A group of 17 soldiers who were held by indigenous people in a rural area of the troubled Colombian department of Cauca (southwest) were released this Wednesday by the community that accused them of having injured a person in a raid.
After spending several hours in the hands of the community, the uniformed men were handed over to a commission from the Ombudsman’s Office that removed them from the village of La Pila, located in the San Francisco indigenous reservation, belonging to the municipality of Toribío.
A humanitarian commission from the Ombudsman’s Office “arrived at the reservation” to carry out “tasks of rapprochement and subsequent mediation with the indigenous community in which 17 soldiers assigned to the Third Division of the National Army were being held by the inhabitants of the area, after a military operation,” the agency detailed in a statement.
“The uniformed men were handed over to a humanitarian commission led by the Ombudsman’s Office and accompanied by the Toribío Ombudsman, the municipal mayor’s office and the Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia of the Organization of American States (MAPP/OEA), and they stated that they received good treatment from the indigenous community,” added the information.
ARMY VERSION
According to the Army, the Indigenous Guard detained the soldiers and let them leave “because they allegedly injured an indigenous person in the area.”
This after the troops arrived on the sidewalk “to capture a subject who was required for the crime of aggravated homicide and manufacturing, carrying and illegal possession of firearms.”
In the development of the judicial procedure, the military were surrounded “in a riotous and violent manner by more than 700 people, apparently inhabitants of the sector and community members of the Indigenous Guard,” who prevented the proceeding from continuing.
In the process, the individual captured while trying to flee the place was wounded, according to the Army, when he tried to escape. The incident will be investigated by the authorities, while the captured remains in a hospital in the region, where he was taken by the community.
EXPLANATION OF THE INDIGENOUS
The indigenous authorities denied that it was their guard that was holding the soldiers, as defended by one of the spokespersons for the reservation, Paula Poto, who indicated that a delegation is on site to verify the situation.
At the scene, a commission made up of officials from the Municipal Mayor’s Office, the Cauca Governor’s Office, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Toribío Ombudsman and traditional authorities mediated in the situation, allowing “the troops to be close to continue with the development of their constitutional mission.” .
The Army concluded that it will file “the respective complaints for kidnapping and riot.” EFE