More than 20 injured in indigenous march after murder of Colombian leader

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Up to 22 indigenous people were injured, and five were detained in the march called on Thursday, April 22, in memory of the indigenous governor Sandra Liliana Peña. The marchers seek to continue the work of eradication of coca crops for which the leader was murdered last Tuesday.

“It is reported that so far 22 indigenous people were wounded, 5 detained and one vehicle, but the excessive attacks against the humanity of the community members who are fighting to see their territories free of illicit crops continue”, informed in its last bulletin the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC).

For his part, Jose Vicente Otero, mayor of Caldono, municipality to which the La Laguna Siberia reservation belongs and where the march began, informed that there are at least 15 wounded, six of them seriously and that there is also one dead. Still, they do not know yet if the deceased is part of the coca growers or the indigenous guard escorting the march.

The “minga” started after some two thousand people attended Peña’s wake, and was intended to continue the active work of eradicating illicit crops that the leader had recently begun.

“They received them with bullets,” reported Otero, who claimed that they still do not know if they are the coca growers themselves or if there is an armed group behind the clashes against the peaceful march, which lasted about four hours.

A FIERCE DEFENSE OF THE TERRITORY

Sandra Liliana Peña, Nasa indigenous governor and environmental leader of the La Laguna Siberia reservation, was riding on a motorcycle on Tuesday when armed men shot at her and the driver.

Her father, Clímaco Peña, blamed “mafiosos” who had already threatened her on occasion for her work defending the territory and opposing the expansion of coca crops.

Read: Violence in Colombia’s Cauca region condemned after indigenous leader’s murder

“No, compañeros, let’s not panic. Let us not stay in our homes, but when a comrade’s life is taken, let us demonstrate,” her sister, Olga Peña, asked Thursday during the wake for the Nasa leader.

It was expected that her body would be “sown”, as the burial is called in the Nasa tradition, this Friday, but the violent events prevented the funeral acts from taking place.

The CRIC blamed the national government for the violence unleashed against the march, since “by failing to comply with the peace agreements, it has turned the indigenous territories into battlefields, where the only dead are our community members.”

In the department of Cauca, where Caldono is located, several armed groups are active, among them FARC dissidents, National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla blocs, the Gulf Clan, and other criminal groups, which are fighting over the valuable exit routes to the Pacific, the corridors for illegal merchandise, coca crops and mining operations.

During this war for resources and territory, these groups kill anyone who gets in their way, including indigenous people, who remain faithful to protecting their territory.