Army ambushes and assassinates Indigenous man
December 22, 2008
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The Colombian army has assassinated an Indigenous Colombian man.
The man, Edwin Legarda Vasquez, was ambushed by soldiers on a road at four o’clock in the morning on 16 December in a remote part of rural Colombia.
Vasquez was shot in the chest and managed to escape 800 metres up the road before collapsing. At the time of the attack, he was driving a vehicle belonging to local Indigenous organization, CRIC. Vasquez’s wife, Aida Marina Quilcue, is currently one of CRIC’s most prominent leaders.
Vasquez’s death is the latest in a long line of assassinations of Indigenous people by Colombian authorities in recent years. The series of killings has prompted calls for Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, to be tried in an international court for genocide.
