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FOUR INDIGENOUS KUNA LEADERS ASSASINATED BY COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARIES NEAR PANAMA BORDER. OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM THE INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT OF PANAMA.CONTACT: Brendan O'Neill, ASEJ/ACERCA - 802-863-0571 or cellular phone-802-598-8373 Official Statement from the Indigenous Movement of Panama Dear brothers and sisters from various organizations and communities of the world that fight against violence, against war, and against hunger-today we wish to mobilize against the War on Indigenous Peoples. On Saturday the 18th of January four Indigenous Kuna leaders, were violently tortured and assassinated by the Autonomous Defense Units of Colombia (AUC). These Indigenous spiritual leaders, are medicine men that hold the principal knowledge of our oral history, poets of truth, knowledgeable in medicine, the holders of our cultural heritage, the soul of our community, and are the maximum authority of the Paya and Pucuro communities. Four pillars of our community have been killed, if we compare this to western culture it is to say that our library of congress, our chief justice of magistracy, our minister of culture, our Nobel Peace Prize winners were killed. In the past years paramilitaries have assassinated indigenous teachers in Panama and an Embera Indigenous child Maria Mecha Tocamo. This past Saturday 50 Colombian insurgents tore apart the Paya Community, closed in the community, asked for the indigenous authorities to present themselves and then took them outside the community to torture them, and slash their throats. Upon hearing the various detonations from the Paya community the paramilitaries fled leaving the Pucuro community in flames. This was all confirmed by the only survivor, who followed the paramilitaries for one hour, his throat slashed and his stomach openly bleeding, to solicit help from the Pucuro community. Not stopping at the assassinations of the Indigenous authorities, the AUC, planted land mines surrounding the community to prevent the Kuna to leave. They took all of the food from the only food warehouse that existed in the community and threatened the population for supposedly collaborating with the guerilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Since 1964 through 1998 there was a Cartel of the Armed Forces of Panama that safeguarded the lives of the Paya and Pucuro residents, but since then, although the Indigenous authorities have solicited support from the Police forces of Panama, they have been denied support to defend the borders in the Darien. Now there are more than 700 people displaced, of the Paya and Pucuro Communities, the majority children, they are seeking refuge in Boca Cupe, who and are waiting for the Panamanian authorities to provide security for the area- not even one of the community members are prepared to abandon their ancestral lands. As Kuna, we have lived more than 100 years on these lands, and now there is an intention to destroy the peace of our Indigenous communities, selectively assassinating Colombian and Panamanian Indigenous leaders. It is because of this that we are opposed and against the imposition of the FTAA, the Plan Puebla Panama, Andean Plan, and Plan Colombia that are policies to exterminate the communities of the Americas, to expropriate indigenous territories, our collective knowledge, oil, water, land and our cultural and biological heritage. Ernesto Ayala, Maximum Authority; San Pascual Ayala, Secondary Authority; Luis Enrique Martínez, Spiritual Leader of the Paya and Gilberto Vásquez, Maximum Authority of Púcuro, now join the list of thousands of martyrs who have offered their lives for the liberation of the Indigenous Communities of the World. Panama, February 22, 2003 ACERCA/ASEJ received this statement from The Kuna Youth Indigenous Movement asking for international solidarity to condemn the violence of Plan Colombia that has moved over into Panama and caused this murder of 4 Kuna Indigenous spiritual and political leaders. There is a national meeting today 1/23/03 of all indigenous leaders of Panama to coordinate a response to this tragedy. Brendan O'Neill Translated by ASEJ/ACERCA Fear and Pain in Paya, Attack Leaves Four Dead Four Kuna indigenous authorities were assassinated this weekend and two
US and one Canadian reporter were kidnapped by a Colombian paramilitary
group that attacked the villages of Paya and Pucuro, in the Darien, this
past weekend. According to local witness Luis Caicedo, "We found three corpses chopped up by machetes with bullets in their head in the mountains so we couldn't take the corpses back because the land was still being guarded by the paramilitaries." Gilberto Vasquez, mayor of Pucuro, was also murdered. His body was found with a bullet in the back of his head inside his house in the village. This same paramilitary brigade had captured, just hours before, the US Discovery Channel reporter Robert Pelton and two other reporters, Marc Wedever of Canada, and another US journalist that is unidentified. Migdonio Batista, a correspondent for the radio station Voices without Borders of the Darien, who resides in Paya indicated that the paramilitaries, in addition to killing the village authorities, robbed all of the belongings of the only radio station office in the village. He also said that the armed paramilitaries robbed the chickens, ducks and pigs and murdered the dogs. Upon leaving the village they dropped explosives in local trucks so that they could get away without being followed. Another resident, Victor Maritinez, explained that since last Saturday afternoon, when they were attacked by the Colombian paramilitaries, the residents have not eaten anything and have only drank water from the river. Also, as of 48 hours after the weekends murders the National Police had not arrived with any help or protection. The "Prensa" newspaper confirmed that as of two days after the attack there was still no response from the border patrol. Isidro Ayala, whose father was assassinated in this attack, explained that the indigenous had to confront the paramilitaries with bows and arrows and with wooden beams to defend their property and families "because there hasn't been any police in this place for two years." Paya is a community with 530 indigenous residents located in the mountains of Pinogana and about 2 hours from the Colombian border. After the attack, there was only 50 residents remaining in Paya. The rest of the town was seeking refuge in the Boca de Cupe community or in the nearby mountains. Pucuro, a close by village, was entirely abandoned by its 20 residents. The paramilitaries arrived in Pucuro, burnt 5 houses down, and after finding no residents assassinated Gilberto Vasquez, who had been taken prisoner in Paya. |