Secretary of Government of Bogotá referred to indigenous protests in the National Park: “Children threw stones at coexistence managers”

These have been days of tension for the indigenous communities that, for months, have been settled in Bogotá seeking to be helped by the authorities to return to their lands. Felipe Jiménez, Secretary of Government of Bogotá, in an interview with the RCN Channel news program, said that it has been difficult to reach agreements because the people who now live in the National Park have 'unwilling' to accept what they have been offered.

“Unfortunately, we believe that there is a lack of will on the part of the people who inhabit the National Park and who have repeatedly refused to accept all the social and welfare package that we have been proposing,” Jiménez said in his talk with that media outlet.

“They are asking for three specific things. The first is a decent temporary place where they can stay; second a social offer from the district on a recurring basis and the third is affirmative action, which the District has for the indigenous population in Bogotá,” he added.

It was last week when there was a confrontation between the ESMAD uniforms and the aforementioned indigenous community. Citizens were demonstrating when the police arrived to intervene to control the protests. According to witnesses to the events, the members of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron used excessive force, leaving several injured. There were pregnant women and children at the scene, however, that did not stop the police from using tear gas and stun bombs.

“We filed a documentation in Geneva - Switzerland with the aim of starting an investigation before the international human rights verification bodies against the crime against humanity committed on April 6, 2022 in the city of Bogotá (...) when objects belonging to the ESMAD mobile squadron actually attacked the defenseless population, being aware that they were children and pregnant women,” said Jairo Montañez, Coordinator of Indigenous Authorities in Bacatá.

Colonel Herbert Benavides, deputy commander of the Bogotá Metropolitan Police, assured that indigenous people had allegedly used children as human shields. “Faced with the impossibility of using tear gas because of the children's presence, six Esmad police officers were completely affected,” General Eliécer Camacho, commander of the Colombian capital's police, said in testimonies collected by the newspaper El Tiempo.

“It's painful, sad and regrettable. The mayor's office doesn't say it, it's the evidence. Last Wednesday we saw how there was an instrumentalization of minors and children in a violent protest. We saw how children threw stones and generated violence against the managers of coexistence in the district, against the Public Prosecutor's Office and against the Police. Not only do we reject these facts, but we have denounced them. We hope that the ICBF and the Prosecutor's Office will take swift action,” said Felipe Jiménez in his talk with RCN News.

Sandra Rosado, representative of the Wayuu people, replied: “We don't instrumentalize children. Here the large population mass is children and women.”

According to what was known, indigenous people were protesting because of the precarious situations they have been subjected to since last year. To this end, they had blocked some roads in Bogotá, which led to the administration's action to make ESMAD's action to restore order available to citizens. The indigenous community had put obstacles in the middle of the seventh race. According to the coordinator of the Indigenous Authorities in Bakatá, Jairo Montañez, it was a day of pedagogy and awareness-raising to make visible 'the seven months of disinterest and neglect'.

Just as there is evidence of how the authorities dispersed the protest, according to authorities there are records of how some protesters broke glass in SITP buses and damaged private vehicles.

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