President of Chile pays tribute to minor Colombian environmentalist killed in Cauca

On Wednesday, April 20, the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, paid tribute to Breiner David Cucuñame, the child environmentalist of the Nasa people who was shot dead on January 14 while accompanying the indigenous guard in the municipality of Buenos Aires, located north of the troubled department of Cauca.

The left-wing president highlighted the work of the murdered environmental defenders, among which he mentioned the child under 14, who was the first to lose his life in Colombia during 2022, in the middle of the inaugural ceremony of the Conference of the Parties (COP1), which called on the governments of Latin America to urgently join the Escazú Agreement, which seeks to protect the environment and those who fight for it.

“This agreement is born as a response to the urgent needs of this region, which has unfortunately become the most dangerous in the world for environmental defenders, and embodies deep desires of peoples. I want to remember from this privileged place those who are not there. To Macarena Valdes from Chile; to Breiner David Cucuñame from Colombia, who was only 14 years old; to Estela Casanto from Peru; to Berta Cáceres from Honduras,” said the Chilean president.

In this regard, he pointed out that hundreds of environmentalists have died carrying out their work of raising their voices from the territories in the face of decisions taken thousands of kilometers affecting the environment and with it the communities, and it was for them that it became imperative to mobilize for their protection.

“It is for them and for them and for those who continue to speak out, and continue to do so despite the threats, that today we have the imperative to mobilize to protect them and ourselves. This is the greatest act of survival. We know that there is no environmental justice, nor a process that leads us to it, without a process that protects environmental defenders who live in their own flesh as the devastation of ecosystems negatively affects the life systems of entire communities,” said President Boric.

While the president delivered this speech at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Escazú Agreement, organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Government of Colombia was not represented at this event because it has not ratified the agreement in Congress, despite the fact that the country was not represented most dangerous to defend nature in the world.

The assassination of Breiner Cucuñame occurred on Friday, January 14 at around 10:30 a.m., when the Jaime Martínez column of the dissidences advanced an armed incursion into the Las Delicias reservation, in the municipality of Buenos Aires in Cauca. The community learned the information about the armed incursion and formed a commission of the Kiwe Thegnas indigenous guard to attend the place. In the afternoon several ancestral authorities traveled to San Gregorio village to verify the situation.

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