Among its main problems: deforestation, destruction of sacred sites and health care
▲ In demand of dialogue with authorities to obtain social improvements, indigenous people yesterday set up tents outside the National Land Agency, in Bogotá.Photo Ap
Afp
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, November 27, 2024, p. 29
Bogota. At least 2,000 indigenous people from central-western Colombia have been camping since yesterday outside a government agency in Bogotá and are asking for a meeting with high authorities to discuss their demands for ancestral lands and attention to their communities.
The Embera indigenous people arrived in 40 buses from the department of Risaralda and set up hundreds of tents outside the National Land Agency (ANT). Women with children, wearing colorful dresses and necklaces, remain sitting in the place, as a protest, guarded by members of the indigenous guard.
We are families that do not have territoryancestral doctor José Motato told the AFP news agency, who reported that among the main problems of his community is deforestation of water sources, destruction its sacred sites, children’s health and the elderly care.
The protesters reproach that, according to figures from indigenous authorities, at least 110 children under five years of age have died since 2023 from diseases related to malnutrition.
They hope that the national government takes care of them and fulfill with the commitments that have been acquired with the communitywarned the high advisor for Victims, Peace and Reconciliation of the mayor of Bogotá, Isabelita Mercado, who assures that there are about 2 thousand people mobilized.
In September, some 700 displaced Emberas who had been camping in one of the main parks in the Colombian capital since the end of 2021 returned to their places of origin after a series of agreements with the government of the leftist president, Gustavo Petro, to resettle them on their lands. and attend to their needs.
The commitments could not be fulfilledJosé Siágama, Embera social leader, denounced to Afp, which is why they have decided to return to Bogotá to achieve the goals.
The director of the ANT, Felipe Harman, published on the social network a first work table with the representatives of the communities and added that the government has provision for dialogue.
The majority of these communities want to return to their territories and it is the responsibility of the State, the national government, to lead this process so that they can have the conditions that allow them to remain there.stated yesterday the mayor of Bogotá, Carlos Fernando Galán, when announcing the arrival of the protesters.
Native peoples have been constantly displaced from their territories in Colombia due to the violence of armed groups. Petro, the first left-wing president of the South American country, is trying to defuse through dialogue the six-decade armed conflict that has left 9.5 million victims.
