Colombia: arrest of dissident Farc chief accused of murder of indigenous people

Colombian President Ivan Duque announced on Tuesday the capture, in the southwest of the country, of the leader of a dissident Farc group accused of being involved in the assassination of five Amerindians.

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The head of state congratulated the Colombian army and the police on Twitter on the arrest of Fernando Israel Méndez, alias " The Indian ", leader of a dissident group of the former guerrilla group operating in the department of Cauca . " We continue to strike at organized crime that involves drug trafficking and the killing of community leaders ," said Duque. In addition to Fernando Israel Méndez, four other dissidents were arrested in the commune of Caloto, the army said in a statement.

Questioned by AFP, the army press service said the guerrilla leader was suspected of being the " material perpetrator " of the massacre of five Nasa natives during an attack in 2019 in the Cauca.

The murders had occurred while the dissidents were seeking to release three of their detainees by the indigenous guard, a surveillance body which operates without weapons. Among the victims were the leader of the Nasa ethnic group Cristina Bautista, whose murder had been condemned internationally.

The department of Cauca, which counts nearly 25% of Amerindians, is the subject of conflicts between groups linked to Mexican cartels, guerillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the former rebellion of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) who rejected the peace agreement signed in 2016 with the government.

Since the disarmament of the FARC, completed in June 2017, several regions of the country have faced an upsurge in violence by armed groups wanting to take over the former strongholds of the former Marxist guerrillas, where the State is almost absent. The groups fight in particular for the control of the incomes drawn from the cultures of the coca leaf, raw material of the cocaine, and the route of transport of the drug towards the United States via the Pacific.

According to the NGO Somos Defensores, 77.7% of the 32 indigenous leaders assassinated in 2019 in the country - the highest figure in ten years - were from Cauca. The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) reported that at least 167 indigenous people have been killed since President Duque took office on August 7, 2018. Native Americans make up about 4% of the 50 million Colombians.