Wednesday 22 October 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
Nicaragua: Stop US
Blockade on Cuba
Panama Church Supports
The Cuban Five
Colombia
Indigenous Trek For Rights
Bolivian President
Leads March For New Constitution
Peru, Russia Launch
Economic, Political
Partnership
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Colombia Indigenous Trek
For Rights
BOGOTA - More than
12,000 indigenous
Colombians concentrated
in the town of Piedamo,
department of Cauca, to
march peacefully Tuesday
to the city of Cali.
Luis Fernando Arias,
general secretary of the
National Indigenous
Organization of Colombia
(ONIC) told media they
want to get to Cali, the
third most important
city of the country, on
October 28.
With this demonstration,
the indigenous
communities will demand
ownership of their
ancestral lands,
derogation of laws
applied in the
agricultural and
forestal sector that
harm them and the end of
outrages and murder of
members of their
communities.
The ONIC leader
reiterated the request
that some
representatives may be
heard by Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe
himself, and warned that
if that did not happen
in the city of Cali,
they would continue
marching to Bogota, the
capital.
Arias said they are
establishing contacts
with all the regional
indigenous
organizations, for them
to send delegates to
Cali, where they expect
to concentrate at least
20,000 people.
The protests started on
October 11, in memory of
the 516th anniversary of
the arrival of the
colonizers in America.
But last week, there
were violent
confrontations with
police forces in the
Colombian departments of
Cauca, Risaralda and
Valle del Cauca, when
demonstrators blocked
several highways.
These confrontations
left three people dead
and 50 injured, ONIC
leaders reported.
The government accused
the demonstrators of
having acted with
extreme violence and
under guerrilla
influence, which was
denied by protestors.
A sort of truce was
achieved last weekend,
with a meeting between
several representatives
of those communities and
ministers of the
government of President
Alvaro Uribe, but a
definitive agreement was
not reached. That is the
reason for restarting
the protests.
Data coming from ONIC
pointed out that in the
last six years, 1,253
natives have been
murdered, most of them
at the hands of the
public and paramilitary
forces, and more than
50,000 have been
displaced as a
consequence of the armed
conflict.
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