The indigenous population in Colombia is estimated at 1,500,000 inhabitants, or 3.4 per cent of the total population. Along with many campesinos and Afro-Colombian, many indigenous peoples in the country continue to struggle with forced displacement and landlessness as a result of the long term armed conflict in Colombia.
According to the 2018 Census, the Colombian Indigenous population numbers some 1,905,617 individuals who, in turn, belong to 115 different native peoples. Approximately 58.3% of this population lives in 717 collectively-owned resguardos (reserves). The same census counted 4,671,160 people (9.34% of the national total) who self-identify as black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal or Palenquero. Around 7.3% of this population lives in 178 collectively-owned territories, organised around Community Councils.
Along with many campesinos and Afro-Colombian, many Indigenous Peoples in the country continue to struggle with forced displacement and landlessness as a result of the long-term armed conflict in Colombia.
The Government of Colombia adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The Political Constitution of 1991 recognised the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples and ratified ILO Convention 169.
At the national level, Indigenous Peoples are represented by two main organizations: the "Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia" (ONIC) and "Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia" (AICO).
President Santos signed a decree in 2014 that created a special regime to put into operation the administration of Indigenous Peoples' own systems in their territories until Congress issues the Organic Law of Territorial Management that will define the relations and coordination between the Indigenous Territorial Entities and the Municipalities and Departments.
There are 65 Amerindian languages spoken in the country. Of this 65, 5 have no capacity for revitalization and another 19 are in serious danger of disappearing.
Main challenges for Colombia’s Indigenous Peoples
Data from the Victims Unit show that 192,638 Indigenous People and 794,703 Afro-Colombians were affected by the war experienced in recent years. The guerrilla made life impossible for several indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, and massacres such as that of the Awá in Nariño and Afro-Colombians in Bojayá, mined collective territories, communities stripped of their territories and young people and children recruited are some examples of the FARC's violent acts carried out against ethnic peoples.
Almost a third of the national territory is categorised as indigenous reserves, and most of them have to face serious environmental conflicts and land grabbing due to extractive activities in the zone.
As a result of a resurgence in the internal armed conflict following the 2018 electoral success of President Iván Duque, who is opposed to the Peace Agreement, violence and the armed re- taking of many of the regions inhabited by these peoples intensi- fied during 2020. In this context, as stated by the Ombudsman’s Office, there is a conspicuous delay in implementing the Ethnic Chapter of the Peace Agreement and a clearly deteriorating humanitarian situation which, in 2020 alone, left 112 Indigenous people dead in different regions, not to mention the members of Afro-descendant communities, whose deaths are not fully differentiated in the records.
Through the weapons of armies but also those of the gospel, the subjugation and annihilation of many American peoples advanced intensely during the European conquest. The consequences of this well-known combination of forms of domination are widely documented in their aspects of physical extermination and material dispossession, but the equally severe effects of indoctrination and manipulation of other spheres of indigenous life that was and is exercised today are not so easily discernible, causing a gradual but deeper transformation in actual community life.
Colombia is home to some 115 Indigenous Peoples of diverse origins and linguistic and cultural traditions. They live spread throughout the whole country: on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, in the Amazon, the Orinoco savannahs and the Andean region. In the latest 2018 national census, the total reported Indigenous population stood at 1.9 million people,[i] of which 64% inhabit 846 legalized collective territories. The rest of the population is located in urban centres or scattered across rural areas.
BY MARCELA VELASCO, FERNANDO CASTRILLÓN AND ALONSO TOBÓN FOR DEBATES INDÍGENAS
Afro-Colombian communities in the Pacific region account for 95.3% of the 5,600,000 hectares of their ancestral territories. Collective land use, traditional celebrations and ancestral knowledge predominate in these lands. Despite being a peripheral region, in recent years ancestral territories have been highly coveted by extractive industries, which has attracted illegal armed groups that impose their rules through violence. In this context, the construction of interculturality and interethnic dialogues are a form of resistance to extractivism and dispossession.
BY EFRAÍN JARAMILLO AND COLECTIVO DE TRABAJO JENZERÁ FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES
Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian lowlands and ethnic peoples of the Colombian Pacific share the trauma of evangelization, the rubber industry, and the expansion of logging, cattle ranching and coca cultivation. Understood as individual suffering of anguish and hopelessness in the context of a collective disorder, the trauma of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples leads to the devaluation and assimilation of other identities, including those of their aggressors. Faced with the feeling of inferiority, ethnic peoples have the opportunity to recreate their identities within their ancestral territories.
Sally Ann García Taylor is a Raizal woman who studied Political Science and Government at the Universidad del Rosario, and a Master's degree in Caribbean Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences with an emphasis in Social Anthropology from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social Occidente (CIESAS-Mexico). She currently works as Deputy Director at the Ministry of Social Prosperity of Colombia.
Patricia Tobón Yagarí has been Director of the Victims Unit since August 2022. This is a body that seeks to provide comprehensive assistance and reparations to the victims of Colombia's internal armed conflict. A leader of the Embera Chambí people, she is a lawyer from the University of Antioquia, a specialist in constitutional law and an advisor to various Indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations. She was the youngest member of the Truth Commission that emerged from the Peace Agreement between the Colombian State and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs - is a global human rights organisation dedicated to promoting and defending Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Read more.
