The Inga People of Villagarzón requests the accompaniment of the Procurator's Office in the verification visit to APE La Cabaña ordered in tutela 2015-00559

Verification visit to APE La Cabaña.

The Inga People of Villagarzón states that there is a high risk of violation of its fundamental rights, specifically the right to Prior Consultation, owing to the incursion of extractive companies into the territory, which are carrying out exploration without the due consent of the authorities.

The Cabildos (Indigenous traditional authority) are technically and legally recognised; however, the Ministry of the Interior, Directorate of Prior Consultation, denies the existence of communities in the territory around the APE La Cabaña project.

In compliance with the court order of the Tribunal of Nariño, the verification visit to determine whether or not the Inga People is present is scheduled to take place until 08 March 2021.

Oversight bodies such as the Procurator's Office are not attending, even though the ruling explicitly states the importance of their accompaniment in this process.

In compliance with the order of the Administrative Court of Nariño regarding the tutela action and contempt proceeding under case number 52001-23-33-003-2015-00559-00, and consequently with the demand to safeguard the life and culture of the Inga People of Villagarzón, the traditional authorities, within the framework of their uses, customs, cosmogony, self-government, law of origin, own law and regulations, and their own mandates such as Resolution 002 of January 23, 2015, the Indigenous people's own methodology, and the Mandate of the Elders Suma Kausangapa, always seeking consistency with international law standards in application of ILO Convention 169 and Law 21 of 1991 of the Colombian State, and after a participatory dialogue with the Afro-descendant communities, the Inga People of Villagarzón built the methodological route to be used in the verification visit proposed from March 1 to March 7, 2021, during which the verification visit will be carried out within the framework of the APE La Cabaña (PUT-1).

According to the methodology, the opening meeting was scheduled for 01 March to verify the attendance and participation of the institutions convened and also to set the guidelines and minimum parameters to be taken into account in preparing the reports for their subsequent submission. Some institutions, such as the Ministry of the Interior, attended this exercise, but neither the National nor the regional Procurator's Office was present, creating a risk to the fulfilment of the verification visit, given that under the tutela both the Procurator's Office and the National Ombudsman's Office are required to take part.

In view of the above, the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of the municipality of Villagarzón, Putumayo - ACIMVIP denounces that the Procurator's Office has failed to comply with its participation and commitments and has disregarded the ruling that binds it within the accompaniment process.

¨Given the circumstances, and added to the background of bad faith on the part of officials of the Ministry of the Interior - Directorate of Prior Consultation, for us the only institutions that could provide real guarantees for compliance with the ruling, as well as effective accompaniment within the framework of due process and the defence of our rights, are the Public Ministry, represented by the Procurator's Office and the Delegate Ombudsman's Office for ethnic groups. Their absence threatens and endangers this verification process, given that in previous scenarios the Ministry of the Interior - Directorate of Prior Consultation has not carried out, accompanied and fulfilled the functions it currently has¨, stated Carlos López Descanse, president of ACIMVIP.

The National Procurator's Office has stated that it does not have the resolution designating the officials who must be in the territory, even though the visit has been promoted since December 2020, and even since previous years.

Carlos López Descanse, president of ACIMVIP, added: “On 22 February we met with the organisations, the Ministry of the Interior and delegates of the Public Ministry in order to clarify the scope and the methodology proposed by the Inga People and Afro communities for the verification visit, to confirm their participation, and to agree on minimum parameters for preparing the reports they were to produce in fulfilment of the verification visit, as well as the opinions they would submit to the Tribunal of Nariño. In this meeting, the ethnic affairs professional of the National Procurator's Office stated that her participation was undecided, but there was full assurance that the Procurator's Office would be present through the Putumayo regional office, precisely to guarantee due process, as ordered by the tutela ruling. The Delegate Ombudsman's Office for ethnic affairs confirmed its participation and its commitment to submit the report on this verification visit”

Vanessa Torres, deputy director of the Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad, an organisation that accompanies the process, stated: ¨It is worrying that an entity such as the Office of the Procurator General of the Nation is not clarifying the reason for its absence from a visit ordered by a Judge of the Tribunal of Nariño, which explicitly orders a visit to be carried out in compliance with all the parameters of the law, and where the participation of the oversight bodies is important to guarantee the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples. In this visit the future and survival of an Indigenous community such as the Inga People is being decided. If the project goes ahead without Prior Consultation, a fundamental right of Indigenous Peoples, it will surely end up destroying ancestral territory, just as the communities have been denouncing in this process¨

As authorities of the Inga People of Villagarzón, they respectfully call on the National Procurator's Office delegated for ethnic groups to fulfil its functions and above all to be a guarantor of the fundamental rights of ethnic groups in the department of Putumayo, given the harm the territories are currently suffering.

The Inga People is a native people of this territory, which it has inhabited since times when there were no boundaries or limits. For the Inga People the territory is the source of life; without it, the families and the Afro communities would disappear. The Inga People of Villagarzón has established that the land is the mother, which allows its survival and existence. If the territory, the soil and the subsoil are harmed in their entirety, the masters and the spirits will become extinct, and with them the culture that still endures would become extinct.

More about the process:

On 3 July 2015, the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of the Municipality of Villagarzón – ACIMVIP filed a tutela (constitutional action) against the Nation – Ministry of the Interior, seeking protection of its rights to prior consultation, due process and autonomy of the Inga community of the municipalities of Villagarzón and Puerto Caicedo (Putumayo), violated in connection with the La Cabaña Exploratory Drilling Project.

The Tutela was heard at first instance by the Administrative Tribunal of Nariño, which ruled in favour of the community by Judgment dated 10 November 2015, protecting the fundamental rights to due process, autonomy, prior consultation and due process of the Inga communities of Villagarzón and Puerto Caicedo; a judgment upheld by the Council of State at Second Instance.

On 28 October 2019, the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of the Municipality of Villagarzón – ACIMVIP filed a contempt proceeding before the Administrative Tribunal of Nariño (Tutela Judge), owing to non-compliance with the tutela Judgment issued by that tribunal, which was resolved in favour of ACIMVIP and the Inga People of Villagarzón by interlocutory order dated 27 January 2020. In the Interlocutory Order by which the Tribunal decided the contempt proceeding, it made several clarifications establishing criteria and a methodology to be taken into account by the DCP in carrying out the visit and in forming the interdisciplinary group, setting as non-negotiable that the presence of an experienced expert environmental professional be guaranteed, and likewise setting parameters to be taken into account in drafting the administrative act certifying, or not, the presence of the community in the area of influence of the Project.

The Interlocutory Order that decided the contempt proceeding was challenged by the Ministry of the Interior through a tutela for de facto action (vías de hecho) filed before the Council of State against the Administrative Tribunal of Nariño. It should be noted that this Tutela was supported by the company Gran Tierra Energy and that, in it, the Council of State ruled in favour of the Tribunal, stating that no de facto action, as alleged, had been incurred in the decision on the contempt proceeding.

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