Cubará
The Traditional Authories of the U’wa People, the Asssociation ASOU”WA and the social organizations that have been mobilized for the last 43 days exercising our constitutional rights to assembly and peaceful protest and those of us who have blocked the road to Soberanía in the Cubará Boyacá, in defense of our thousand-year-old culture, the environment and national sovereignty, inform public opinion of the following:
– That the only objective of the mobilization of the indigenous people and the social organizations is to save our lives, the environment and the national sovereignty and that this mobilization today becomes an act of justice in view of the injuntion in favor of the U’wa cause, granted by the judge of the 11 circuit court of Bogota. As organized communities, we celebrate the justice and fariness of this decision.
– We inform public opinion that the news of this decision strengthens our mobilization and ratifies our determination to continue to mobilize until we are informed of the final verdict of this legal process.
– The objectives of our mobilization are so important that we have achieved the concern and support of the international community including the European Parliament as well as environmental NGOs and human rights organizations in Sweden, Canada, Germany, France, China, Spain, Belgium and the Native Americans of the United States, all of whom have reccomended and demanded that the Colombian Governement and Occidental Petroleum respect the conventions signed by the Colombian government with the International Labor Organization (Indigenous Legislation, Convention 169)
. – We publically denounce the atitiude of Major Mauricio Pérez Lobo Guerrero and the troops under his command of the XVIII Brigade who have insulted the mobilization just because we blocked his personal car and repressed us in the following manners:
– Arbitrary seizures of lodging and encampments.
– Detention of indigenous persons because of lack of identification documents, even though according to the constitution and indigenous culture, indigenous people are not required to carry personal identification documents.
– Detention of civilians that assembled for more than two hours.
– Verbal intimidation by soldiers that said “walk in single file so with one shot we can kill several of you … and … prepare yourselves for the night, that’s when we’ll see if you can endure the military exercises that we’re going to stage.”
In view of these intimidations and repression by the security forces , we demand the permanent presence of observers of the Ombudsman of the People and the Attorney General of the Nation to assure our guaranteed rights and the free exercise of our constitutional rights. At the same time, we reaffirm the peaceful nature of our mobilization and our demonstrated respect for the institutions, and manifest that we are not willing to tolerate the arrogance of the security forces and persons intent on sabotaging our mobilization.
POPULAR RESISTENCE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE U’WA CULTURE AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
Signed, U’wa Traditional Authorities:
BOHUO TEGRIA ASRAYU BOKOTA
KONIZO COBARIA KUIRASIRU BARROSA
For the social organizations:
CUT (Unified Federation of Workers) SubDirector of Arauca ADUC CRIA ASOJER ASOJUNTAS
