At 4am on Edwin Legarda was driving down a quiet rural road in indigenous territory in western Colombia when the Colombian army shot at the vehicle. He later died in hospital. He was driving the car that normally carries his wife as she goes about her political activities in the region. His wife is Aida Quilcue, an impressive indigenous leader whose words I heard during the Minga in Bogota.

She believes that the bullets were meant for her because of her work in organising and mobilising thousands of indigenous as part of the Minga, a historical process which saw 40000 indigenous across the country unite with farmers, students, workers to defend the right to life and territory.

At first it appears staggering that the army had the audacity to attempt to kill Aida just one day after her return from meetings with the United Nations in Switzerland. However Colombians live under a regimen that violently attacks social movements and then presents these murders to the public as either an accident or justified because of supposed links to guerilla groups.

For example, President Uribe defended this killing in the press, saying that soldiers fired at the vehicle after the driver twice failed to heed an order to stop at a rural roadblock. Yet the evidence, preserved and documented by the indigenous guard contradicts this version of events.

They counted one hundred and five bullet cases. Of the bullets shot, sixteen ended up in the vehicle, but crucially, only three in the back. Why did 13 bullets end in the front and sides of the vehicle if it was shot at for not stopping at the roadblock?

The first version of events told by the head of the military unit was that they had been shot at and so had shot back. The indigenous guard seized the soldiers weapons. There were 35 soldiers and 38 guns. Sergeant Ramirez was unable to justify why three more guns than people. Was the plan to plant these guns in the vehicle as ‘proof’ of their terrorist connections?

The story later changed. “Edwin died because he failed to stop in a military roadblock” according to the Comandante of the III Division of the Colombian Army. Yet the Indigenous guard noted the absence of any signs making people aware of this mentioned military roadblock.

The indigenous guard also documented the existence of imprints of bodies on the side of the road, evidence of soldiers lying there for some time. Soldiers don’t normally lie down at roadblocks. Were they waiting for the vehicle in which Aida Quilcué normally travels?


Indigenous authorities are demanding that the case be assumed by the indigenous justice system as they are the legitimate authority in the area, and in order to avoid the case falling into the circle of impunity surrounding thousands of civilian deaths at the hands of the Colombian military.



Translation of statement by Colombia´s national indigenous organisation (ONIC)
 http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/content/view/441/

A day that will live in infamy once again by Mario Murillo
 http://mamaradio.blogspot.com/2008/12/day-that-will-live-in-infamy-once-again.html