Opposition senator survives assassination attempt in southwest Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

by Adriaan Alsema October 30, 2020



Feliciano Valencia (Image: Senate)

A native Colombian senator survived an assassination attempt on Thursday while on his way to the commemoration of a massacre in the southwest of the country.

The car of Senator Feliciano Valencia, arguably Colombia’s most influential indigenous leader, came under fire in Toribio, a municipality in the war-torn northern Cauca region.

According to the Northern Cauca Association of Elders (ACIN), the senator was not injured in the attack and being protected by the Indigenous Guard of the Taqueyo reserve.

Far-right President Ivan Duque failed to publicly condemn the attack, but did call the opposition senator, according to newspaper El Pais.

Duque has consistently refused to meet with indigenous leaders about the excessive violence that cost the lives of approximately 70 native Colombians in the northern Cauca region this year alone.

Other government officials, like Interior Minister Alicia Arango and Peace Commissioner Miguel Ceballos, did publicly condemn the attack a week after they accused native Colombian protesters led by Valencia of being infiltrated by guerrillas.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/opposition-senator-survives-assassination-attempt-in-southwest-colombia/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Assassination Attempt Against Indigenous Colombian Senator Underscores Need to Implement the Ethnic

29 OCT 2020 | WOLA STATEMENT
Assassination Attempt Against Indigenous Colombian Senator Underscores Need to Implement the Ethnic Chapter

Washington D.C.—On October 29, Senator Feliciano Valencia, a Nasa Indigenous land rights advocate, suffered an assassination attempt in Tacueyó, Cauca department, in southwest Colombia. A leader of the Indigenous collective peaceful protest action known as the minga, Valencia ran for senator after his release from jail in 2017, after he was the target of a trumped-up legal charge meant to silence the Indigenous communities’ land rights advocacy efforts.

Senator Valencia was headed to a memorial for the 2019 massacre of Indigenous governor Cristina Bautista and four other community members when gunmen in a van shot at the cars transporting Valencia and his security detail. Luckily, Senator Valencia was not harmed. This attack occurred just days after some 9,000 Indigenous, Afro-Colombians, and Campesinos organized the minga, meant to call attention to community demands around peace and democracy. On October 14, the minga convened in Cali. When President Duque shunned an invitation to dialogue, the minga proceeded to walk to Bogotá, demanding that the government implement the 2016 peace accord, guarantee the lives of social leaders, and effectively protect rural communities.

The Duque government’s reluctance to advance key aspects of the peace accord, designed to dismantle illegal armed groups and protect social leaders and ethnic minorities’ rights, is generating a crisis for Indigenous and other communities experiencing record rates of violence. The Association of Indigenous Cabildos of Northern Cauca (ACIN) reported in September that in 2020, in the Cauca department alone, 47 Indigenous persons have been murdered. The Colombian think tank INDEPAZ reported in October that the country has experienced 68 massacres so far this year, with nine taking place in Cauca.

“If this can happen to someone who is a senator and Duque responds with a timid pronouncement, then ordinary Indigenous persons can’t expect that the government will stop them from killing us,” an Indigenous leader noted to WOLA. “Militarization will not address the security crisis facing Indigenous persons, only putting in place the peace [accord] and the Ethnic Chapter will,” she added.

More:
https://www.wola.org/2020/10/assassination-attempt-against-indigenous-colombian-senator-underscores-need-to-implement-ethnic-chapter/