‘We saw our family members cut into pieces’: how Colombia’s Wiwa people have been forced from their mountain – again
Luis Angel Mejía heard the first gunshots at 11pm. The deafening noise shook El Limón and surrounding areas in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, northern Colombia, until 2am.
“They were launching missiles that shook the earth. We heard gunshots, grenades and rockets non-stop,” Mejía says. “We thought: ‘As soon as the [firing] stops, they will probably come for us.’”
The barrage Mejía heard on 24 February was all the more disturbing for its echoes of the past; forcing to the surface bitter memories of theviolent forced displacement his people, the Wiwa, suffered in the early 2000s. The fear that history might repeat itself led community members to flee, leaving behind their plantations and belongings.
“After what happened to us in 2002, after seeing our family members cut into pieces with a machete or a chainsaw, we felt intimidated by seeing once again these groups in our territory,” says Mejía.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the world’s highest coastal mountain system, an isolated range that is home to 37,000 Indigenous peoples. The area’s remote location has helped to conserve their traditions. It has also been a strategic location for armed groups since the 1970s, resulting in multiple confrontations in a fight to control this area.
The most recent clashes that led to the displacement of the Wiwa community involved the Conquering SelfDefense Forces of the Sierra (ACS), a paramilitary group that, under various different names, has controlled this territory for more than two decades, and the Clan del Golfo, which has extended its military control in the country since 2022.
Mejía’s family were among those who fled the mountains in the middle of the night. He stayed behind for five days looking after people’s belongings, hoping the army would protect the area. But military support did not arrive, and he made his way to the coastal city of Riohacha to rejoin his family.
“I tried to keep calm,” says Mejía, a father of four and the leader of one of the displaced communities. “I didn’t want to leave because of my animals.
We didn’t know if we would gain more from leaving or lose everything we had fought for over the last 22 years.”
Since the recent clashes started, about 500 Indigenous people and some African-Colombian communities have lived in a refuge in the city’s Indigenous centre and the Coliseum of Riohacha, a gym and stadium, located about a three-hour drive from their communities.
Mejía was just 8, the same age his son is now,when he was first forced from his home by conflict. He and his family hid in the mountains for six months, sleeping outside in harsh conditions, without enough food. One of his sisters died.
Since their most recent flight, Mejía has felt caged. All he dreams about is the day his family will return to live surrounded by nature and their animals – an integral part of Wiwa Indigenous culture.
“We are waiting for the go-ahead [to return]. We, people from the countryside, need to feel the cold water from the mountains and see the trees,” says Jose Manuel Gil, another Wiwa community member. “We are not used to being confined.”
***
Years of peacemaking efforts in Colombia resulted in demobilising the far-right paramilitary militia United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) in 2006 and the peace treaty with the far-left group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) in 2016. Both agreements included guarantees of non-repetition of crimes against civilians and reparations to the victims by the state.
Yet, events have shown that the agreement has been broken, and reparations for previous crimes have not been made. “We are still waiting for compensation for what happened to us more than 20 years ago,” says Miguel Yepes, the leader of the Conchomake community, who has also been living in the Riohacha’s Coliseum.
The Wiwa communities are not alone in their experience. In 2023, about 121,000 people were victims of forced displacement and confinement in Colombia.
Pedro Loperena, the human rights commission coordinator at the Wiwa Yugumaiun Bunkuanarrua Tayrona (OWYBT), an organisation advocating for the rights of the Wiwa people, says that another problem has been the mutation of demobilised organisations into new illegal armed groups. He says factions of the far-left guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and dissidents of the Farc are also operating in the region.
“We have testimonies of the use of rockets [during the clashes]. That noise is unmistakable,” says Loperena, who suggests that dissidents of the Farc could be involved.
As the leader of a country destabilised by armed groups, the leftleaning president, Gustavo Petro, has turned his “total peace” plan into his most critical political priority. This strategy attempts to engage numerous armed groups in peace talks but has faced several obstacles, including the fragmentation of groups and mutual allegations of breaking agreements.
According to Camilo González Posso, a researcher on peace and conflict in Colombia and head of the government delegation for the peace dialogues, the struggle for control over territories such as the Sierra Nevada’s mountains is at the heart of the conflict.
“More than 40% of Colombia’s continental land is collectively owned, which is unique in Latin America,” González says. “That means Indigenous communities are custodians of these areas. They inhabit ecosystems of extraordinary spiritual and mineral richness, and the acute conflict in progress is based on the dispute over the collective territories.”
González says these areas serve to control the population, recruit civilians, and facilitate illicit activities such as drug, human and arms trafficking. “The ACS has been endemic in this region ... and lately have gained strength,” the researcher says. This, he says, is in direct opposition to their stated willingness to hold talks with the government and operate within the law.
According to González, the prospect of a dialogue between the government and the ACS may have triggered clashes between armed factions for dominance over the Sierra Nevada. “This ends up delaying peace processes, raising uncertainty over the future due to recycled violence – that is when a group replaces another – or even causing conflicts inside these groups.”
***
For the Wiwa people, adapting to their new reality has not been easy. The Indigenous group suffers in the heat of Riohacha, where temperatures have reached 37C over the last few months, as they are used to the fresher climate of the mountains. Coupled with this are changes in their diet, which has led to illness for some, while contact with modern society threatens their traditions, particularly among younger people.
“I feel this place is unsuitable for our children or for getting together as we do with them in the community. I worry that if we continue here, they will lose their traditions and forget their language,” says Yolenis Mendoza, a mother and teacher who continues to give classes in the refuge.
Loperena says the displaced people also face overcrowding, unsanitary conditions for cooking, risk of disease and noise pollution due to the proximity to the local market. These stresses add to the restrictions on freedom of movement, illegal appropriation of their territory and death threats already faced by residents.
OWYBT recently called on government officials to relocate displaced communities to more suitable accommodation, but Loperena says no steps have been taken. “Even though properties seized from drug traffickers were identified for housing the communities, no progress has been made,” he notes.
The Guardian has approached the government secretary of Riohacha but has not received a response so far.
Ivan Velasquez, Colombia’s minister of defence, has expressed the government’s commitment to evaluate a return plan for the communities. “Displacement is an intolerable crime and is even more serious when it involves Indigenous communities,” he said on 22 March.
In Bogotá on 15 April, government officials and Wiwa representatives met to deliberate the prospect of a return home. Since then, however, there has been silence. “The immediate situation continues to be one of violence, difficulties and limited hope,” says González.
Meanwhile, the Wiwa keep waiting for the day they will be able to return home. “I’m the father to my whole community. I don’t sleep thinking about when we’ll be back. We want to return, but they have to give us guarantees,” says Yepes, who fears going back as he has previously received death threats.
Loperena says that, despite the ombudsman office and the UN rapporteur on internally displaced persons’ warnings about the dangers Wiwa communities faced, no action has been taken to prevent displacements. The public authorities have not yet responded to questions from the Guardian.
“This was a chronicle of a death foretold,” says Loperena in reference to Gabriel García Márquez’s book. “The state has failed in its constitutional and international duties regarding protecting the human rights of Wiwa people.”