In Becerril, the Wiwa community demands differential education

A huge traffic jam occurred on the Becerril-Codazzi road, due to the protest made by members of the Wiwa indigenous community, who demanded that the municipal and departmental administration comply with social programs for their protection, mainly educational independence through a differential institution. They also demanded guarantees to remain in an urban settlement, called Campo Alegre, for which there is allegedly an eviction order.

The group of women and men came down from the Sierra Nevada, who took part in the national road to protest the non-compliance with their requests. The blockade, in which they also burned some tires as a sign of protest, caused inconvenience for drivers until midday, when they managed to break up the demonstration and sit down at the dialogue table with the municipal authorities.

Enel Torres, governor of the Campo Alegre community, stated that the reason for the protest was to defend the rights as an indigenous community, since despite being recognized by the authorities, they consider that their rights and guarantees are being ignored by not allowing Wiwa settlement in Becerril, something that does not happen in other areas such as El Molino in La Guajira.

Another of the demands of the indigenous community is the guarantee of differential education, a request that has been made since last year to the Departmental Education Secretariat and to date there is no response, the teachers were relocated to El Molino and there are no solutions to this community.

“We as indigenous people have a differential approach to education, and we need educators from our culture. Today the educators are linked in another place and the children are in the citadel where we are based. They have violated our autonomy, which has been recognized by the institutions, we have exhausted all procedures and today what we have is harm,” said the leader of the Wiwa community.

After several hours of protest, the municipal Administration, through the legal team, managed to dialogue with the protesters and set up talks with the mayor, Raúl Machado.

In this regard, Machado reported that he presumes that this protest has a political ‘tinge’, since the requests are not from the municipal spring, but rather departmental and national.

“Where the Wiwa indigenous people are today is a site for the construction of the Sena and they have taken away our power to build the headquarters, denying educational opportunities to the inhabitants of the municipality of Becerril.”

Regarding a differential educational institution, the decision rests with the national or departmental Government and steps have been taken to achieve this.

However, the mayor said he was willing to serve as an intermediary to resolve their requests and address municipal issues for the benefit of that community.
“They have problems with the authorities, there is a group that is not recognized by the Ministry of the Interior, and therefore, no progress can be made in legalizing their stay in the urban area of ​​the municipality. We continue in dialogue and in the next few hours the conclusions will be announced,” said the president.

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