders and people?

"We can forgive," he says, "if they can respect."

It's a lesson that, so far in Colombia, has not been easily nor quickly learned.

Email Story IM Story

RECOMMEND THIS STORY

Recommend It:

Not at All Somewhat Moderately Highly Very Highly

Average (Not Rated)

ALSO ON YAHOO!