Chiribiquete's greatest deforester or respected indigenous authority: the controversy surrounding governor accused of kidnapping

Reynaldo Quebrada Quilcué was presented as a criminal and charged by the Prosecutor's Office with several serious crimes against the environment and human rights. But his case surrounds a questionable Army operation in San Vicente del Caguán, where he was captured and exercised as an indigenous authority, a presumably inflated file and a clash of ordinary justice, the Ministry of Defense and indigenous jurisdiction.

The Attorney General's Office presented Quilcué on April 7, after the prosecution and indictment, “as the supposed greatest sponsor of deforestation in the Serranía de Chiribiquete National Natural Park”, a reserve declared cultural and natural heritage of humanity by UNESCO, located between the departments of Guaviare and Caqueta.

There, on March 6, an army operation took place in the middle of the 'Artemis' campaign that is directed against environmental crimes. That day, as has happened in other operations, ended in a clash with the community of the El Triunfo village of San Vicente del Caguán and the nasa reservation La Esperanza, which was presided over by Quebrada Quilcué.

According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ), in the midst of this operation, “the military burned several houses, attacked the population settled there and a person died in circumstances yet to be clarified.”

“That same day, the indigenous community surprised a soldier who entered the reservation armed without authorization. This indigenous territory is a zone of peace in which it is not allowed to carry weapons, so a traditional process was immediately opened to determine the responsibility of the uniformed person for this offense, in which delegates from the Office of the Ombudsman and the Personería de San Vicente del Caguán were present,” added the CCJ .

At that time, Quebrada Quilcué, as an indigenous governor and exercising the power to resolve conflicts that these communities have according to their worldview, enforced the sanction imposed on the soldier, which was to give him lashes.

“The soldier did not object to receiving the sanction, which consisted of a few lashes, and both the Ombudsman's Office and the Personería were present during the proceedings and did not consider it arbitrary or violate the fundamental rights of the uniformed person, nor did they raise a conflict of competence between indigenous jurisdiction and justice by ratifying the legitimacy of the procedure carried out by the reservation in the head of its Governor,” says the CCJ.

However, for the Prosecutor's Office, it was torture and extortive kidnapping. According to the prosecutor, “the investigation shows that, allegedly, (Quebrada Quilcué) incentivized the community to emotionally torture, beat and threaten the uniformed man with death. Similarly, there is evidence that it was the person who forced the military man to record a proof of survival and to sign a document agreeing to receive lashes to be released,” the Prosecutor's Office said in the indictment.

During the hearing, the deputy prosecutor described the retention of the soldier as “moral torture”. He assured that, during that time, machetes were supposedly passed around his neck, asked if he was willing to die and announced that “his time had come”.

In addition, the Prosecutor's Office is also based on a video that was given as proof of survival of the uniformed man, in which Quebrada apparently tells him what to say and was later identified by the same soldier.

The CCJ and the indigenous authorities differ from the serious accusations made by the Office of the Prosecutor. They were also joined by the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, in announcing the capture of the indigenous governor of La Esperanza.

“This capture, in addition to going against a legitimate sanction procedure specific to the special indigenous jurisdiction, ignores the uses and customs of this reservation. As if that were not enough, the Minister of Defense aggravates the situation by stigmatizing this traditional authority and treating him as a “criminal,” said the CCJ.

Molano, without presenting any evidence, described Quebrada Quilcué as a “criminal” and claimed that he identified himself under the alias “El Indio” or “El Rey”, ignoring that it is an indigenous authority. He also assured that he promoted deforestation in that sector of the country and invasion of reserve areas, with the sale of land.

“Stigmatizing and criminalizing the forms proper to the administration of indigenous justice represents a serious setback in relation to the recognition of the right to autonomy of ethnic authorities and the right to exercise their own justice, from the 1991 Constitution,” the CCJ said.

The National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples (Conpi) has a different version of the facts and made it known in a statement to the public. The Prosecutor's Office charged Quebrada with the crimes of extortive kidnapping; promoting and financing deforestation; financing the invasion of areas of special ecological importance; and the manufacture, trafficking and carrying of firearms or ammunition. The indigenous governor did not accept the charges and the judge is expected to define the insurance measure requested by the prosecutor.

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