Some news from Colombia’s indigenous.
In Cali, 5 days ago a member of the indigenous reserve of San Francisco, in Northern Cauca, Colombia named Aparicio Nuscue Nuscue died of wounds in a hospital in Cali. The wounds were taken courtesy of the Colombian Army, who shot him while he was performing a traditional ceremony at a sacred site on April 5 of this year. Northern Cauca is being steadily militarized, occupied by the National Police and Army, who commit a regular grind of abuses against the remarkable indigenous movement of the Nasa in that region.
Still worse is what the Colombian Army and paramilitaries, and therefore US backers, have done to the Wayuu indigenous community in La Guajira. This is a preliminary communique, from the community itself. More thorough investigations may follow, but only if a human rights organization takes it up.
Starting on April 18, the paramilitaries came to their community, “raping our daughters, torturing our children to get information on where their parents were… they didn’t believe them so they killed them or left them…”
“They killed women, youth, and elders (tortured and raped) and we are worried because our children are disappeared and we don’t know if they are alive or dead…”
“We were 580… who abandoned with pain in our souls our territory, our animals, our ancetral belongings, there in the territory there is no one, everyone has fled to different parts, to look for security and protection of our lives… neither the Mayor of Uribia nor the Governor of la Guajira said a word.”
12 were killed and 30 disappeared. And the point of the operation: 580 were displaced from their lands.
The communique I received (spanish) includes some of the names of those killed who the community could identify, which I reproduce below.
1-NICOLAS BARROS BALLESTEROS.
2-ARTURO EPIAYU
3-ALBERTO EVERTS FINCE
4-ROLAN EVERTS FINCE
5-ROSA FINCE URIANA
6-DIANA FINCE URIANA (Desaparecida sin saber el lugar donde tiraron su cuerpo)
7-REINA FINCE PUSHAINA (Desaparecida sin saber el lugar donde tiraron su cuerpo, menor de edad 13 años).
8-MARGARITA EPIANAYU
9-RUBEN EPINAYU (Menor de edad 16 años).
10-Niños que fueron asesinados y comos señala le cortaban miembros de su cuerpo para que fueran reconocidos).
11-Una joven del Clan Epinayu, la sacaron de su casa y aún no ha sido encontrado su cuerpo.
12- Además de todas estad personas, hay muchas mas que estan enterradas en las diferentes zonas de Portete.
