During Infobae's visit to the National Park, where 15 different indigenous communities are currently sheltered, it was possible to see the “tense calm” felt in the sector, following the clashes between communities and Esmad units last Wednesday night.
The surroundings of the indigenous camp, which is seven months old, are full of street vendors and there is normal passage of passers-by. In fact, several merchants such as Felipe Buitrago say that the indigenous community is a frequent customer of the arepas and empanadas stand that it has.
There is even a makeshift shop run by one of the security leaders of the bZenú community, Daniel Vargas, where he sells sweets, chewing gum, mints, cigarettes, panela, rice, salt, eggs and other food with which he tries to keep along with his wife Cindy, her children and a puppy named Goliath.
Daniel, along with several indigenous people, claim that the settlement is called the Bacatá Community, after “old Bogotá”, but the leader says that 15 different cultures, or millennial peoples, live there, housing around 1,900 people.
The figures contrast with those presented by the Personería de Bogotá, who, in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interior, the Unit for Victims and the Secretariat of Government, after making the third attempt at the characterization of indigenous people, say that there are 1,585 people in 536 family units, most of which belonged to the ancestral communities Embera Chamí and Katío.
Last Wednesday night, some of the members of these communities were immersed in a confrontation with Esmad, after which the district administration, headed by Mayor Claudia López, assured that indigenous protesters had committed excesses against citizens who live and transit through that sector of the city.
“The Emberá initiated vandalism and violence against citizens, vehicles and officials of the Government Secretariat, the Office of the Ombudsman and even the medical personnel who were on the spot,” said the city's Secretary of Government, Felipe Jiménez, after which the district authorities announced complaints. “Bogotá rejects the manipulation of children for violent acts and aggression against citizens and public servants, facts that we will report to the Prosecutor's Office,” said Mayor Claudia López on her Twitter account.
However, this Thursday, at a press conference held in the National Park, three community leaders presented what they called a public complaint and pointed out that the characterization failed, due to “a human error” in the fingering of the cards. According to Jairo, one of the leaders, the community handed over the physical cards and yet the district authorities told them that the numbers did not match the names, which was one of the causes of the protests that ended in clashes with the public forces.
Sandra Rosado, Wayuu leader, said that it is inadmissible for motorcyclists to go out and resolve their requests in three days, while they have been seven months and Mayor Claudia López has not even given them a face.
For her part, Mayor Claudia López reiterated that she has been vigilant in trying to resolve the situation affecting the community:
As their representatives explained, what millennial peoples are promptly asking is that they be guaranteed safe return to their territories, with the fulfillment of all constitutional rights; they ask to have the peace of mind of returning without the fear that armed groups, including the army, will remove them from there with threats, murders and other crimes.
The offer that the mayor's office has made on different occasions to the Bacatá Community is to transfer them, which they interpret as evicting them, to the La Florida Park.
According to Jairo and Leonibal bCampos, representatives of the community, the indigenous people feel that they are “throwing the ball from one place to the other”; they add that they have been offered to take them to five places, but they ask that these places have “conditions of dignity for habitability and security.” One of them is a coliseum, in which, they say, the 1,500 indigenous people do not fit, the other areas are sectors full of insecurity and drug addiction, where bJairo says that the Community Action Boards do not want to have the problem “of those Indians”; the last is the La Florida Park, where other indigenous groups have already been transferred but where the community of the National Park says there have been 9 deaths. “Who wants to go to the slaughterhouse? , no one wants to go and die there.”
Goihaitz, a tourist from the Basque Country and NGO volunteer who comes from working in indigenous communities in the Amazon, says that it is necessary for these communities to return to their territories, where they normally do not have needs; he ensures that this same situation has been seen with indigenous people in other countries, such as in Canada, where indigenous people in Vancouver, they live in overcrowding, awaiting the restoration of their rights.
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