Abstract

This paper deals with the progress on the rights of ethnic minorities in Colombia, specifically on indigenous groups, focusing on the achievements reached thanks to the 1991 Constitution. However, aware that rules by themselves do not have the capacity to transform reality, there is an objective description of the actual conditions of the indigenous populations in Colombia, but there is also a focus on the creative and building capacity of indigenous people and their organizations. Indigenous people claim their right to peace, autonomy and respectful relationship with Mother Nature, as the only way for the survival of the human being, now threatened by the priority of economic and political interests, legal as well as illegal.