They desperately need our solidarity and practical support. They have lost everything, the house needs rebuilding and all belongings have been lost. Members of the family are suffering from acute illness caused by the wet and the cold exacerbated by the high altitude. We appeal on their behalf for any financial help however small you may be able to provide to help their situation, at such a distance this is the most practical support we an provide. Any messages of support I am sure would be warmly received.

Below is the background story of our friends of the Tubu Tribe, bank details if you are able to make a donation, and an email address for sending messages of support. Thank you for your solidarity in this time of need.


You can donate via this bank account (please ref any bank transfers TUBU)

account name: IWW branch 450
account code: 20249184
sort code: 08-60-01
bank: unity trust bank

To arrange any cash donations or offer any messages of support, ideas or questions regarding the situation etc please feel free to contact the West Midlands IWW member directly at the email:  tomjoad3@hotmail.co.uk


 http://player.vimeo.com/video/13565450
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/suari/4258112471/


Situation Background
The families settling in the capital city Bogota is a chapter in a story too familiar for Colombia’s remaining 80 indigenous groups.

For a long time the jungles and mountains of Colombia have been the backdrop for a desperate political situation that has developed over many decades and is complex being formed of many interlinking factors.

Since the late 1960s the government has been locked in a war with the FARC ep (revolutionary armed forces of Colombia) and many other smaller Marxist guerrilla groups. Also working against the rebels are large independent paramilitary forces.

Into this conflict must also be placed the dynamic of cocaine and the emergence of the power of the narco trafficker and cartels. The competition of who controls this lucrative product and its supply has helped shape the conflict.

The rural areas where many indigenous communities have their traditional lands are therefore often battlegrounds between these armed actors and the communities become the victims of many atrocities.

Into this situation is added one further factor.These areas are also rich in natural resources and those external multinational and corporate interest's that seek to extract wealth from these areas are are directly aligned against indigenous interests.

For the Tubu their story is a culmination of these factors. The Tubu are part of a minority ethnic group known as the Syrians. Their homeland is situated in the Valupes department in eastern Colombia on the border with Brazil. This is by air more than 600km south east from Bogota D.C.

More than 15 years ago troubles began for the people Tubu. This had first began with the attempted evangelisation of the people by catholic priests in the 40s a process of acculturation still affecting ethnic people today and backed by those hoping to erode indigenous resistance to the exploitation of natural resources.

In the late 90s this border region became a route in the smuggling of cocaine and weaponry. In Nov 1998 a large force of FARC guerrillas largely destroyed the provisional capital reducing much of the town to rubble. Four days later a counter attack by governmental forces in retaliation for the annihilation of their forces resulted in the deaths of 800 rebels. In 2004 the region became re-militarised, an in operations to apparently thwart smuggling government planes carried out bombing operations across the department.

During this time the Tubu faced extreme violence from all sides resulting in murder, beatings and humiliation. Their being movement hampered by the indiscriminate deployment of land mines and bombings and the actions of hostile forces. In the face of such adversity and with the scattering of their people, our friends sought an exile in the capital rather than the violence they had been to subjected in their homeland. Whist forced to live in a single dwelling in a foreign environment the family have kept the flame of their ancestral heritage alive, and have continually had to fight for their dignity in the face of urban survival.