THE KU KLUX KLAN IN COLOMBIA

THE SUN TALKS

IS THERE ANY KU KLUX KLAN IN COLOMBIA? Considering such class of topics, in a country where the right to express is actually a prohibition, is extremely hazardous and formidable. Nevertheless, there must be someone who dare and take into consideration such types of subjects. Otherwise, things in our country will not change. What will be exposed through theses lines will be the manner as the Ku Klux Klan is currently perceived in Colombia and its existence. In addition to that, to be speaking about the Ku Klux Klan in Colombia, it is important to talk a little bit about its roots and its principal representatives in the United States of America. On December 24 in 1865 at Pulaski, Tennessee, the Ku Klux Klan, one of the most terrorist organizations all over the world, was born. Ex-confederates, who took that name due to the fact of the onomatopoeia sound of a carbine when it is being armed, initially formed the organization. They assimilated it as the Ku Klux Klan.

The creation of the Klan was an answer to the Yankees advanced ideas that abolished slavery and gave Afro-Americans some freedom. With the intention of combating against the liberals ideas, the Klansmen united so as to proclaim the white supremacy. Furthermore, it was considered that the one, who was not White Anglo Saxon Parliant, had not right to dwell in the United States. Focusing on what is of concern to me, the existence of the Ku Klux Klan in Colombia; it is found that in Colombia is the same as in North America. However, in our country it has a different name. In the United States, It was called the Ku Klux Klan, and in Colombia, it is named the government politics. According to some studies carried out in our country by the United Nations, national planner and the peoples defender, it was discovered that after 150 years of the expedition of the law 21 of 1851 that legally abolished slavery in Colombia; the situation of black communities has not changed at all. The majority of the Afrocolombian population, in the pacific region, is in marginal, discrimination, and misery conditions. Moreover, the panorama of territories traditionally inhabited by Afrodescendants is alarming. In spite of the fact the expedition of law 70 was accomplished, the regions where Afrodescendants dwell are presently sceneria of violent confrontations among guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. These groups dispute these strategic places for the development of the nation, converting them into epicenters of an atrocious and sanguinary conflict where thousands of Afrocolombian are by force displaced to the capitals in which they are seen as guilty of their tragedy. Others are daily murdered, innocent victims of slaughter. Whereas, the natural resources are exploded without any rationality, the cities and the Afrocolombian towns lack of opportunities and appropriate infrastructure, and its habitants live restless and panicky. The legal slavery abolishment was nothing but a dense formalism for the Africanascendants; because the discriminatory spirit, racial prejudice and the racism, still, persist in every cultural, social, and politic relation fields in Colombia. Considering that from 26 percent of Afrocolombian people that exist, the bulk are in extreme poorness. In an analysis done by the DNP, the regions in which the Afrocolombians prevailed got lowest indexes of quality of life all around the country. In 1993, the percentage of basic unsatisfied needs of the Afro population in Colombia overcame the 80% and the level of poverty reached the 76.4% against national average of 37%. As it is stated in data of the people defender, black communities have rates of illiteracy of 43% for rural population and 20% for urban areas; the same data in the national environment are 23.4% for rural and 7.3% in urban areas. The covering of primary education is 60% in urban places and merely the 41% in rural areas, being

the national rate 87% and 73% respectively. In secondary, the covering is solely 38%, being exclusive urban centers, while such a factor in the Andina region obtains 88%. In the pacific region where the 92% of the population is Afro, for each 100 young that graduate from high school merely two enter the university. The 95% of the families cannot send their sons to the university because of the lack of enough economic resources. The quality of secondary is inferior in 40% in respect to the others parts of the nation. The pacific region with more than 1.300 kilometer in beach and 1.264.000 in population solely posses two public universities, located in Quibd and Buenaventura, being deficit in budget, educational personnel and technology education. Referring to the patter of epidemiology of black communities at national level, it is found that morbidity and a mortality of high incidence and prevalence of illnesses as acute diarrhea (EDA), Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome, tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera, characterize those communities. Additionally, the Afrocolombian people communities present a high infantile mortality. Between 10 and 50 percent for above the national average. In the pacific region of Colombia, for each thousand children born alive, one hundred seventeen die. In contrast, in such a region are found inferior affiliations to the contributive and subsidized regime. The education of the pacific region is in general terms the worst, according to the icfes test results. In spite of that, departmental governments had to discharge hundreds of teachers. There are others point that could be taken into account as the sanitary and public services covering, the rural and the urban telephonic services, employs and so on. In conclusion, black communities in Colombia live in an extreme systematic exclusion that as the Ku Klux Klan in the United States, the government always proclaims the half-caste supremacy and the eager to get rid of the Afrocolombian population. That is the reason why the president and his planning secretary, in a country of cultural and ethnic pluralities and in spite of knowing such realities, go to the media and express that the pacific region is not a priority for the central government and those societies are a heavy loads for the government. It also explains why the black people that live in Buenaventura, the city where the most relevant port of Colombia is located, the port that offers our country hundreds of billions dollars, subsist in deed and in extreme poorness. Country of annoyances! Hence, the point of view expressed through such lines is correct. There is a masked KKK in Colombia.