Hundreds of indigenous of the Misak people They protested this Tuesday in Bogotá in front of the Chancellery colombian to reject several administrative decisions of the National Land Agency (ANT) which, according to their complaint, allocates part of their ancestral lands in the southwest of the country to other communities.
“We are suffering a expropriation of our territory because of three resolutions that take away 9,530 hectares from us, something that was not consulted with our people,” he told EFE. John Andrés Calderón Méndezone of the spokespersons for the protest.
The protesters, mostly coming from municipality of Silviain it department of Caucaassure that the ANT resolutions affect paramo areas, which were adopted without prior consultation processes.
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The ANT’s decisions, denounce the protesters, favor other organizations in the region, which has caused territorial tensions due to occupations of areas that they consider their own and at least 250 families have been affected by these events, especially in the mountainous part of Cauca, where the Misak and Nasa indigenous peoples coexist.
Another of the leaders present at the mobilization, Andrés Tunuátold EFE that the ANT’s decisions “ignore historical titles and the territorial autonomy of its people.”
The protesters explained that they have filed legal actions, but in the absence of a response they decided to go to international bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The indigenous leaders assured that they will maintain the protest peacefully until they are attended to by the Government, on a day in which some altercations were recorded when the protesters tried to force their way into a building attached to the San Carlos Palaceheadquarters of Ministry of Foreign Affairsin the center of Bogota.
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