Whoever sees Liliana Pechené Muelas today cannot imagine that shy girl who was afraid of white people and who entered Silvia’s school for the first time in the eighties, when the Colombian Constitution of 1886 was still in force, which did not equate the indigenous people with the rest of the citizens. “My parents decided that I had to receive an education beyond that which we share in our community, and that is why they sent me to a nuns’ school,” she recalls.
Pechené abandoned that silence and shyness to assume political responsibilities within the council from a very young age: his first position came shortly after finishing high school. She began a path that led her to research about her people and promote the memory of the Misak and to be part of the delegation that accompanied the then Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, to the Nobel Prize ceremony in 2016, as an indigenous representative of the victims of the armed conflict.
The ancient people of the Misak, also known as Guambiano, have historically occupied part of what is now the department of Cauca, in southwestern Colombia. Their name means “people of the water.” According to the 2018 census, 21,713 people recognized themselves as belonging to this community. They represent 1.14% of the country’s indigenous population. “We have always been a people of non-violence,” says Pechené at a program event World Coexists from the Carlos III University of Madrid.
Pechené starred in a historic takeover in 2017 as governor of the Guambía Reservation (southeast of Cauca). More than 4,000 votes turned “Mamá Liliana,” as some call her, into the new guide of her town, symbolically and literally assigning her her baton of command. Additionally, in 2018 she was awarded as one of the best leaders in Colombia and in 2019 she received the award in Peru Elinor Ostrom for his role in promoting the culture of peace. “Assuming leadership in my town has meant great responsibility and a challenge. Proposing and implementing changes to the rules of coexistence in ancestral cultures, also from my role as a woman, has not been easy. But it was possible,” she explains.
Proposing and implementing changes to the rules of coexistence in ancestral cultures, also from my role as a woman, has not been easy. But it was possible
Liliana Pechené, governor of the Guambía Reservation
“We cannot understand the Earth only as matter, it is about much more. The Earth is a living being that guards deep knowledge and is the center of complex interconnections,” says Pechené in front of dozens of young people at the Casa de Vacas Cultural Center, inside Madrid’s Retiro Park, on Earth Day, December 22. April. His message conveys the urgency of sharing a wisdom that the Misak people has guarded with commitment.
It is not the first time that the recognized leader of the Misak has visited Europe, and that she has traveled more than 8,000 kilometers from her native Cauca to be an ambassador of their culture and identity. An identity that she manifests daily, wearing the typical clothing of her town, including the hat. Tampal Kuari. “It represents the essence of our culture, a symbol of the misak life cycles, of our rituality and testimony of the meaning and importance of each element of nature.”
Pechené’s fight comes from afar: from his ancestors. His words encourage reflection and are at the same time a call to action. “Today we look at our mother [en alusión a la Tierra] and we see her sick,” he says. “Some of her sons and daughters are looking for medicine to heal them, while others are just waiting for her to die. The fundamental question is, which group are you in?”
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