Five Indigenous Leaders Massacred in Colombia; New Wave of Violence Feared as 2,500 Troops Deployed

The massacre of five Indigenous leaders in Colombia has shocked the country. The killings took place in the southwestern region of Cauca. Among the victims was Cristina Bautista, the leader of the semi-autonomous Indigenous reservation of Nasa Tacueyo. Four of the community's unarmed guards were also killed, while six others were wounded. A group of U.N. experts have denounced the massacre and demanded the Colombian government to take urgent measures in cooperation with Indigenous authorities to investigate the murders. Police have made no arrests and no suspects have been named in the massacre. Since the signing of the Peace Accords in 2016, at least 700 social leaders, mostly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous activists, have been murdered in Colombia, according to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies. We speak with Mario Murillo, Vice-Dean of the School of Communications at Hofstra University and award-winning journalist who has extensively reported on Colombia and the region of Cauca.