More than 1,000 members of Colombian indigenous peoples spend their days in a public park in Bogotá sleeping in makeshift camps made of plastic and cooking in community pots. They arrived a week ago and on Thursday the Mayor’s Office summoned them to a public hearing in which they will be asked to leave the place.
“We did not choose to be here, we had to be here,” Jairo Montañez, a member of the Wayúu people who usually live in the north of the country, told the press. The indigenous people claim to be victims of the internal armed conflict, some arrived in Bogotá a decade ago and others a few months ago because forced displacement continues due to disputes between armed actors in their territories.
There are 13 indigenous peoples who remain in the central National Park claiming basic means of subsistence such as food, housing and health, because state aid – they say – ran out.
They demand a “dignified” place to live and do not accept being returned to their territories of origin because they fear groups outside the law. “Returning is not feasible, in the territory there are no guarantees and we are not going to leave if we do not have security or anything. You can’t go where you were taken, ”an indigenous leader of the Nasa people who sleeps in the park with her partner and son told The Associated Press who asked not to reveal her name because she has received death threats due to her leadership.
“When they rent to us, they are houses that are on the outskirts of Bogotá, always with restrictions and a degree of revictimization, so one of our proposals is that there be a collective house for indigenous peoples,” added the leader.
The Mayor’s Office of Bogotá has allocated 1,895 million pesos (approximately $ 500,000) since March 2020 to serve indigenous peoples through the payment of rents, food vouchers and markets. “The integral solution and the structural solution to this situation, corresponds to the National Government immediately,” said the Mayor’s Office on Tuesday in a statement.
The communities represented by the indigenous authorities in Bakatá declared themselves in “permanent minga”, an act of resistance in search of the vindication of their rights, alleging “little willingness to dialogue and State compliance,” as indicated in a statement on Thursday.
“We hold the district mayor responsible for the events that happen to us and violate our collective and individual rights against our child population, pregnant and lactating women, and senior citizens,” they added. It is estimated that more than 100 boys and girls are in the park.
Most of the indigenous people work making handicrafts that they sell in the streets, in housework or in construction and masonry activities, for which they claim that they have low income and few job opportunities.
Indigenous communities request the activation of a dialogue table with the Mayor’s Office to seek structural solutions that allow them to improve their quality of life, a request that was also supported by the Ombudsman’s Office, the entity in charge of ensuring human rights.
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