To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > News Dec. 14, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/12/14/colombia Murder in Colombia American Indians seek to avenge the murder of one of their leaders by leftist rebels. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Ana Arana The same day that guerrillas of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) executed three American Indian rights activists on the Venezuelan border, the FARC also sent an electronic message to American Indian leaders in New York promising their prompt release. The message was received with jubilation at the American Indian Community House in New York, where a crowd had gathered. The festive mood suddenly turned dark when American Express called to say two credit cards had been found on the body of a dead woman in Venezuela. The cards led to the identification of Ingrid Washinowatok of New York, Lahe'ena'e Gay of Hawaii and Terence Freitas of California, the very activists the Indians thought were on their way to safety. Almost nine months later, little progress has been made in apprehending those responsible for the March murders. The Colombian government is eager to revive faltering peace talks with the guerrillas and the Clinton administration has not tied further aid to the resolution of the case, although it has refused any contact with the rebels until the suspects are handed over. But the American Indian movement, angered by the loss of Washinowatok, a key leader, is mounting a campaign to push for justice. A three-month investigation uncovered the brutal nature of the killings and the murky mix of motives and tragic misunderstandings behind the crime. The three Americans were abducted on Feb. 25 as they left the reservation of the indigenous U'wa tribe in northeast Colombia, where they had attended a religious ceremony. Washinowatok headed the Fund for Four Directions, a wealthy American Indian philanthropic group founded by Anne Rockefeller, daughter of the late David Rockefeller, to help indigenous projects around the world. She and Gay, a photographer and organizer of Indian cultural projects in Hawaii, had been invited by the U'Wa to help set up an U'Wa Indian language school. Freitas, an environmental activist, had been in and out of the territory for the last two years working with the U'wa and Project Underground, an aggressive environmental group that operates worldwide, to fight oil exploration by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum on their ancestral lands. The U'Wa's threat to commit mass suicide had garnered worldwide attention, but the women had no idea that the U'Wa were also locked in a longstanding feud with the guerrillas, who seek to control the oil-rich territory. Freitas was the only one who had had contact with the FARC, and he believed he had ironed out all his problems in two meetings he held with FARC representatives, according to Colombian sources. U.S. and Colombian investigators believe that the orders to kill the Americans came from the FARC's central headquarters, but U.S. officials dispute Indian leaders' assertions that the three were targeted because of U.S. policy in the region. "We believe they were targeted because they were foreigners who went into an area where the FARC wants to control access, not because they were Americans," said Ambassador Michael Sheehan, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, which monitors FARC activities. Although the deaths have disappeared from the media, they are still a topic of hot discussion on Indian reservations across the United States because Washinowatok was a rising star in this dismembered community. She sought to reconnect native Americans to the global indigenous movement at a time when many Indian activists were focused on fights over casino licenses, according to friends and followers. "Ingrid did heroic things. It's not that she was naive to go into Colombia, it's that she was doing what she thought was right. She lived by her principles," said John Trudell, a former radical Indian leader who was one of the leaders of the 1969 Indian takeover of Alcatraz Island, and is now a musician in Los Angeles. Trudell said few outside their community can understand the pain and anger American Indians felt at losing Washinowatok in such a violent manner, and to such an unlikely enemy. A Menominee Indian from Minnesota, Washinowatok was the daughter of an Indian chief who had fought during the '50s for Indian land rights. A prominent American Indian who grew up during the heyday of the Indian movement in the United States, Washinowatok was at the helm of a new push in her community to get involved in indigenous movements around the Americas. A graduate of the University of Havana, she was fluent in Spanish and had done extensive work in Guatemala with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu. So, when the U'was asked her for help in preserving their language, Washinowatok jumped at the chance, and decided to go to Colombia despite warnings from several friends. "Ingrid thought she would make a difference," said Jose Barreiro, head of the Native American Studies Program at Cornell University. Soon after the three were kidnapped, they were marched toward the Venezuelan border through virgin rain forest and harsh terrain. When her body was found, Washinowatok had no shoes and her feet showed cuts and abrasions suggesting she had been forced to walk barefoot. She had been bitten by a poisonous spider, and the FARC refused to give her proper medication after a quick visit to a guerrilla-friendly doctor, according to Colombian intelligence documents. When the Venezuelan police recovered her body, her face was destroyed with a gunshot, and her American Express cards with her name and the name of her foundation were lodged in her panties. "The way they killed them was torturous," said the Venezuelan captain who found the bodies. American Indians now admit that they made major miscalculations in their analysis of the FARC during those eight days when Washinowatok was held captive. "We operated from the point of view -- hey, we're Indians. Ingrid had studied in Havana, she spoke Spanish and she had worked with Indian people all over. We thought it should be OK," said Alex Ewen of the Solidarity Foundation, a New York Indian philanthropic group. "We didn't understand that this group was different." Although the FARC is a self-declared Marxist-Leninist group that has been fighting the Colombian government for the last 30 years, its tactics reflect what one Colombian analyst has called a "Gen-X revolutionary" style, a mixture of Marxism and outlaw capitalist practices they have learned from drug traffickers, who pay them up to $500 million a year for protecting cocaine plantations and drug shipping routes. "These people have nothing in common with other revolutionary movements in Central America. They are the same as drug traffickers," said Cornell's Barreiro. "But you have to understand, Indians have a hard time criticizing revolutionary movements." Many American Indians believed that being Indians committed to the cause of the underdogs kept them safe from harm -- even though 11 U.S. citizens have been killed by the FARC in the last 20 years. They were also lulled because last year the FARC had released three Americans bird-watchers unharmed. "Everybody told us the FARC only kidnapped for ransom," said Barreiro. The murders have changed that perception. A few community members still doubt the FARC carried out the murders. But the prevalent image among the community at large -- from small Indian tribal chiefs around the country to legendary American Indian Movement figures such as Clyde Bellecourt and John Trudell -- is that the FARC are simple criminals. "The truth is that the left is the worst for indigenous people," said Trudell in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "No matter how you want to see the FARC, you don't kill non-combatants." The American Indian community has been holding strategy sessions along with Washinowatok's husband, Ali El Issa, a Palestinian she met in Havana. "We have a lot of people in this country and other countries who are eager to support a revolution, and the FARC gets some of their support. Our interest is to get to those people and show them what the FARC is capable of doing -- of murdering potential allies," explained Trudell, who shies away from calling their efforts a war. "We have little resources, but we will be heard." Options are to hack into the Web sites used by the FARC for propaganda purposes and broadcast Washinowatok's picture and biography, and to expose the names of people who work for the FARC in the United States and in Europe. Indian leaders are not saying when they will start their campaign, to keep the element of surprise. Colombian authorities have charged FARC rebel leader German Suarez Briceno, known as "Grannobles," and a U'wa Indian who informed on the activities of Washinowatok and her companions the week they visited the reservation, for the murders. Both are at large, and there are no expectations that the Colombian authorities will ever catch them. Grannobles is brother to Jorge Suarez Briceno, aka "Mono Jojoy," a brother of German, and the second most powerful military leader within the FARC's top command. Indian leaders say the order to kill the Americans came from Mono Jojoy, but U.S. officials say only that the order came from the central command. The FARC has rejected the Colombian indictment, maintaining that a guerrilla commander known as Gildardo acted without the approval of his superiors. They have promised a guerrilla investigation, but no results have been released, and radio intercepts show a less repentant attitude. Two months after the murder, for instance, Grannobles was heard on short-wave radio saying, "The Americans were killed because they worked for the DEA and the CIA and had come to this country to turn the Indians against us." While the FARC has issued a public apology for the murders, it has never communicated directly with the community, nor answered requests by Washinowatok's family to meet with rebel representatives. "In the end they will know Indians are neutral people, and we should be treated that way. We have a long tradition at this," warned Ewen. But Rosemary Richmond, director of the Indian Community House in New York, put it more plainly. "We will not rest until there is justice," she said. salon.com | Dec. 14, 1999   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Ana Arana, an investigative journalist who focuses on criminal organizations in Latin America, is a senior fellow at the Center for War, Peace and the News Media.