Through a statement to the public, the indigenous reservation of Pueblo Nuevo, located in the municipality of Buenos Aires (Cauca), denounced the presence within its community spaces of members of illegal armed groups.
“We denounce and reject the interference in the exercise of our Own Government, by armed groups such as the FARC dissidents, the Dagoberto Ramos Mobile column, that cause disharmony and imbalances in our territory and carry out forced recruitment actions against our community members, including our boys, girls and young people.”
The specific complaints indicated by the indigenous authorities occurred last Sunday, May 22, in the village San Antonio of this caucano municipality. “As Nasa territory of Pueblo Nuevo we will continue to walk in accordance with the mandates and resolutions issued in the different Congresses and territorial Assemblies described in the Vitonco resolution of 1985, Jámbalo resolution, 1999 and resolution No. 4 of 2018 of the Pueblo Nuevo reservation”, can be read in the statement dated May 24.
The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) pointed out that For more than five years, the FARC dissidents have carried out violent actions against their communities. Figures from the CRIC Human Rights and Defense for Life Observatory reveal that between 2019 and 2021 there have been 314 murders corresponding to indigenous authorities.
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This is how the CRIC referred to the actions of the FARC dissidents within its territory that are affecting the 139 indigenous authorities that make up the regional council. “Until today, the actions of the armed groups at the service of drug trafficking, illegal mining and illicit economies it distances itself from the supposed revolutionary struggle of the people, it is not a struggle, they are petty interests, particular, banal cells called dissidences; formed in what has been called the post-conflict”.
Before finalizing his statement, the Pueblo Nuevo reservation sent a message to the national authorities: “Given this situation, we hold the Colombian State responsible and urge that due follow-up be carried out. and clarification of these serious facts. We declare ourselves victims on high alert in the face of these new situations that occur against our community, indigenous guard and Traditional Authorities”, the public document ends.
One of the last violent actions perpetrated by these dissidents against the indigenous people of Cauca occurred on January 16. That day two indigenous people died, one of them a minor, in an armed attack that occurred in a hamlet in the department that the inhabitants attributed to these structures.
The Association of Indigenous Councils of North Cauca (ACIN) maintained in a statement at the time that the action occurred in the Las Delicias reservation, located in the town of Buenos Aires, by the Jaime Martínez Mobile Column. “These facts are found in the same logic of attack and destruction of the local organizational process that the armed groups have been deploying for months,” pointed out the ACIN.
Guillermo Chicame was assassinated at the scene and Fabián Camayo was wounded, the indigenous explained in their statement, recalling that Chicame was a member of the Camayo security scheme and coordinator of the Las Delicias Indigenous Guard. According to the ACIN, the armed attack continued and a 14-year-old minor was killed, also in Las Delicias, who was shot on the highway.
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