As an instrument of public policy for equality and equity of indigenous peoples, a day of dialogue led by the Vice Ministry of the Interior for Social Dialogue, equality and Human Rights was held in the municipality of Agustín Codazzi.
The Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, the Vice Minister Lilia Solano, the Mayor of Agustín Codazzi, Hernán Baquero, indigenous authorities and more than 200 members of the Yukpa people settled in the Serranía del Perijá participated.
The central axes on which social dialogue is articulated are active listening, genuine dialogue and consultation, with the aim of achieving coordination between citizens and State entities in the territory.
The principles of social dialogue are the gender approach, the territorial approach, the freedoms of religion and conscience, and the right to prior consultation enjoyed by communities.
The objective of the meeting was to listen to the requests of the indigenous people, so Javier Clavijo Franco, leader of the Yukpa people, in addition to thanking the national government for the attention paid to the ethnic group in building peace, assures that dialogue is the best tool to build, leaving behind force and violence.
“The Government has committed itself to giving spaces and opportunities to society, to institutions and peoples who have not been heard or taken into account in decision-making,” he assured.
THE PETITIONS
The Yukpa people delivered to the Minister of the Interior a list of requests that consists of thirteen points that address environmental, health and education issues. Likewise, a five-year humanitarian, social, environmental and cultural action plan, within the framework of Auto 044 of 2009.
They also ask for the prior consultation process of the Yukpa people to be guaranteed with regard to the mining code. They also ask for the security of the Yukpa indigenous people, their defender and the work team that have received threats for defending the environment of the territory to be guaranteed.
Determine the origin of prior consultations on the missing projects, works and activities of medium and large mining companies, the palm agroindustry.
Build a return plan for Yukpa families and communities who are displaced in more than twelve cities in the country. Guarantee the approval and execution of projects of the National Royalties System to the Yukpa people as exceptional measures of environmental, social and distributive justice, through the Yukpa MPC.
Likewise, Clavijo assured that the mayor of the municipality of Agustín Codazzi, Hernán Baquero, has been asked to grant the feasibility for the road project that connects Codazzi with the Yukpa community of Nana Echpo. To grant the feasibility of the nutritional recovery center that will be financed by the Bogotá Energy Group and to agree with the Menkwe Mishaya La Pista reservation and the Iroka Reservation the resources that the mayor’s office must invest in these territories.
SHORT TERM RESPONSE
They handed over a document in which they gave a context to their history, in which they recounted their adversities, but also pointed out solutions to their problems. “They themselves recognized that the Ministry of Health, Icbf, Ministry of the Interior and other government agencies have been doing tasks that were not traditionally done with these communities,” said the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco.
Regarding the results that this community can receive, the minister assured that there is already a short-term response such as its own health system, pilot in the Colombian Caribbean. Likewise, they will have their own educational system and the Icbf has been reaching out to families to avoid tragedies such as those that have recently occurred in that territory.
During the day of dialogue, indigenous authorities symbolically baptized the Minister of the Interior, considering him an ally in the construction of peace. He was given the hat and the date as symbols of strength and fight, and a backpack representing family.
