Colombia: Indigenous March Arrives in Bogota

After a trek of over 18 hours, some 800 members of the indigenous communities of the department of Valle del Cauca arrived in Bogota on Wednesday to meet with Colombian authorities.

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Representatives of the Human Rights Council of the Nasa People, the Cauca Valley Regional Organization (ORIVAC), and the Association of Indigenous Councils of the Pacific (ACIVA RP) spoke with the Interior Vice Minister Lilia Solano about the difficult situation that their communities are experiencing in their territories.

They want President Gustavo Petro and his administration to make structural changes that allow solving the situation of insecurity and violence that prevails in their region.

The Indigenous organizations from the Cauca Valley also addressed issues related to culture, education, health and infrastructure.

The tweet reads, "Vice Minister Lilia Solano said, 'We are going to dialogue, agree, and deliver.' She announced that a concertation process was agreed to attend to violence-related requests made by the Indigenous communities that arrived in Bogota today."

They highlighted that the proliferation of illegal armed groups continues to foster structural violence that affects their daily lives.

This is expressed, for example, in the persistence of forced displacements, threats against Indigenous leaders, forced recruitment of children for illegal activities, and disappearances of people.

The representatives of the Indigenous communities assure that they support the reforms that the Petro administration is carrying out. However, they demand greater attention from the Colombian authorities to solve the violence against Indigenous peoples.