Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, beloved daughter, sister and wife to her family, and a relative and friend to thousands of Native and non-Native people throughout North America and many other lands, passed into the Spirit World on March 4, 1999.

She went to Colombia to help an Indian people struggling to survive. But contemporary Colombia is violence inexorable and Ingrid Washinawatok, whose wide, sweet smile seemed limitless, who was naturally charming and without guile, whose laughter could quiet a theater, was no match for the perpetual wrath of Colombia, where kidnapping and murder are the order of the day.

As director of the indigenous support foundation, Fund for the Four Directions, Ingrid's work was helping Indian people. No one was ever better suited or more integral to seek remedies to the needs of Indian communities. Simply put, she loved the People. She was a bright light, a uniquely positive beacon for her generation and the next. Everyone who knew her, and the list is quite extensive, loved Ingrid Washinawatok.

A luminary of her generation, Ingrid was a woman of continuous promise. From a proud, activist Menominee family, Ingrid joined the world of social change while a teenager in the 1970s. She is related to many among the founding families of the American Indian Movement, and logged many miles of travel to dozens of traditional Native communities, among which she is remembered and loved by a great many people.

Ingrid went to school abroad, married and settled in New York City, where she became a valued member of the American Indian community. She grew professionally and traveled widely as a young delegate for various international Indian organizations, including the International Indian Treaty Council. She became a board member of the American Indian Community House. She was a founder and main force behind the Indigenous Women's Network. She was a regular at the United Nations Working Group On Indigenous Peoples. She was on the committee for the UN Decade on Indigenous Peoples. She was a primary force for organizing the Native Council of New York, a representative network of Native professionals and organizations that has excellent reach in the city and internationally. As an Indian woman director of a major foundation, she was also a strong voice within the U.S. philanthropic community, consistently arguing for a better understanding of and intelligent assistance to Indian communities.

Of all visited places, she loved Cuba most, where she once studied at the University of Havana. She met her husband there. In the 1990s, she helped institute the annual Indigenous Legacies of the Caribbean conference in Baracoa, Cuba, a town which this week is in mourning for Ingrid Washinowatok.

In Colombia on February 25 to visit the beleaguered U'wa people, who have been fighting oil extraction on their lands, she was kidnapped along with two companions. She had gone to help, representing the Fund for the Four Directions. But security consciousness was minimal. The U'wa people received her, welcomed her presence, but could not protect her. Two U'wa men with the visitors were pulled aside, pistols to their heads, and left behind. No one could protect them. It was Colombia, the most dangerous country in the hemisphere, a cauldron of hostage-taking.

Many mobilized to help her. The world mobilized. All of her friends, all of her networks that were available played a role. Pressure was exerted. There was hope, if the kidnappers took their time, that they could be reached. Seasoned journalists on the scene took up the trail. The FBI got on it. The Catholic Church, experienced negotiators for such cases in Colombia, got on the case. With pressure from friends of Ingrid's such as Rigoberta Menchu and various ambassadors and dignitaries, the Red Cross mobilized quickly. The Red Cross international delegate in the field, often the point of first contact in these cases, made contact with the likely abductors, identified a source, who set up a meeting for a week hence. Again, there was hope. If they want to, rebel forces can hold hostages for weeks, even years. But it was all a long shot, defeated by the twisted logic of a brutal, faraway war. The abductors never made any contact. They marched them for a hundred miles with orders to execute them. Never mind that Ingrid was an indigenous woman, as was her traveling companion, Lahe'ene Gay, who also died. Americans were to be killed; and the three were there, trying to help the people, but easy targets in a war without mercy.

Ingrid Washinawatok, Lahe'ene Gay and Terence Freitas died on Thursday morning. A ray of light that was walking upon the earth has been taken up. The one that walked among the people, who brought the people a reason for living, Ingrid, Flying Eagle Woman, passed on that Thursday morning. Beloved to her son and husband, beloved to her family, beloved to her Menominee people and beloved to all her chosen peoples, Ingrid Washinawatok is mourned and saluted as she lays down to rest upon the Mother Earth. Condolences to all her family.

It is the saddest day of the saddest century.