In less than 24 hours, the Carlos Mauro Hoyos coliseum in Belén went from being a physical performance center to becoming a shelter for 781 Embera Katío indigenous people, from the Tahamí de Chocó reservation, the same ones who on Wednesday made an unprecedented takeover of the Mayor’s Office. This also occupied the National Park in Bogotá in 2021.
For someone oblivious to the reality of the indigenous people, the atmosphere in the coliseum was even surreal. The adults shine for their scarcity and the traditional looks that characterize the young women were mixed with the crude tattoos on their extremities, while some pregnant young women, women and children looked ragged; most of the grown men wore clean, fashionable clothes.
While the indigenous people ate breakfast in the green areas in the middle of the morning heat, Health and Good Start officials attended to the children and pregnant mothers who approached the cubicles for a vaccination or a check-up. Members of Inder shared with the boys and girls in the only space in which it seems that both sexes have no differences: the game.
Among the hubbub of running children, barking dogs, and men shouting in their ancestral language, was Rodrigo Vitucay Tequia, governor of the Embera Katios. Vitucay is the one who coordinates everything in the coliseum and even officials from the Mayor’s Office look for him to find out how to do things there.
In a break from his busy day, Rodrigo commented, making great efforts to make himself understood, that the night was difficult. “There were 100 mats for everyone, even sitting down we had to sleep. We request that they give each of us a mattress, ”he asked.
The governor indicated that the sheltered indigenous people, who led the capture of the Alpujarra, have spent years in the city subjected to poverty and abandonment. “Here in ‘Ciudad Medellín’ there have been people for years in Niquitao, in Enciso, in Prado and Chagualo,” he said.
Regarding the reasons that forced them to leave their reservation, Vitucay indicated that the lack of progress in Bagadó, commitments not fulfilled by previous governments, as well as the presence and extortion of illegal groups were the triggers for the continuous exodus of this ethnic group that every certain time they are repeated with the result of a temporary return. In fact, according to the Victims Unit, the Embera have left their territory 12 times and have returned the same times, but they always have to leave due to pressure. “In Bagadó we plant corn, plantain and pineapple. But sometimes they ‘vaccinate’ us. We very poor people wanting to progress in a territory that has no roads, how are we going to pay $7 million to a bandit? ”, He added.
Regarding his demonstration, which ended in excesses, Vitucay pointed out that it occurred due to what he defined as breaches by the Mayor’s Office of agreements reached with the National Victims Unit last November, during negotiations for a new return.
Although the Unit’s page reads that there were agreements on the joint construction of a care route for minors in a situation of begging, according to the governor the agreement allowed women and children to beg and “sell their art.” –a euphemism with which they refer to the sale of handicrafts in public spaces and the performance of dances by children to earn money–.
Vitucay indicated that at the negotiation table that was held this Thursday with them, the return to the territory was going to be negotiated only if six requests that they have for the district administration were fulfilled. The main one is that they are allowed to “work” with the children by their side, since due to their culture they cannot be far from their sight. The other is that single women and widows be allowed to beg, as well as the cessation of a supposed “persecution” of the Icbf against the community.
“We also ask that they guarantee us food and a shelter, but that it is not this coliseum. They have told us that there is no shelter, but it is because of what happened in Bogotá that it became a focus of diseases. The community asks that they send us to a building while there is a guaranteed return to the territory, ”he added.
Faced with the return, Vitucay pointed out that “if the meeting on Thursday went well, we set dates to return to Bagadó, but if there are no agreements, we return to the streets and to ‘Abujarra’. If we fight there, we also fight here in Ciudad Medellín. And more indigenous guards will arrive to support us because in Andágueda we are 9,000, ”he warned.
The indigenous people asked the mayor to have a “calm heart” during the dialogues. “We ask that you have a cool head to resolve this because we are not violent, we are humble,” warned the governor.