But nonviolence remains the watchword for how the indigenous deal with the outside world, as shown by the foiled kidnapping by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in November.
The kidnapping victims included four consultants from the state capital, Popayan, who had driven up to this isolated town in Colombia's central mountain range to assist Jambalo leaders with administrative and bookkeeping matters.
The consultants were returning to Popayan with three locals when half a dozen guerrillas stopped their van and took them all hostage. The kidnappers and their captives began marching east up a rugged mountainside toward an area where FARC leaders are known to hide out.
One of the victims managed to make a cellphone call to Jambalo leaders, who ordered out the indigenous guards, a 360-member phalanx of mostly young leaders whose job is to spread the alarm at times of crisis and to organize a community response.
Guard leader Fermin Jembuel said the kidnappings violated a tacit decades-long agreement with the FARC that the rebels leave Jambalo alone in exchange for the community's neutrality in the FARC's quarrel with the government.
"We have 36 villages on the reservation, and all were activated under our emergency plan," Jembuel said. "Checkpoints were set up on every road and path."
After the hostages were released, the guerrillas were allowed to flee. All except for one: a member of the Jambalo community who was a FARC collaborator. In a subsequent trial, he was banished from the reservation for 15 years as punishment, said Dagua, the tribe's leader.
"The level of organization and commitment that the communities have, and how much they resist all external threats to their land, is a clear example of strength," said Mario Murillo, a Hofstra University professor who is writing a book on Colombia's indigenous communities.
"But it also points up the challenges they face, surrounded as they are by forces that pose a severe threat."
It was hardly the first time the Jambalo tribe has had to look down the rifle barrels of armed groups encroaching on its domain. Several years ago, tribe members destroyed five "kitchens" set up by drug traffickers on their land to process cocaine. More recently, they repeatedly have escorted army patrols off their 1,500-acre reservation.
"The army offers to come and deal with the FARC and the traffickers, but we don't want them involved," Dagua said, adding that the presence of armed groups would only ignite a cycle of violence. "We'll take care of our problems our way."
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chris.kraul@latimes.com
