Indigenous authorities in Colombia denounce murder of member of the indigenous guard

The indigenous authorities of the Resguardo Cañamomo Lomaprieta, in Caldas, Colombia, publicly denounce before the national government, investigation agencies, and national and international human rights organisations, the events that occurred today, 12 August 2017, in the indigenous community of Cameguadua, in the Resguardo.

In the early hours of the morning, community member and indigenous guard of Cañamomo Lomaprieta, Alcibiadez de Jesus Largo Hernandez was found dead in his house, killed by a gunshot to the head.

Alcibíades was born on 1 October 1965. He was 51 years old, with citizenship number 15.916284 of Supia, Caldas. He was a a farmer, native of Cameguadua, and an integral part of Cañamomo. For the past seven years, he also served with solidarity in the indigenous guard of Cañamomo Lomaprieta, working on territorial governance. 

Following this grave and unfortunate event, the Cabildo Indígena de Cañamomo Lomaprieta expresses the most sincere solidarity with the relatives of Alcibíades, the indigenous guard and all of Cañamomo Lomaprieta. At the same time we call the Colombian government, investigation agencies, national and international human rights organisations to investigate, locate those responsible for the crime and investigate and punish them.

It is important that this crime does not remain in impunity, as has happened with many other murders of indigenous leaders. Finally, we can not leave this aside, for several days we have been alerting the authorities of the presence of strangers inside the territory and we have asked that an investigation takes place to prevent deplorable events such as the one that happened today.

Indigenous Authorities of the Resguardo Cañamomo Lomaprieta, Riosucio and Supia, Caldas.

Riosucio Caldas Colombia.

August 12, 2017.