Blood for Oil? Indigenous Leader Murdered in Colombia
Blood for Oil? Indigenous Leader Murdered in Colombia
Rick Kearns
12/12/13
Masked gunmen murdered Awa official Juan Alvaro Nastacuas Pai on November 29, shooting him twice in the head, killing him instantly. Pai was the governor of the Inda Guacaray reserve in southwestern Colombia. Awa leaders and supporters say that Pai’s murder is not an isolated event and is another example of official indifference to a community facing severe pollution and in danger of extinction.
As a result of this latest tragedy, Awa leaders are calling on the Colombian government to comply with its own constitution and protective measures ordered by an international court; within days of the murder both regional and national officials denounced the murder and promised justice.
According to a press statement of the Indigenous Unity Organization of the Awa People (IUOAP), addressed to national and international authorities, the assassination of Governor Pai was part of a pattern.
“Sadly, the denounced fact, far from being an isolated event, adds to the systematic violations that the Awa people have suffered and has become the fourth murder this year of leaders and traditional authorities,” the IUOAP release stated.
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For Awa allies such as the Jose Alvear Restrepo Attorneys Collective, the murder of Pai, coming as it does after the slain governor had lead an unsuccessful attempt to stop the oil spills that had contaminated the community’s water supply, “deepens the negligence and historical abandonment by the state before the imminent forced displacement and physical and cultural extinction faced by a community that is caught in the middle of an armed conflict, illicit growers, and fumigations that deprive them of their fundamental right to water.”
More:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/12/indigenous-gov-involved-anti-oil-litigation-murdered-colombia-152676