FPP open letter to Colombian authorities calling for action to address threats to indigenous Emberá leaders, May 2022 (Spanish only)

Subject: A call for immediate action by the Colombian State to carry out an investigation into new threats against leaders of the Embera Chamí People of Caldas along with protection and prevention measures to protect the defenders.

Read the full letter here (available only in Spanish)

On May 8, 2022, several Embera Chami leaders from the Cañamomo Lomaprieta Resguardo of Colonial Origin (municipalities of Riosucio and Supia - Caldas) and the neighboring San Lorenzo Resguardo received a new threat against their lives. CRIDEC denounced before the competent authorities who opened the criminal notice 176146000042202250205 of May 10, 2022 for these threats. In the pamphlet, besides threatening and stigmatizing in a generic way the "indigenous governors", "all the leadership" and the members of the resguardo, pointing them out as "guerrillas of Cañamomo", several of the indigenous authorities are listed.

The Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), an international NGO and ally of the Indigenous Cañamomo Lomaprieta Resguardo of Colonial Origin, communicates our deep concern for this violent act in which they are directly threatened for exercising their political rights, stigmatizing the leaders of the indigenous peoples and human rights defenders, and increasing the already high risk in which several of them survive.