Colombia: Guardians of Guaviare: Southern Colombia’s Land Fight

Nov 27, 2024 | Lital Khaikin, Fair Planet
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The Jiw (pronounced “Hue”) are a small Indigenous community in southern Colombia, also known as Guiabero. The 3000 members of this community live along the Guaviare River that snakes between the departments of Guaviare and Meta, settlements driven by a coca economy that, during the 1970s and 80s, turned Guaviare into the heartland of cocoa cultivation in Colombia. The Jiw have been repeatedly displaced by decades of colonial settlement, militarisation by the Colombian state and non-state armed groups, and agro-industrial projects in the lowlands.