Colombian police expel natives from army base

Colombian police expelled on 18 July natives who occupied on 17 July an army position outside Toribío, in the Cauca department, the scene of fighting between the state and communist guerrillas, which natives say is desecrating their ancestral lands, EFE reported. Police used tear gas to expel the occupants of the army telecomunications position on a hill named Cerro Berlín. Three natives were injured, one arrested and one reportedly disappeared, Carlos Andrés Alfonso a legal representative of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (Acín) told EFE, observing that the natives had been thrown off their own land. The Cauca's police chief Ricardo Alarcón said in the departmental capital Popayán that this was a "strategic position in operations against" the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.