Indigenous leader Carmelina Yule was murdered for standing up to FARC dissidents.

Carmelina Yul Pavy imagined many times that protecting her people would cost her her life. She had reason to fear death: she was a member of the Cauca Indigenous Guard, she had been threatened, and FARC dissidents who called themselves the Central General Staff (EMC) were increasingly looming over the Nasa communities of Toribio. Nevertheless, he stressed that they should not surrender to armed groups. “If I die with this little stick, I die clean,” she used to say in reference to the symbol of authority with which she protected the area. Last weekend their fears came true: a young man recruited by the community into a school was shot dead by the EMC after he was rescued by an armed group. He was 62 years old.

The increase in violence during the Iván Duque government (2018–2022) had already severely affected Carmelina. Two of his 11 children were murdered: one in 2020, under circumstances about which little is known, and the other the following year, in an attack on their home. The leader blamed the second death on the Dagoberto Ramos Front of the EMC, which operates in the area. “You killed my son, but I will continue to defend the territory. “I am not afraid,” she assured a member of the dissident leader, as a friend of the leader recalled in a telephone conversation with this newspaper. Carmelina did not allow herself to be intimidated and openly expressed pride in the fact that many of her daughters remained in reservation organizations.

The deaths of their children, coupled with the continued recruitment of minors into NASA, have enraged the majority and is the biggest cause of conflict between indigenous authorities and armed groups. According to a complaint by Xhub Wala Kiwi’s Defense of Life and Human Rights fabric, there were 150 cases of this crime in Kauka in 2023 alone. “She had a lot of anger and always demanded respect from them. She said she would rather die before they take away more young people,” recalls Ana María Ramos, coordinator of the Mujer Hilando Pensamiento movement, over the phone. Surely, this is why Carmelina had to cut short her trip and return to the reservation last Saturday after attending the minga in Cali. Together with other leaders, he took on the task of recovering a young man kidnapped in another episode of the escalating fighting between indigenous leaders and illegal groups.

Carmelina’s murder had such an impact not only because of who she was, but also because it occurred in the middle of NASA’s youth awards. The operation to save the recruited teenager resulted in the Swadeshi Guard Will catch two members By Dagoberto Ramos. This led to other dissidents trying to save him and eventually shooting at him. The leader fell after being shot in the head, two guards were injured and finally the flame of exhaustion flared up. The following day, Carmelina died and President Gustavo Petro ordered a suspension of the ceasefire with dissident groups in Cauca and the neighboring departments of Valle del Cauca and Nariño. On Monday, dissidents repeated their cruelty towards indigenous people: they fired at the coffin in which NASA had placed the remains of a murdered woman.

Carmelina’s leadership

Carmelina grew up in a violent home, as she said in a tribute that NASA Communities paid to her in September 2021. “We were three sisters and at four in the morning he woke us up to make breakfast. We didn’t want to get up so they poured water on us. My father was of very strict nature. That’s how my mom and I grew up with that punishment,” she said. “Because of that abuse, I lived with my husband since I was 14,” she said in a story that recounts the reality of NASA’s indigenous peoples in the mid-20th century.

He trained as a leader with Álvaro Ulcuy Chocuy, an indigenous Catholic priest who promoted liberation theology, drawing on the biblical text from the experience of the oppressed. Ulcué arrived in Toribio in the seventies and was murdered by two armed men in 1984 in the context of the struggle of indigenous communities for land. Yoli Chante Salazar, another friend of Carmelina’s, said by phone that the priest “said that women should not let themselves be abused, they are equal.” Since then, the leader attended all the courses she could. He added, “It was the majority who were training all the time.”

The community recognized Carmelina as a reference of wisdom. However, her friends say that she did not imagine herself that way and that she regretted that she did not know how to read or write, as her parents had prevented her from thinking of it. Not necessary for women. She was distressed at not being able to respond to Weaving calls and asking for help through WhatsApp. But according to Lady Paavi, a neighbor, her classmates reminded her of the importance of other knowledge, in a WhatsApp audio. “Don’t worry about not knowing how to read books. “You know how to read something more important: nature,” he told her. Yoli agrees, and confirms that Carmelina had the emotional wisdom to respond to tragedies, such as the 2020 assassination of leader Cristina Bautista, reportedly at the hands of Dagoberto Ramos himself. Yoli remembers that her friend told her that day that nature and the spirits would not leave them alone and that they were as saddened by the death as she was.

One of the teachings of the majority, who became angry when their peers did not give priority to the spiritual, was the way to calm the disharmony of the region. “When the sky thundered, it said to us: ‘Look, listen to nature speaking.’ He always sent us toasts and things calmed down,” says Yoli. It also included instructions on how to ask the plants for permission to use their leaves in clothing. “It was an offer of reciprocity. He bush asked her to give her leaves and promised: ‘I’ll bring you compost later so you can give me more fibre,’ says her friend. They also insisted on carrying a backpack to the shops and not using plastic bags . “Look, the issue of global warming is because we are polluting.”

Clothes

Clothes were fundamental in Carmelina’s life. Through them, he found a way to express his ideas and contribute financially – he had a store to sell his creations. “Weaving is like life, it has obstacles. According to Yoli, sometimes you have to take two steps forward and then three steps back.” “If one doesn’t weave, one remains sick, bitter and in pain. Weaving is about giving peace of mind, healing the soul and heart,” another point Yoli reiterated. She co-founded the Tejedoras AMA group, was a professor at the Intercultural Indigenous Autonomous University and encouraged women to look at the practice as a way to be more independent. “Youth, learn to weave. Because through weaving I supported the economy of my children’s father,” Ana Maria remembers Carmelina’s advice.

Many of the colleagues he consulted described him as someone who opened new doors. He several times invited them to meetings at his home, in which he shared the situations of violence they were living through. Carmelina stressed that her life experience has taught her not to allow abuse. As she recalls, she also emphasized that women did more than they recognized. “Sometimes men want to maintain a schedule and don’t take into account that women work three times as hard. We wake up first – we wash clothes, cook, take care of the animals, we knit – and go to bed last. Nobody pays us for what we do and we allow ourselves to be exploited,” he reflected.

According to Carmelina, women also had a special role in protecting their community. What remained in Ana Maria’s memory was that the leader had said that “Mother Earth was a woman.” “If we don’t protect the area, no one’s going to do it,” he recalls the majority saying, while at the end of the last century NASA took back lands that were in the hands of large landowners. Was in. On her part, Yoli notes that the leader talked about women’s protective role. “I have always said that women are the strength of men and we have to move forward so that they follow our footsteps. And protect them, because they are in greater danger if they go to the front.”

emergency

Following the massacre of the majority, the outlook for the natives of Northern Cauca is even more worrying. The EMC has intensified the harassment: there have already been two new attempts to recruit youth – frustrated by indigenous authorities – and a bomb in the vehicle of a social leader. Federation of Indigenous Councils of Toribio, Tacuayo and San Francisco Humanitarian and regional emergency declared on Monday and ordered indigenous guards to capture five members of the Dagoberto Ramos Front, whom they accuse of being responsible for the killing.

According to Lidi Pavi, the community’s anger is mixed with a determination to remove armed men from the area. “Carmelina’s death has awakened rebellion in the heart of the NASA warrior so that what happened should not happen again. This is an ancestral community, here we rule and those with weapons can no longer rule,” he insists. Meanwhile, Ana María comments that she did not stop to think about the insecurities of women who speak out against conscription during her friend’s wake. “Today they want to silence us, but we will respect what the majority says.” Yoli Chante concluded that Carmelina never disappointed. “She wore her vest, she wore her stick and she was the first one to walk.”

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