Raizal

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The Raizals are a Protestant Afro-Caribbean ethnic group, speaking the San Andrés-Providencia Creole, an English Creole, living in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, presently the Colombian San Andrés y Providencia Department, off the Nicaraguan Miskito Coast. They are recognized by the Colombian authorities as one of the Afro-Colombian ethnic groups under the multicultural policy led since 1991.

[edit] Separatism

In 1903 the local Raizal population rejected an offer from the USA to separate from Colombia, in the wake of Panama. However, the policy followed by successive Colombian governments, trying to modify the ethnic composition through extensive migration of Spanish-speaking mainland Colombians, resulted in heightening discontent, even more when the assimilation policy was led by Catholic missions in 1947 [1] [2].

In the end of the sixties, separatist movements began to be active in the archipelago.

The first, clandestine, movement was led by Marcos Archbold Britton, who addressed a memorandum to the United Nations, asking for the inclusion of the archipelago in the list of colonized territories. The UN High Commissionner for refugees came shortly afterwards on a private visit in the archipelago, arousing suspicions in Colombia [3].

The second movement, born at the end of the seventies, grew stronger in the next decade and culminated in the creation in March 1984 of the Sons of the Soil Movement (S.O.S.), with open self-determination claims .

Since 1999, another organization, the Archipelago Movement for Ethnic Native Self-Determination for the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providence and Kethlena (Amen - SD)[4], a radical separatist movement led by Rev. Raymond Howard Britton, demands the creation of an associated state [5].

There are nowadays, according to a document from the Colombian government, two trends among the Raizals, a radical one, the Pueblo Indígena Raizal, represented by the Indigenous Native Organizations, among whom Amen, Barraca New Face, Infaunas (a Rastafarian-inspired group of farmers and fishermen), Ketna (Ketlënan National Association), SOS Foundation, and a more moderate one, Comunidad Raizal (Native Foundation and Integración Básica), more ready to cooperate in the concertation organs put up by the Colombian authorities [6].

[edit] Demographics

In 2005, they constitued 57% of the 60,000 inhabitants of the San Andrés y Providencia Department, according to official statistics [7], but other sources claim they are now a minority population in the archipelago, as a consequence of migration from and to mainland Colombia. The Raizal community in the mainland is represented by the Organización de la comunidad raizal con residencia fuera del archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina (Orfa, based in Bogotá ) [8].

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Raizales (Spanish). Fundación Hemera. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  2. ^ Adelaida Cano Schütz (May 9 2005). Los raizales sanandresanos: realidades étnicas y discurso político (Spanish). pasaporte colombiano. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  3. ^ Adriana Matamoros Insignares (January 15 2007). Recordando a Marcos Archbold Britton, líder independentista raizal (Spanish). Fundación Hemera. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  4. ^ website: Archipelago Movement for Ethnic Native Self-Determination for the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providence and Kethlena
  5. ^ Raizales de San Andrés reclaman autonomía (Spanish). Fundación Hemera (June 4 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  6. ^ Programa Presidencial de Derechos Humanos y Derecho Internacional Humanitario (November 23 2007). Diagnóstico Archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina (Spanish). Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  7. ^ Fernando Urrea Giraldo (October 12 2007). La visibilidad estadística de la población negra o afrodescendiente en Colombia, 1993-2005: entre lo étnico y lo racial (Spanish). 12º Congreso de Antropología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  8. ^ website: Organización de la Comunidad Raizal con Residencia Fuera del Archipiélago
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