José Albino Cañas Ramírez did not die in a war zone, though war had shaped the landscape where he lived. He was shot at his home in the community of Portachuelo, in Colombia’s Caldas department, on the evening of February 16. Two men came to the shop he ran from his house, opened fire, and fled along the footpaths that lace the Indigenous reserve. He was 44. His killing was treated not merely as a private tragedy, but as a public matter of governance. Cañas Ramírez was a cabildante—a member of the governing council—of the Resguardo of Colonial Origin Cañamomo Lomaprieta, an Emberá Chamí territory of more than 23,000 people spread across dozens of communities. His death, leaders said, struck at the very structure of Indigenous self-government. The Emberá Chamí, whose name means “people of the mountains,” inhabit the central and western Andes. Their lands are biodiverse, steep, and contested. For decades, they have lived at the intersection of armed conflict and extractive ambition. Guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, criminal networks, miners, and state interests have all sought to control territory that the Emberá consider ancestral. The result has been what activists call a form of “double victimization”: pressure from illegal armed actors on one side, and development projects and resource exploitation on the other. Within this landscape, leaders bear unusual risk. The Resguardo Cañamomo Lomaprieta has faced threats linked to illegal gold mining and the armed presence for years. In 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures recognizing…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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