Message of solidarity from the Kamëntsás

The following message is a response to the recent FBI raids on the homes of anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis, and has been written by a spokesperson for the Kamëntsás indigenous people of the Putumayo Department of Colombia. The Kamëntsás have inhabited Colombia’s Amazon region for over 1,000 years, and are currently being confronted with the construction of a highway connecting Brazil to the Pacific that will cut directly through their territory.

Message of solidarity from the Kamëntsás
(Translated by Emily Hansen, Assistant Program Director)

Good afternoon.

Cordial greetings.

We raise our voice of solidarity against what has happened to the American activists who fight for human rights in Colombia and Palestine. It is deeply concerning to us that this is happening in a country that has been considered democratic, and that the U.S. government is now beginning to justify the wars it is fighting by marking human rights defenders as terrorists.

For the Kamëntsás indigenous people from Sibundoy, Putumayo, it lowers our morale because we know that we are exposed to the same situation that you are experiencing as we defend our territory and the natural resources that we have always depended on that now are threatened by the macroeconomic capitalist market interests of the multinationals that care not about life, but about money for continuing to justify cruelties in the name of the war.

We will ask the spirits of nature to give you strength in your lives so that you can go forward in the defense of human rights.

Fraternally,

Carmenza Tez