Colombia's history is characterized by violence and dispossession. While Indigenous people, black communities and peasants suffered discrimination, exploitation and forced displacement, a small sector became owners of land, capital and political power. In response to this inequality, communist guerrillas were born in the 1960s.
Since, the war in Colombia has become increasingly complex, with different guerrillas and paramilitary groups, the latter in alliance with oligarchies and military forces, all engaged in illegal armed forces and drug trafficking. The conflict has killed several hundred thousand peoples and internally displaced eight million, and numerous victims of disappearances, massacres, and sexualised violence. The armed conflict is intertwined with exploitation of natural resources, drug trafficking, and the lack of rights and of protection of the people by the State.
The option for people has been to organise around e.g. ethnic rights, defending their territories, and the rights of workers and women. Important achievements by the popular movement include the Ethnic Chapter in the 2016 Peace Agreement, blocking megaprojects in territories, the national strikes in 2019 and 2021 leading to the first progressive government in 2022. They have participated in peace processes, visualizing the violence and racism indigenous, black and peasant women experience, and in 2023, the peasantry was recognized subject of special protection in the Constitution.
Programme
NPA has had a programme in Colombia since 2004. We cooperate with organisations that represent indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians and smallholders, who are worst affected by the conflict and core in the popular movement.
NPA supports their efforts to strengthen their organisational structures and strategies, including on self-protection and legal defence, their capacities to dialogue with the State, develop proposals, participate in peacebuilding, and combat race and gender discrimination. Political training is a fundamental component, as it provides awareness about context and challenges affecting marginalized groups. Among other things, it includes the history and resistance of indigenous people, women’s rights, natural resources management, knowledge on how the political system works, and leadership development.
NPA’s partners are represented in the most conflict-prone areas to be included in the processes linked with building the peace and discussions about the country’s future. We help strengthen cooperation between local organisations representing vulnerable groups, and support them in negotiations with the authorities. We also help make our partners and their work and demands more visible by supporting their information work in social media, on local radio stations and elsewhere.
