Monday 16 July 2012

Natives in Cauca ask troops, guerrillas to leave

The natives of the Cauca department in south-western Colombia sent letters on 15 July to the army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), asking them to leave the Cauca, which natives stated had become the scene of "indiscriminate" shellings by the FARC, Europa Press reported on 16 July, citing Colombian press reports. One letter was addressed to the FARC commander Rodrigo Echeverry Londoño, aka Timoshenko, and another to the army commander in the Cauca General Jorge Humberto Pérez; they were asked to evacuate the region within 24 and 72 hours respectively. State officials have ruled out any such evacuation. The FARC were accused of having no respect for civilians and of shelling towns in an "indiscriminate" manner, while the army was said to have failed in its mission to assure the security of locals. The letters were first read out in public outside the offices of the Indigenous Guard - a native militia - in the town of Miranda, in the presence of two personalities who were to mediate between natives and the government: the Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux representing the Church, and the former Spanish high-court judge Baltazar Garzón. These met earlier to consider the natives' proposal to demilitarize the zone and entrust security to the Indigenous Guard.