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Social organizations will march peacefully to Bogota if President Ivan Duque does not commit to the pacification of his country.
The Indigenous movement "Collective Action in Defense of Life, Territory, Democracy, Justice, and Peace" Wednesday requested a meeting with Colombia's President Ivan Duque to demand his response to the country's economic, social, cultural, and environmental crisis.
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The Indigenous movement's leaders cited Duque at the San Francisco Plaza, in Cali city, on October 12. If the president doesn't show up, the conveners will go to the country's capital, Bogota, in a peaceful mobilization.
"We will wait for him to demand social security and respect for the Indigenous communities, democracy, and the peace agreement signed with former guerrillas. Colombia needs to advance towards a definitive peace," the movement stated.
In 2019, Duque committed to dialogue with Cauca's movement in the Caldono municipality, but even though the president arrived there, he refused to meet with the Indigenous leaders.
The violence facing indigenous communities is claiming lives on a daily basis.
— Justice for Colombia (@JFColombia) September 14, 2020
On Fri 11 Sept, Oliverio Conejo and his daughter Emily were killed in Cauca.
Oliverio was coordinating health programmes against COVID-19, with indigenous people left severely exposed to the crisis. pic.twitter.com/ymkiBXIv7i
At that moment, the Prosecutor's Office warned that security conditions were not in place for the President to meet in a public square.
"I regret that the State's gesture of coming here has not been valued," said Duque in the face of the Indigenous people's disappointment.
On October 12, the Indigenous movement will also demand apologies for the police brutality that the Duque administration has allowed in its attempt to stop protests that have taken place in the country since last year.
"The meeting they are demanding has a political aim: the socialist takeover of the state," former president Alvaro Uribe tweeted from his home arrest.
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