The prosecutor’s office opens an investigation into a possible omission to support police officers in San Vicente del Caguan

In a statement issued on March 3, 2023there Office of the Attorney General of the Nation announced the investigation that will be carried out “against officials to be determined from the national police for the alleged lack of support from other members of the institution”.

The process is said to have started amid the protests that took place on March 2 in the region of Los Pozos, in San Vicente del Caguan, Caqueta. There, a series of public order situations occurred in which the peasants demonstrated because of the non-respect of the agreements with the oil company. Emerald Energy.

The document indicated that the delegate for the disciplinary investigation for the public force reassured that due to the clashes between the members of the institution Dialogue and Law Enforcement Unit – Undmoformerly known as Esmad, and farmers in the area asked for support through radio communications.

However, this support never came and, moreover, it would have been essential to facilitate the retention of almost 80 police officers. It should be recalled that the detained police and civil servants have already been released and it is expected that dialogues will begin at the head of the national government with the community.

The prosecution said:

“…there is a need to remove doubt about who or who might be the officials involved in the behavior under investigation, which is why he requested tests leading to the identification and individualization of these…”. This would make it possible to establish whether he can be qualified as a disciplinary fault and to identify whether he would have acted “under cover of a cause of exemption from liability”.

The difficult situation experienced since Thursday morning March 2, 2023 in San Vicente del Caguán, donde estuvieron en apoyo y control miembros de la policía, which resulted in a number leading to the number of demonstrators present, despertó la despair de los miembros de la institución frente a la toma de la empresa petrolera por parte de THE peasants and workers.

The police were guarding the area and were also unarmed, according to statements dated March 3, 2023 from Interior Minister Alfonso Prada. It was so that the peasant guard He was able to hold the nearly 80 uniformed officers in order to take them hostage, demanding the attention of the national government.

Although the uniformed officers had been present in the area for several days because of the blockades that the peasants had already advanced to block the passage of the oil company trucks, it was not until the morning of March 2 that the situation became hostile and many feared for their safety.

Thanks to radio communications that quickly began to circulate on social networks, it was possible to learn of the intense concern felt by members of the public force. In this, the request that was repeatedly made was the need to have support by all means, while in the background a wave of cries verified the gravity of the situation in the region.

In one of the audios, we could hear:

“Human rights don’t exist, we already have two dead comrades, central, what are we waiting for? They end us all here?” Central, it can’t be possible, central, it can’t be possible”.

in communication with On the Radiothe mayor of San Vicente del Caguan, Julien Perdomo He referred to the events that would have determined the start of the clashes and the seizure of the headquarters of the oil company instead.

He assured that, since November 2022, the community has claimed the company for violating a series of Agreements in relation to the environmental and social impact that the company’s activities would have in the territory. Among them was the 42 kilometer paving of the road that leads from San Vicente del Caguan to Las Delicias.

Faced with this, in particular, the mayor mentioned that: “In January we succeeded and established contact with Invías and they engaged in the dialogues for the 200 kilometers to Caquetá”.

Moreover, he mentioned that the company would have promised to deliver 1 million dollars, which would be used to carry out social investment in the area and that they responded to the reparation that the community demanded for the damage to the infrastructure caused, mainly, by the passage of heavy vehicles, a fact that would affect the quality of life of the inhabitants.

According to Perdomo, the public order situation in cackled This could have been avoided because “the national government was previously aware of the situation in San Vicente del Caguan”. Remember that in the clashes, a peasant and a policeman lost their lives.