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151 YEARS OF THE LEGAL ABOLITION
OF THE SLAVERY IN COLOMBIA
Versión en español
In order to commemorate the 151 years of the legal Abolition of the slavery in Colombia, 120 Delegates of the Afrocolombian Pastoral, the Cimarrón Movement and the Process of Black Communities in Buenaventura met, from the 18th to the 21st of the present month. They were present Delegations from Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Nariño, the Caribbean region, Antioquia and Cundinamarca.
After meditate about the black people's history in Colombia, about the organizational process, about the meaning of the legal abolition of slavery for the people and for the Pastoral, and to listen to the testimony of black communities that live today the new form of slavery called death, violence and displacement; it was elaborated the following MANIFESTO, wanting it to be known and listened by all the Colombians, specially by whom in the diverse institutions, they can directly support this search for better conditions of life for this people that continues living the consequences of badly planned development and the great injustices of humanity:
AFROCOLOMBIAN PASTORAL MANIFESTO IN THE 151 YEARS OF THE LEGAL ABOLlTION OF SLAVERY AND THE SITUATION OF VIOLENCE THAT IS LIVED IN TERRITORIES OF BLACK COMMUNITIES
Today, just as yesterday, the afrodescendants communities continue being mistreated and humiliated in its own territory. The rivers that yesterday served for communication today are the faithful witnesses of the numerous dead ones who have run by their waters. And it is today and only today, with the power of the word that our ancestors give, with the immersed spirit in our body and with our faithful companion the drum, like voice of thunderclap, we make of our words burst of courage to put in common knowledge the thousands of upsets, of etnocide and genocide that had been committed against our communities, the armed groups, with a violent way impose their order by shot, rob our wealth, snatch our earth and recruit our children, putting them like shields of war and actors of violence for its own people.
Our memory still remembers as if it was today the shouts of the women, the weeping of the children, the outcries of justice of the grandparents and the impotence drowned in the throat of the greater ones, because of the different massacres that are happening in the greater and smaller settlements places of Afrocolombian communities.
We come with the forehead in high and the challenging fists to demand before the Colombian State the reality of abandonment we live. But, in addition, today we must demand to the authorities their accomplice silence before the genocide that is suffering the Afrocolombian people from the Pacific, seated in Bojayá, Juradó, Vigía del Fuerte, Río Sucio, Río Sipí, Río San Juan, Pavarandó, Tutunendo, Andágueda, Istmina, Quibdó, in the Chocó Departamento, Apartadó, Murindó, Granada, El Bagre and Zaragoza in Antioquia, the Naya, Yurumanguí, Cajambre, Raposo, Anchicayá, San Antonio and Buenaventura in the Valle Departamento, Suárez, La Balsa, Timba, El Bordo, Puerto Tejada, Santander de Quilichao, Tambo, Caloto, Cajibío, Patía, in north and center of Cauca Departamento, Satinga, El Charco, Iscuandé, Barbacoas, Magüi Payán, SanJosé, La Cruz, San Pablo and Tumaco in Nariño, San Pablo, Simití, Morales, Monte Cristo, in south of Bolívar, El Carmen de Bolívar, specially El Salado, María Labaja, Palenque of San Basilio, among others.
We come by the same way with the pain of impotence demanding to the guerrillas their violence and the self-defenses the death of dignity of life for the poor and the right to think and to act differently. With their predating actions they are now the first reason of our poverty. To the violent armed ones that they want to impose us their cruel projects and their practices of death we demand respect for the peoples; we request them that they recover the moral for the armed warfare or that they leave our earth forever.
We demand justice from the Colombian Government, repair and indemnization because of the aggressions caused to the Afrocolombian people and to make real the collective titling and the true implementation of the Act 70 of 1993 (protecting the Afrocolombian people and culture).
We come with the full heart of faith in the God of the poor men to demand to the Church not to locate it self like a simple mediator but to make fulfill the Word of Jesus' Gospel, to take position in a decisive way in favor of the black people that is suffering the new slavery.
We showed to the International Community our total discord with the beginning of national and international megaprojects that had come to be implemented without consulting us and which, in the end, they are strategies to implement and to worsen the war, shutting up and displacing up the black communities from their territories and preventing them to inform on the real situation that is lived.
We summoned to the mass media to be faithful to the information that they receive and not manipulate the news in favor of the privileged classes and/or armed actors with influence in the black territory; we asked for these media to show the reality that the Afrocolombian communities are living in their own territories.
XI Afrocolombian Pastoral Meeting
Buenaventura, May 21st of 2002