The Raizal are a Black Colombian ethnic group from the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, off Colombia's Caribbean coast. They are not defined by race but are labeled by the Colombian authorities as one of the

Afro-Colombian Afro-Colombians (), also known as Black Colombians (), are Colombians of total or predominantly Sub-Saharan African ancestry. Colombia has one of the largest African diaspora, Afro-descendant populations in South America, with government ...

ethnic groups under the multicultural policy pursued since 1991. They are speakers of the San Andrés–Providencia Creole, one of many English-based creole languages used in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Demographics

In 2005, the Raizal were 57% of the 60,000 inhabitants of the San Andrés y Providencia Department, according to official statistics, but based on the 2015 census, they are now only 39.4% of the population in the archipelago because of migration from and to mainland Colombia. Raizals are mostly multi-racial, with a majority being of West African and Northern European descent. 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 Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

Self-determination

In 1903, the local Raizal population of the Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands rejected an offer from the United States to separate from Colombia and to imitate

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

. Towards the late 1960s, separatist movements became active in the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

. The first separatists, an underground movement, were led by Marcos Archbold Britton, who addressed a memorandum to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

(UN) asking for the inclusion of the archipelago in the list of colonized territories. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) paid a private visit to the archipelago shortly afterwards, arousing suspicion in mainland Colombia. The second movement, which started in the late 1970s, grew stronger in the following decade, and culminated in the creation in March 1984 of the ''Sons of the Soil Movement'' (S.O.S.), openly claiming the right to

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

. Since 1999, another organization, the ''Archipelago Movement for Ethnic Native Self-Determination for the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providence and Santa Catalina'' (AMEN-SD), a radical separatist movement led by Rev. Raymond Howard Britton, has demanded the creation of an independent state. There are now, 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) and the SOS Foundation, and a more moderate one, ''Comunidad Raizal'' (Native Foundation and Integración Básica) led by former governors who are friends of the Colombian establishment, mainly Felix Palacios, Carlos Archbold and Alvaro Archbold N. The latter group is more ready to participate in bipartite institutions set up by the Colombian authorities. On April 28, 2002, the Raizal people signed a declaration of self-determination and asked the Colombian government and the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

for a major recognition of their autonomy and for appropriate resources to improve the quality of life on the island.

Demographics

Self-determination

See also

References

Further reading