E/CN.4/2003/90 page 14 the authorities regarding the State’s intention to allow a private company to build several large hydroelectric dams that would flood a good part (up to 7,000 hectares) of their traditional territories. 38. Concerned about the negative ecological and economic effects that the Urrá 1 dam would have on their cultures and social organization, the Emberá-Katío traditional authorities (cabildos) have been subject to great pressures and been accused of being guerrilla supporters and “enemies of progress”. Since 1992 some of their land was expropriated as being of “public utility” and the privately owned Urrá company received a licence to begin work on the project without prior consultation with the indigenous communities (mandatory according to the Colombian Constitution). 39. In 1994 the company and Colombia’s National Indigenous Organization (ONIC) agreed on a framework for mandatory consultation before the beginning of the second phase of the project, involving flooding and functioning of the dam. A proposed Ethno-Development Plan established compensation for eventual negative impacts of the dam on the Emberá-Katío. However, as the river was diverted, new damaging impacts emerged, such as making it difficult for the indigenous to navigate and fish in the river. Despite an evolving conflict, the company obtained the government licence to flood the area. This was later nullified by Colombia’s Constitutional Court, which declared that the process violated the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples, and ordered a new consultation process as well as compensation for the Emberá-Katío.47 In 1998 violence escalated, several indigenous families were forced to leave their homes under threat, property was destroyed and, more seriously, several indigenous leaders were assassinated or forcibly disappeared, presumably by paramilitary forces, whereas others became the alleged victims of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 40. In 1999 the company was able to obtain another licence for flooding, despite only partial consultation with the indigenous communities. Some of these refused to resettle notwithstanding the rising waters. Later in the year, a large delegation of Emberá-Katío travelled to Bogotá, the country’s capital, to protest against the situation, where they were put under intense political pressure. Finally, in 2000 a new agreement was reached between the Government, the company and the indigenous communities. Besides promising social and health services to be provided by international agencies, the agreement acknowledged the Emberá-Katio’s neutrality, their full territorial autonomy, and their non-combatant condition.48 Nevertheless, violence continued against the Emberá in the form of assassinations, forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and threats, some of which has been attributed to paramilitary groups and some to FARC. 41. In June 2001 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights asked the Government of Colombia to take “urgent and concerted” measures regarding the disappearance of an Emberá leader, and to guarantee the right to life and the physical integrity of the rest of the community.49 It had to reiterate this appeal several days later as a result of Government inaction. In 2002 further assassinations and forced disappearances decimated the Emberá-Katío communities in the region. In October the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bogotá issued a press statement denouncing the forced displacement of an Emberá community of 800 people, including 250 children, due to threats by the FARC and called upon the national Government to take adequate protective measures.50 In a letter to the Special Rapporteur, ONIC