Rights & Democracy contributes to search for kidnapped Colombian Indigenous Leader Kimy Pernía Domicó
Rights & Democracy has contributed $10,000 to a mass search party that set out this morning to comb through the area where indigenous leader Kimy Pernía Domicó was kidnapped by heavily armed men on 2 June 2001.
MONTREAL, 11 June, 2001 - Rights & Democracy has contributed $10,000 to a mass search party that set out this morning to comb through the area where indigenous leader Kimy Pernía Domicó was kidnapped by heavily armed men on 2 June. At least 1,000 aboriginal Colombians are on their way by bus to Tierralta, in the northern department of Córdoba, where they will this week search from ranch to ranch, until they find some trace of the disappeared Embera-Katío native.
Kimy Pernía Domicó had received numerous threats related to his work as a community organizer with the Embera-Katío people of the Upper Sinú region. The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, (ONIC), believes that the kidnapping was the work of far right paramilitaries, who have constantly threatened the Embera-Katío people, and who are very active in this region.
"This is a great example of the indigenous organizations' capacity to mobilize," said Rights & Democracy's President, Warren Allmand, who has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Colombia, where he met with Kimy Pernía Domicó, and other indigenous organizations. "We call on the Colombian government to guarantee the search party's security, both en route to Tierralta, and once they begin their mission, and we hope that this massive search will keep up the pressure on the government to find those responsible for the kidnapping"
"Faced with a crisis situation, we indigenous peoples are resorting to solutions we have learned from our indigenous struggle: direct presence, mobilization and exposure to potential danger in order to defend life," said the ONIC in a statement last week.
Eleven Embera-Katío leaders have been killed by illegal armed groups in the Colombian conflict since 1994, when the community began its struggle to oppose the Urrá hydroelectric dam project. The project threatened the Embera-Katío's traditional lands and has also caused serious environmental degradation in the region.
ONIC is a partner organization of Rights & Democracy.
