A group of 88 people, including police officers and workers from a multinational oil company, were released by peasants and indigenous people from an area of southeastern Colombia who held them in the middle of a protest to demand the paving of a highway, President Gustavo Petro reported on Friday.
The 79 police officers and the nine Emerald Energy employees were released after mediation by the Ministers of the Interior and Defense who arrived in the region near the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán, in the department of Caquetá, to speak with the leaders of the manifestation.
In the midst of the protest, the demonstrators detained people on Thursday, while they set fire to a camp in the midst of violent acts in which a policeman and a peasant died.
“Today, thanks to the efforts of the Minister of Defense and the Interior, fundamentally, the release of all police personnel and oil company officials who were held by the peasants has been achieved,” Petro said in a statement. .
“It is a gesture that should lead to a reconsideration of many issues around the treatment of the social conflict in Colombia,” he said after announcing that he will go to the area to speak with the peasants.
In addition, the president called on the Attorney General’s Office to investigate who the murderers of the policeman and the peasant were.
Social protests in the areas of oil and mining projects tend to be frequent in the fourth largest economy in Latin America to press for infrastructure works such as roads, schools, hospitals, aqueducts and electrification.
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