Colombia Arrests 3 in Brutal Killings of Indigenous People

Police have arrested three suspects accused of murdering 12 indigenous Awa people—including women, children and a newborn—in southwestern Colombia, the country’s military has announced.

Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said that the three men were members of Los Cucarachos, a gang involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, and at least one of the men was suspected of also belonging to the notorious FARC guerrilla group. The killings, which took place in August, appear to have been in part over the robbery of 3 million pesos (about US$1,500), he said.

"That was a very dark day in the history of human rights and violence in Colombia," Silva said.

Authorities believe that the suspects, who were not identified because they were still in the process of being charged, had been working as narcos and paid killers in the area. One of Los Cucarachos’s ringleaders, a man known by the nickname “Freddy,” is also believed to be involved with FARC, but eluded capture. Silva said the captured suspects are also being investigated in other massacres of Awa.

Unfortunately, the Awa—indigenous, tribal people of Colombia—live in a very remote, unpatrolled region of the country, one that has been caught in the crossfire of bloody, protracted violence between FARC, government troops and local militia.

"It worries us that they have taken the war to their territory," said Luis Andrade, president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia.

He noted that at least 38 Awa and, in all, 93 indigenous people from several tribes have been killed in Colombia this year. About 21,000 Awa live in the rainforest along the border of Colombia and Ecuador.

“The Awa don't want to take sides in the conflict,” said Myles Frechette, U.S. ambassador to Colombia from 1994-97, speaking of the longstanding violence in the region. “Of course, in Colombia that's not acceptable. The crooks, and the FARC too, say, ‘You're with us or you're gone.’”