The violence in Colombia does not stop. There have already been 93 massacres recorded so far in 2023, according to data from INDEPAZ. The most recent occurred in the early hours of this Friday in the Canoas indigenous reservation, in Santander de Quilichao, northern Cauca. This was reported by the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) through social networks. The victims were Professor Jhon Freiman Ulcue, his wife Yisel Menza and their 15-year-old daughter, Jelen Charit Ramos, murdered in the Carbonero village. In Vilachí, an adjacent village, also in the early morning, Davison Fernández Ramos and Jesús David Labio Ramos were murdered.
The ACIN and the mayor of Santander de Quilichao, Lucy Amparo Guzmán, confirmed that the murdered teacher was a social leader in the area. He worked at the Las Aves educational institution, a school from which several minors were kidnapped last March. “I want to highlight that Jhon Freiman was a person who worked for the community, just like his wife,” said the Quilichagueña president on the Blu Radio station. According to preliminary information shared by indigenous authorities, the crimes were recorded around four in the morning, after several armed men entered Ulcue's residence.
Five community members from the Canoas reservation in Santander de Quilichao were murdered this morning. The violence does not stop in the indigenous territories of northern Cauca. pic.twitter.com/o7ihArDtnJ
— Cxhab Wala Kiwe – ACIN (@ACIN_Cauca) December 22, 2023
In Cauca, this was the eighth massacre of 2023, at the end of a bloody week. Only on Wednesday night, local authorities warned about the discovery of six bodies in different paths between the municipalities of Corinto and Caloto: three men were found on an inter-municipal highway; two, abandoned near a gas station, and the sixth was apparently killed in a shootout.
The department, which has a huge population, in addition to Afro-descendant communities, clashes between various armed groups, coca and marijuana cultivation, is the one that has suffered the most homicides of social leaders. In the last two weeks three have been murdered. The most recent crime was that of Carlos Arturo Quijano, peasant leader and former president of the Community Action Board of the Santa Lucía village, in the municipality of Silvia. Days before, the victims were the indigenous leader Marino Pavi Julicué, in Toribío; and Robert Fernández, a land claimant murdered in Cajibío.
This wave of violence occurs in the middle of two negotiation processes between the Government and the two most powerful armed groups in the area, the National Liberation Army guerrilla and the dissident group of the extinct FARC known as the Central General Staff (EMC). ), with the columns Jaime Martínez and Dagoberto Ramos. For Juan Manuel Torres, coordinator of the Pacific office of the Peace & Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), the dynamics of violence in Cauca is very complex, and responds to years of dispute between illegal groups.
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“The sad thing is that the majority of the members of the Dagoberto Ramos column of the EMC are made up of Nasa indigenous people, who have distanced themselves from the indigenous movement. There are areas that have bred children for war for a long time. It is difficult to determine reasons for this cruelty other than the fight for territorial control. Others seek to recruit, ignoring the indigenous authorities, while organizing the marijuana business in the area,” explains the researcher.
Days before these homicides, the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) had already called a press conference for this Friday. The intention of the space was to denounce systematic violations of human rights in their communities. “From the six reservations of the Nasa people present in Caloto we are very concerned. They brand us as belonging to one or another armed group, whether called ELN, Dagoberto Ramos, or Jaime Martínez and we reject those claims. These groups have said that they are in a ceasefire, but here they are killing us. Furthermore, they have several strategies to weaken the indigenous movement, such as illicit crops,” said Darío Campo, spokesperson for the indigenous authorities of that municipality, in public statements from Caldono.
“This is not our conflict, it is an interest of some ELN or Dagoberto Ramírez commanders,” Campo added at the press conference and demanded urgent attention from the Government to stop the forced recruitment of indigenous youth, a problem that has been has been worsening in recent years.
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