Senators, observers visit militarized city in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Bogota, May 10 (Prensa Latina) Colombian legislators and observers from the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States visisted on Monday Cali city, militarized by presidential order to put an end to anti-government protests.

Ivan Cepeda, Sandra Ramirez, Antonio Sanguino, Roy Barreras, among others are in that city, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca, with the purpose of visiting the concentration points of the demonstrations that have been shaking the country for 13 days.

Previously, Cepeda informed that they would also seek how to contribute to the respect of the police to the protest and human rights and to put an end to the acts of violence, such as the one registered on Sunday against the native peoples.

The legislator for the Polo Democratico party assured that Cali 'has become a laboratory of terror' and that the militarization ordered by the government is only a show of force that will not help to solve the crisis.

'We will listen to the complaints, we will document them, but we will also seek to mediate so that those regrettable incidents do not continue to occur,' Cepeda said.

Meanwhile, Senator Sandra Ramirez, also a member of the Human Rights Commission of that legislative body, had asked her colleagues to visit the city given the critical situation, the reports of repression and other illegal acts.

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