Indigenous protesters in Colombia shot down a statue of the Spanish conqueror Sebasción de Belalczar in the southwest of the city of Popayón.
Police have noticed that members of the Misak network used ropes to demolish the equestrian figure of Belalczar, who founded the city in 1537.
Indigenous leaders said it represented centuries of genocide and slavery.
The mayor of Popayón said it was an act of violence opposed to a multicultural city symbol.
Belalczar led many expeditions in northwestern South America, founding what is now Ecuador’s capital, Quito.
The Misaks joined through members of the Pijao and Nasa indigenous teams at their protest march that led to The Morro del Tuclon, the hill where the belalczar statue had been since the 1930s.
The Misak say that before the Spanish conquerors invaded their land, a temple was in the most sensitive part of the hill and that it is also the place where many of their ancestors lay, it is a sacred place.
A regional coordination organization of indigenous peoples issued a saying that had torn down the statue after looking at Belalczar and discovering him as guilty of genocide, slavery, torture, rape and theft of his ancestral lands.
He accuses Belalczar of punishing his ancestors by impaling them or putting dogs.
He asks that Morro del Tuclon be “honoured as the sacred territory of Misak. “
More than 20,000 people
Two-thirds in Cauca province in southwestern Colombia
Most speak Nam Trik (also as guambiano or coconuco)
Economic activity is agriculture: maize, potato and onion development
The mayor of Popayán called the collapse of the statue a “violent act” that he said absolutely unjustified.
“Discussions about cultural differences can take a position and we have been willing to make room for such discussions, but this kind of violence cannot become a tool to express our disagreements,” he said.
He added that he would restore the statue.
In addition to being decimated by Spanish conquistadors in colonial times, indigenous teams in Cauca province were more recently caught amid decades-long armed confrontation in Colombia.
Dissident rebels kill indigenous leader
Colombian Indians expelled from Cauca base
Even after the signing of a peace agreement between the farc’s left-wing rebels and the government in 2016, indigenous teams continue to target right-wing paramilitaries and dissident rebels who oppose the peace agreement.
Despite the attacks, teams like Nasa have made protest marches and, in some cases, have demanded that security forces leave their lands because their presence attracts insurgent attacks.
The reversal of a statue, however, is a new tactic and follows the movements in black lives matter protests in the United States and Europe.
The motion at the forefront of the protests led to the possibly death of African-American George Floyd.
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Mass protests have taken a position in the United States and around the world that opposes police brutality and racial inequality.