This situation worsened on January 10 at the facilities of the Twenty Ninth Army Brigade in Popayan, with the activation of the Cauca Specific Command (with 2,500 troops), the Regional Indigenous Council of that department said in a statement.
In a context of different armed actors and much violence, if there is no guarantee of respect for human rights, the indigenous authorities, communities and territories, we will surely become cannon fodder of any of these actors, it stressed.
In addition, the Council recently recalled at Pitayo indigenous shelter that the so-called Specific Command invaded the house of former Governor Yesid Conda. Without speaking and identifying themselves, they tried to deprive him of his freedom, intimidating with firearms his security scheme of the Protection Unit.
The Council urged to be attentive to these cases of conflict that have been led in the indigenous territories by armed and criminal actors, if «false positives» (extrajudicial executions) or violations of international law against indigenous communities and human rights defenders occur.
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