Department of Guainía

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(Detail)	(Detail)

Motto:

Capital

Inirida

Governor

Wilson Ladino Vigoya

Area

72,238 km²

Population
- Total (2003)
- Density

43,314
0,6 people/km²

Adjective

Guainía (Yira language for "Land of many waters") is a department of Colombia. It is in the east of the country, bordering Venezuela and Brazil. Its capital is Inirida., in 1963 Guainía it's segregated of Vaupés. The northern part and the Inírida River are included in the Orinoquia, the rest is part of Amazonia. The Guaviare River is the main area of colonization, many colonos come from the Colombian Andean zone, most of them from Boyacá. They are followed by the llaneros, people from the Eastern plains. The main population is composed by Native Indians, the big ethnic groups are the Puinave (from the makú-puinave family) and the curripaco (from the arawak family). They are a total of 24 ethnic groups in the Departamento, many of them speak four Indian languages besides Spanish and Portuguese.

The Departamento is known for its coca crops and the guerrilla presence, but many in Colombia ignore the beaty landscape, the variety in food and the Indians deep sense of hospitality. Colonization, narcotraffic and war are displacing the original population and pushing many of them into force displacement. Before the Mapiripan massacre, in the near South-Meta Departamento, the area was an island of peace inside violent Colombia. After 1996, the expansion of paramilitary forces ("self-defenses") lead them to the Guaviare River and Inírida surroundings. Now the presence of state military has strengthen and the capture of Bernardinho Viera-Mar, a leading Brazilian narcotrafficker, prompted the Departamento to the headlines. It occurred in Barrancominas, the second biggest population. In the political arena, the natives had won important places, like the Inírida mayor office and the sit of the governor. In January 20th, the governor, Efrén de Jesús Ramírez Sabana, was putted out of office because he was condemned by a Villavicencio judge in a case of nourishing unattendance. The outsted governor is ethnically a Sikuani, he won office by the Autoridades Indígenas de Colombia, AICO (Colombian Indigenous Authorities) with a high percentage.

[edit] Municipalities

There's only one municipality in Guainía: Inírida, the capital. The rest of the territory is subdivided in corregimientos departamentales, a pending figure due to public disorder 1. This case happens only in Amazonas, Vaupés y Vichada. Barrancominas, is the second biggest population and its main corregimiento; it is located in the Guaviare River.

The Guainía corregimientos are:

Most of the territory is inside Indian resguardos, a figure more autonomous than United States reservations. Land owners dislike this because this lands can not be selled, taken or prescript. One of the bigger resguardos is Chorro Bocón, in the medium Inírida River.