Thousands of indigenous Colombians arrived in the country’s capital on Sunday, demanding a meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque and an end to growing violence in their territories.
The demonstrators are also asking that they be consulted on major development projects and for the full implementation of a 2016 peace plan that ended a half century of insurgency by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
“We demand guarantees for life, the right to land and that they comply with the peace agreements with the FARC rebels,” said Hermes Pete, senior adviser to the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Protests began on Oct. 10 in southwestern Colombia and gradually advanced to the capital.
The approximately 7,500 who traveled to Bogota demanded a face-to-face meeting with the president to discuss the rise in violence from guerrillas and other groups financed by drug trafficking.
However, presidential adviser Miguel Ceballos said that there was no possibility of meeting with Duque, instead offering a meeting with a federal delegation and the ombudsman — an offer the protesters have rejected.
Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez welcomed the protesters and urged Duque to listen to its demands.
The group was scheduled to march yesterday to the Plaza de Bolivar, next to the presidential palace, and tomorrow they are to join the “national strike,” an anti-government protest that began last year.
“We have come to tell the country to respect our lives, to respect our territory ... because today the pandemic is not killing us, we are being killed by the murderous bullets and the spread of the different armed groups,” protest spokesperson Noelia Campo said.
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