The governor of the Amazonas state, Miguel Rodríguez, condemned the murder of the Huotüja indigenous leader, Virgilio Trujillo Arana, and asked the Public Ministry (MP) to thoroughly investigate the event.
Arana, 38, was shot to death in the Escondido 3 sector of the city of Puerto Ayacucho, capital of Amazonas. The indigenous leader denounced on several occasions the occupation of land, drug trafficking and all the irregularities of the Colombian Drug Trafficking Armed Terrorist groups (Tancol).
“We cannot remain silent in the face of such an unfortunate event. We cannot allow the murder of a Huotüja indigenous brother not to move our deepest feeling against death and violence. We strongly condemn this fact,” the Governor said in a Facebook post.
For this reason, he called on the Prosecutor’s Office, the “police and military authorities to thoroughly investigate this situation.”
“Amazonas cannot be a territory of outlaws and assassins where these types of inhumane practices imported from the neighboring country are carried out,” he added.
According to the Observatory for the Defense of Life (Odevida), the indigenous leader participated as a member of the Piaroas Unidos del Sipapo Indigenous Organization (Oipus) in activities of the Territorial Indigenous Guard of the Autana municipality, denouncing on several occasions the presence of Colombian terrorist groups.
By instruction of the Executive, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) remains deployed in the border states to dismantle clandestine tracks, roads and territories occupied by the Tancol.
