The Minga - walking in Great Britain whilst authorities implicate widow in husband's killing.

Aida Quilcué – ‘Walking the Word’

Aida Quilcué, spokesperson of the indigenous ‘Minga’ movement in Colombia and a candidate for the country’s Senate, has been ‘walking the word’, sharing experiences with trade unionists and the Latin American community in Britain this week.

“The Minga is a civil resistance movement to free Mother Earth from destruction by the multinationals” Aida explains. Last October and November the Minga held a six week long campaign of road blocks and marches from Cauca in the south west to the capital city Bogotá. The indigenous movement decided to ‘Walk the Word’ to force attention of their desperate situation onto the national agenda.

The persecution of Aida’s people is as atrocious as the assault on trade unions, so far this year 85 indigenous people have been assassinated. The worst threat is to leaders who speak out, as happened to Aida after she won a sharp debate with president Uribe, challenging his policies.

In Colombia such defiance does not go unpunished. A month later Aida’s husband Edwin Legarda was assassinated in an army ambush on 16 December, and her 12 year old daughter narrowly escaped being shot on 11 May. Aida is unbowed, “In being here I am fulfilling a vow which I made publicly to the Attorney General at Edwin's funeral- I will go to the end of the earth to find justice and tell people the truth about what happens in Colombia.”

Aida returns to Colombia for the next hearing of the judicial investigation into Edwin’s murder on 5 October, where she confronts a shocking and perverse frame up: “Not content with killing my husband, the authorities now seek to implicate me in his death, saying that I provided military intelligence to kill him. This is another demonstration of how they make fun of the victims.”

The indigenous Minga is connecting with other social sectors, and renamed itself the Minga of Social and Community Resistance. A common concern are the free trade agreements (FTAs) that Uribe is negotiating with the US, Canada and the EU that would open up natural resources and public services to privatisation and even more to predatory exploitation.

Jean Lambert, the Green Party MEP for London joined Aida on the platform in Bolivar Hall on Saturday, she condemned “the deforestation and pollution that an EU deal would mean …we should be demanding no FTA”. Opposition to the FTAs is a central demand of fresh mobilisations around 12 October, Aida reports that, “the biggest teachers union in the country is going to go on strike … There will be a strike in the judicial realm. Protests will take place around the country”, and adds:

“The Minga will mobilise against US military bases, against free trade agreements which we know only serve to increase misery and erode rights, against systematic human rights violations by the army, paramilitaries and guerrillas, against the destruction of Mother Earth by an economic system which sees the earth as a material good which must be used to make money....but above all for a different Colombia and a different world, because we believe it is possible and that things must change one day. We have reached the limit. If we don't do it now then who will?”

Aida was invited by Unison Northern Region and the Northern TUC to Newcastle last week, where she met over a dozen trade union branches and addressed a public meeting of TUC International. Aida’s programme in London has been coordinated by the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and the UK branch of Polo Democrático Alternativo working with La Coordinadora Latinoamericana, Todas Las Voces and other community groups.

Aida’s supporters call for urgent action messages to the authorities against her judicial frame-up, and pledge solidarity actions on 12 October. The Bolivar Hall meeting decided on a demonstration from the Spanish Embassy (holders of the EU presidency from January 2010) to the join the picket against agrifuels, via the headquarters of implicated UK companies.

By Aguacate on Oct 3, 2009, 10:52 in Politics & the war.

larumberainglesa says on Oct 7, 2009, 07:13: Dunno what this is about as I didn't even read it but I can tell you there are plenty of mingas walking around in Great Britain today (I ain't one of them, mind) 0 funny, 0 helpful.

SiV says on Oct 14, 2009, 07:01: Plenty of muntas, too! Stultórum númere infinitum est. 0 funny, 0 helpful.

larumberainglesa says on Nov 12, 2009, 03:11: Yep. 0 funny, 0 helpful.

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