
“In this area life is worth nothing and a Yukpa’s life less than others”
The Yukpa are fighting to get their ancestral territory back, but they are divided, illiterate, and suffer from violence and from health problems. As Lusbi explains: “The Yukpa are malnourished, especially the children. They die of sickness, diarrhoea, respiratory diseases, fever and parasites. They sleep on the floor and bathe in the river. They breathe a lot of smoke as they cook with firewood.” Nonetheless, the Yukpa are warriors. They want their territory back and six of the 167 Yukpa communities are working together in this fight. “This unity gives them some strength,” says Lusbi. “Entire families have occupied ranches and it has become clear to the cattle ranchers that they would have to kill them, a lot people, to get them out.” In the end the government has allowed the Yukpa people to stay and compensated the cattle ranchers for their investments in the land. The Yukpa have recovered 15 ranches in this way. It has been a dangerous and unequal fight as cattle ranchers are the political bosses of the area; they control the police and they have money to bribe. In contrast, the Yukpa are marginalised and accused of crimes they have not committed. Eight Yukpa leaders have been killed. “In this area life is worth nothing and a Yukpa’s life is worth even less than everyone else’s.” Such is the case of Yukpa chief Sabino Romero, a well-known activist, who was wrongly accused of killing two men and imprisoned for 17 months. As there was no real evidence to back the allegations against him, he was eventually freed. On 3 March of this year two men on a motorbike killed him while he was travelling in a vehicle with his wife Lucía.