English Version: Urgent appeal for help´-Message from Naka Mandinga here is the english version of the urgent message just forwarded from Naka Mandinga in Colombia. the translation is not perfect, the bits i am unsure on are still in spanish, if anyone feels able to improve it, go for it. ************** CAN THE INTERNET HELP TO SAVE LIVES? We are coveying the message of Naka Mandinga, the Legal Representative of the Communitary Council of River Yurumangui, in the municipality of Buenaventara. Naka is one of the most important leaders of the Black community in Colombia, and is a member of the Special National Commission which formulated the proposal for the implementation (reglamentacion)of article 55 transitorio of the Political Constitution of Colombia, which gave rise to the Law 70 in 1993.-Naka was part of a group of Colombian activists who visited Europe in 2001 to form horizontal alliances with European social movements. 10 members of this leader´s family have lost their lives at the hands of the paramilitaries in the last year. Naka, who has reclaimed the name and memory of his elders, is refusing (jointly with all the members of the Communitary Council of the River Yurumangui) to abandon the community´s land. Is this a valient gesture or a heroic one? Un gestonvaliente o heroico? Maybe not, maybe only the memory of renacientes del Palenque el Desparramado, which we remind everyone in dignity and resistance that we are FREE.Quiza no, quizas solo la memoria de los renacientes del Palenque el Desparramado, que nos recuerdan a todos en la dignidad y la resistencia que somos...LIBRES ------------------------------------------------------------------- MESSAGE FROM NAKE MANDINGA LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMMUNITARY COUNCIL OF THE RIVER YURUMANGUI This is a message for my friends and for the world to hear: The River Yurumangui is located in the south west of the municipality of Buenaventura, Department of the Cauca Valley, Republic of Colombia, Southamerica. 4000 people live there, of whom 1300 are children menores de edad. The whole population is of African descent and ethnicity. We are the children of the Africans brought to America as slaves. Between 1760 and 1800 we went through an arduous process of struggle for our liberation, a travez de la experiencia del cimarronaje, and we set up the Desparramado (does this mean something?) palenque (translators note-the spanish word is left here as there is no equivalent in english. roughly, it means an autonomous, liberated and collectively managed community), a territory which we shared for some time with our indigenous Yurumanguian brothers. Here we managed to the resist the domination which the Yurumangui slave owners, the Valencias, the Mosqueras, the Arroyos and the Castros, subjected us to. Aquí logramos resistir la dominación a que nos habian sometido los Valencia, los Mosqueras, los Arroyos y los Castros, esclavistas del río Yurumangui. All this is to say that we have exercised control over this river and its resources for a little over 200 years. We managed to kick out the invaders and secure our liberty 50 years before the abolition of slavery was decreed. Between 1814 and 1820, our ancestors were victims of a betrayal. Men such as Lisandro and Pedro Maria Valencia, Agapito Cuero, Mauricio Congo, Juan Baustista Mandinga and others, all of whom were veterans of the so-called war of independence, and were already elders amongst their grandchildren nietos, contaban con nostalgia como fueron engañados y llevados a participar de una guerra que no les pertenecia,. pero esta fatal experiencia sirvió para que sus hijos y nietos, muchos de ellos se negaran rotundamente en los albores del siglo 20 a participar en la llamada guerra de los mil dias. In contrast to this, they had previously strengthened their palenque, and from there resisted the cacería of which they were victims at this time, living of forest fruits, and dressed in cortezas de árboles and the skins of wild animals. In view of the threat to our river and the whole Pacific region which the politics of economic globalisation and transnational capital have brought about in recent years, 12 years ago we, jointly with the neighbouring brother rivers, initiated a process of struggle for the legal owership of this territory. On the 23rd May 2000, by way of resolution number 01131, issued by the national government, we were granted the titledeeds for collective ownership of 54 thousand hectares, which is under the administration of the Communitary Council. But this collective property right has become a thorn in the side estorbo of the development of state policy and the agents of transnational capital, which codician de sobremanera the wealth of natural resources which our territory contains. For more than one year, the paramilitaries, who are just an instrument of the war which has been declared on us, have come threatening to incursionar attack us if we do not abandon the river. In April 2001, after 150 people were massacred in Alto Naya, the paramilitaries entered our river and in the vereda El Firme they dismembered and chopped up by axe 7 members of our Communitary Council, who were fisherfolk. This resulted in the displacement of 450 people to hacia the port of Buenaventura, and 600 people displaced along the river Yurumangui, que se desplazaron dentro del río Yurumaguí. As the Communitary Council we are organising, and achieving the return of those displaced to hacia Buenaventura. Now the paramilitaries are threatening to invade us during the christmas festivities and threatening that members of the Communitary Council should abandon the river or their relatives who live in the city will die. We want to inform the whole world that, just as our ancestors resisted invasion in an organised way through their palenques, we will also resist politically and in an organised way through our Communitary Council. For this political reistance we appeal for the help of our friends throughout the world. We need food supplies, tents, blankets, cooking equipment, boots, and fuels for carpas, cobijas, enseres de cocina, botas y combustible para evacuar personal. Also, we would like to demand to the paramilitaries that they are honest and tell the truth to the world, saying why they want to kill us, instead of cowardly calumnien saying that we are guerrillas, which no one will believe. In the five continents everyone already knows that we are the descendants of Africans and that it is our process of struggle in defense of our ancestral right. The world knows that we are not an armed group. As a political organisation, and through organising, we are ready to remain in our river, and not abandon it, as we would rather die with dignity in our ancestral lands, than to leave our elders behind. Ríver Yurumangui, Decembre 22 2001.