Torrential rains, mudslides and landslides that have hit the Republic of Colombia from early November 2010 are causing an extremely severe human disaster of unimaginable proportion particularly in areas inhabited by African people, in the northern east and Pacific coast.
At least 260 people have died in the landslides and the floods that have been called the worst in 40 years. According to a December 4 article on MSNBC.com, at least 1.5 million have been impacted. In addition, 1,800 homes were destroyed while 256,000 have been damaged.
The rain that fell on Riosucio Township in the Chocó region, and the subsequent flooding typifies the hell that has engulfed the lives of African and oppressed people in Colombia. The overflowing of the Atrato and San Juan rivers has made the disaster worse in Chocó, which is in the northeast of Colombia.
An account given on the Colombia-based blog Mira Sysmya on November 26 says, “Riosucio is underwater. For the past 30 days the level of the Atrato River has grown at every drop of rain and now reaches 3 meters high, leaving at least 1,200 homes flooded.”
Another blog, Liberta de apuntes, quotes Riosucio’s representative, Darío Blandón. “The whole city is flooded including the road to the highway up to the National Army battalion.” The blog continues, “The health center, the elementary and high schools are also submerged. There is not a single house that is above the waters. The people are leaving their houses through the windows and roofs.”
This huge devastating ecological force, exposed bare the economic and social poverty Africans are forced to live under in colonial Colombia. Most of our people are forced to seek refuge on rooftops of miserable makeshift houses built on shaky foundations of hunger, designed ignorance, colonial violence and intimidation.
Every natural disaster always hits African people everywhere — in Africa, Haiti, New Orleans, Colombia or elsewhere — with a nuclear bomb impact.
Imperialism has worked out that masses of African people and their properties can be destroyed in huge numbers — to the advantage of the government, which intends to displace African people, lock us up in refugee camps and use the land at the expense of African people. It is a way to reduce and control African populations, under the cover of natural disasters.
Flood and landslides mean deepening health hazard and other colonial conditions that besiege Africans and other colonized people
One emergency worker in the area said, “Sanitation systems have been destroyed and clean water is increasingly hard to find, leaving children at risk of diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases. Huge pools of dirty water also create a breeding ground for diseases such as malaria to which children are particularly vulnerable.”
Reportedly, at least 4,000 people have been bitten by snakes that have washed up. At least 27 people have been killed as a result.
The problem is that the masses of Africans are stateless wherever we are located. We do not have power of our own that we can use to look after ourselves.
Colombia is a settler state in the hands of settlers from Europe. Africans in Colombia are an internal colony, a domestic colony of the Colombia bourgeoisie, which itself is dominated by U.S. imperialism.
During colonial slavery, it was Spain who directly ruled over African people in Columbia.
We need to be free from the Colombia State. We need to end the colonial domination of Africans in Colombia by the Colombia government and replace it with our own power, based in the mobilization and organization of African workers and peasants throughout Colombia.
This must be part of the ongoing overall effort of the African Socialist International (ASI) to unite all African people everywhere to liberate Africa and unite all black people on earth as part of one, united African nation under the leadership of African workers in alliance with the poor peasantry.
Real aid must come from Africans and other oppressed peoples
Aid relief must first come from within the dispersed African nation and from other oppressed peoples like the indigenous peoples of the Americas or from friendly states to African people.
There is no such thing as genuine solidarity from slaving nation to enslaved nation. It is an impossible reality.
What imperialists refer to as aid relief, humanitarian assistance or any other kind of “help” is in fact a strategy to undermine Africans and other oppressed people in their perception of who or what imperialism is about.
It also serves to unite the white population with the ideological assumption of imperialism itself that weather is the issue, not colonialism or white power.
Every natural disaster is also an opportunity for white charities and other parasitic agencies that specialize in scavenging off of our plight in order to mobilize and reap more resources for themselves.
It is harvest time for them! Where is all of the donation money from the Haiti earthquake? What about Katrina? It is in the hands of colonial charities and white rulers.
We cannot continue to rely on imperialist charities, which maintains business as usual. We need to begin to mobilize the worldwide African population to stand up to its responsibility of being permanently mobilized and organized to take care of our own everywhere we are located.
So that we have thousands of Africans at every Colombian consulate, eager and passionate about going to Colombia to help our own people in Colombia, Haiti, Congo and elsewhere where the cries for urgent help have been resonating for far too long.
Many Africans living in remote areas have been fleeing the armed conflict between FARC guerrillas and the U.S.-backed Colombian army and its paramilitary. They do not receive any assistance from the State when they are targeted by the settler Colombia bourgeoisie for land confiscation and displacement.
This is the time for African people to step forward along with the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) for Colombia. African skilled as carpenters, civil engineers, nurses and more must stand up for African people in Colombia.
We need people to join AAPDEP, donate resources to make possible AAPDEP’s work in Colombia. We need to stand up shoulder to shoulder with our oppressed and impoverished people in Colombia.
