Announced massacre in the mining municipality of Suarez, Cauca, Colombia http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/content/view/496/45/

Eight miners were murdered by armed men travelling in two vehicles and a motor bike. The killings occurred in a place known as “Alto de Ovejas”, a rural zone in the municipality of Suárez, department of Cauca, southern Colombia. The place where the massacre occurred is the upper part of the Ovejas river. It can be reached by a one and a half hour journey on foot.  We, the undersigned organizations, have warned of the serious situation caused by the social and armed conflict which the municipalities in the Northwest of Cauca are experiencing, especially in the Municipalities of Suarez, Morales and Buenos Aires. We urgently demand an explanation from the National Government as to why, despite numerous demands for protection for communities in the zone and despite the large numbers of military and police contingents deployed in the areas, the perpetrators of this massacre were completely free to enter the territory, commit the crime and leave again with impunity.

All of you remember the numerous denunciations which the Afrodescendant, peasants, and indigenous communities, together with human rights organizations, have made to the national and international community concerning the barbarity which is being imposed on the zone and the dispossession which the ancestral communities living in the territory have been subjected to. Legal proceedings are currently underway against those responsible, in deed and through neglect, for the crimes committed.

There is also an investigation underway concerning the responsibility of the multinationals Unión Fenosa, Anglo Gold Ashanti, Smurfit kappa Cartón de Colombia and Cosigo Resources. However, despite the enormous efforts which communities have made to ensure preventative and protective measures are implemented, the inhabitants of the zone are still in imminent danger, and the level of impunity is 100%.