With President George W. Bush pushing Congress to consider passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), activists want to make certain more people are aware of how this agreement would affect Colombia's Black population.

Afro Colombian activist Marino Cordoba, leader of the organization AFRODES (Asociación de Afrocolombianos Desplazados/Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians; www.afrodes.org), spoke on Friday, March 28 at New York University about this issue.

Marino Cordoba takes a question from a student at NYU

(Karen Juanita Carrillo photo)  

Even though the Bush administration officially praises current Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez for making efforts to quell the nation's protracted 40 plus year civil war between Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas and the unified forces of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the military, many Afro Colombian activists and opposition forces within Colombia don't believe Uribe has done enough to stop the civil war.

Colombia remains second only to the Sudan as the country with the most displaced persons in the world; 60 percent of the displaced are Afro Colombians who hold land titles but were violently forced from their homes.

Afro Colombians continue to be victimized by the on-going battles between left- and right-wing forces in their nation. The group AFRODES was established by Afro Colombians who, because of the fighting, found themselves displaced from their traditional communities along Colombia's Pacific coast.

Cordoba noted that if the FTA is passed it will not aide Colombia's Black communities. Article 55 of Colombia's constitution and the International Labor Organizations' convention 169 call for Afro Colombians and indigenous Amerindian people to be consulted when their nation signs a treaty that will affect the territory, environment, food security, or the right to self determination of these communities. The Colombian government did not consult with Afro Colombian or Indigenous community representatives before signing on to the FTA, a fact that makes the agreement potentially illegal according to Colombian law.

One part of the FTA calls for plans to bring more mega-agricultural projects to Colombia's Pacific coast. Developers have for years been illegally cultivating palm oil on designated Afro Colombian lands, pushing residents away from the area and destroying the environment by using monocrop techniques that deplete the land of its nutrients. With passage of the FTA the Colombian government plans to cultivate more than 645 million feet of palm oil, and promote large-scale cultivation of sugar cane and corn.

"This Free Trade Agreement doesn't benefit Afro Colombians or Indigenous people," Cordoba told students at NYU. "But here in the United States it's being advertised as something that will help all of Colombia. It's really just a threat to our rights."